N router for a home network?

Cant go wrong with the Asus, even stock firmware is good and that is a good sign for a router !

A good Wireless N router isn't going to be much cheaper than a good Wireless AC router, so in my opinion you should just go for a Wireless AC router if you are going to spend that kind of money.

However, if budget is an issue, and we would need to know what your budget is, there are budget/mid-priced Wireless N routers that would be a big improvement on the Wireless G router you are currently using - particularly when it comes to wireless connectivity and throughput.

One of the key things to remember is the router is only half the issue. You can buy the fastest router out there and if you do not have nic cards that support the same feature it will run only as fast as the lowest common.

802.11AC biggest downside is it only runs on the 5g band. Indoors 5g is much more easily blocked by walls so even though it may be faster the signal level may be lower which will result in no increase in speed. Many times you can get good coverage from 2.4g and none from 5g.

3x3 mimo which they indicate by calling it 450m first requires 3 antenna on your nic cards which most do not have. Then the whole concept of mimo is based on the ability to intentionally transmit multiple (3 in this case) over the top of each other. They intentionally cause interference and hope to separate them back. Work really good in a lab but degrade extremely fast when you are getting interference from other things transmitting. So now your neighbor is sending 3 signals over the top of your 3 signals ....yes that will work real good.

It all sounds good on paper but there really isn't a lot of useful difference between say a 150m router and a 450m router. And remember 900m is 450m on 2.4g and 450m on 5g. The router can run both at the same time but there are no nic cards that can do that so you can have 2 machine running 450m each but no single machine 900m. How well 802.11ac works is still up in the air. I know that in many countries there is only a single block of 4 channels that does not have the restriction to shut down if it detects weather radar. This means anyone wanting to bond 4 channels together will use the same block so now we have the same issue we have on the 2.4g band on the 5g band with everyone stomping on each other.

I am still waiting until next year for 802.11ac. Since many of the small manufactures are waiting until the standard is finalized later this year the price will likely drop a lot next year. It will be like dual band routers used to be. Now there is almost no difference between a single band router and a dual band.

What's your budget?