Having a hard time choosing a router

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KatsuAkane

Commendable
Mar 28, 2016
24
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1,510
Hey all! So my old router recently croaked and im in the market for a new one! But theres so many reviewers saying whats best and user reviews are confusing so i thought id ask here! Im looking for a wireless router that can handle 6-10 devices at a time, and i have 150Mbps internet. My budget is $300. Thanks for the help guys!!
 
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n0ns3ns3

n0ns3ns3

Illustrious
May 25, 2016
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Are you looking for a router or a modem router ?
for later, you need to tell what type of connection you have.
for the former (you already have a modem provided by ISP) this one is good if you have devices that support those speeds.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1194741-REG/asus_rt_ac5300_tri_band_wireless_ac5300.html
A simpler model
http://www.microcenter.com/product/443759/RT-AC3200_Tri-Band_AC3200_Wireless_Gigabit_Router

From my experience they are more reliable/stable than their Netgear/TP-Link/D-Link counterparts.
I love the option of going custom firmware which opens endless possibilities and applications of the router beyond the standard functions.
 
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n0ns3ns3

n0ns3ns3

Illustrious
May 25, 2016
8,065
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K

KatsuAkane

Commendable
Mar 28, 2016
24
0
1,510
Thanks a ton for your current help guys these seem like good suggestions. I think i need to stop reading all the user reviews cause i keep getting "its the best router ever" and "its the worst router ever!!" Sheesh
 
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n0ns3ns3

n0ns3ns3

Illustrious
May 25, 2016
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even "professional" reviews are not telling the whole picture.
Many things are changing over time. Especially with firmware updates.
Or when you use it for long time, you can find some annoying quirks that may appear or/and disappear with those updates.
I had funny one with VPN for some time. Even I switched the VPN client off, it would turn on after reboot. But then it was fixed.
I have quite a few "geek" friends and we share experiences a lot.
That in addtion to reading forums like this https://www.snbforums.com/ And not only reviews, but mostly threads with different issues or features discussions.
 
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n0ns3ns3

n0ns3ns3

Illustrious
May 25, 2016
8,065
4
42,715
even "professional" reviews are not telling the whole picture.
Many things are changing over time. Especially with firmware updates.
Or when you use it for long time, you can find some annoying quirks that may appear or/and disappear with those updates.
I had funny one with VPN for some time. Even I switched the VPN client off, it would turn on after reboot. But then it was fixed.
I have quite a few "geek" friends and we share experiences a lot.
That in addtion to reading forums like this https://www.snbforums.com/ And not only reviews, but mostly threads with different issues or features discussions.
 
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bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,317
2,752
125,640
The main problems you will find is there is no real way to test "best". When you are talking wifi your house makes much more difference than small differences between routers. The vast majority of the quality routers are putting out the same maximum legal power so they should have about the same coverage. When you test in lab type of condition like the FCC requires in their reports you see very similar numbers from routers that use the same internal chipset.

When you look at almost all other reviews or testing the environment in the testing will bias the results so you can make no actual scientific selection based on them. As you say it is cross your fingers and hope they work in your particular house the same.

Some general things though to remember. Your end devices are 1/2 the equation. If for example you had some realy old 802.11b device it can not use the new fancy 802.11ac and the router would drop back to the old protocol.

Many newer routers have features that not a lot of devices support. Most end devices only have 2 antenna so they can not use the mimo feature that use 3x3 or 4x4. Even MU-MIMO is not supported on many devices. Lately the router manufacture are starting to add non standard protocols to the routers like QAM1024. Since this is not part of the official standard some devices (apple in particular) will never support it because it is not part of the standard. QAM1024 is a scam mostly anyway because you have to almost have the device next to the router to get it to work.

Mostly the difference in a router will be how good the company is about putting out bug fixes. You can also look into routers you can load third party firmware.

I am currently biased toward ASUS products because of the merlin firmware. It is much simpler and more stable than dd-wrt it is based on.
 
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n0ns3ns3

n0ns3ns3

Illustrious
May 25, 2016
8,065
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^^ asus/merlin FW is based on OpenWRT, not dd-wrt.
there are many more performance metrics beside Wi-Fi.
for example how much load the router can handle:
* number of open connections (make some crazy torrent test)
* number of simultaneous transfers at max speed within home network
* VPN (server and client) performance
* QoS performance.
* USB storage performance
and of course dependence between them. for example my router shares CPU for 2.4GHz and USB and I had to tweak few things in order to make them work simultaneously at max speed.
 
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