Best G or N router - Speed Range Consistency

[TrumanHW]

I've been through 3 N routers this month, concluding that N just doesn't deliver on the 2 claims; speed and distance. That said, I'm sick of crappy reviews... heres what matters to me, and I'm guessing a few others.

1. What is your favorite router? You must have owned 2 or more for your opinion to be relevant.

2. I'm looking for experience in WiFi between two apartments to be exact, or any share thats spanned through multiple walls.

3. Not only is distance and penetration important, but consistency, and an overall lack of annoyances, such as, having a signal but not being able to login to administrate via 192.x.x.x.

While on the topic of routers, has anyone found a great range boosting antenna? In particular, paired with the router since the number of ports has to be equal to the antenna..

 

[chev65]

Go with the D-link 655 or the 825 if you need dual band and more range. Although the reviews are better for the 655.

 

[HQuest]

I'm very happy with my Apple Airport Extreme. Had owned the previous model which allowed me to run either 2.4 or 5GHz at a time, while this new one runs both at the same time. Had also owned a Belkin unit, which was only 802.11g but worked very, very well to my needs.

For configuration, it uses an Apple closed application instead of an internal http server.

For signal range, I have nothing to complain about. It sits on my desk and I can use it from my neighbours' house with a very strong signal rate.

As an added bonus, it has an USB port and allows me to plug an external HDD for basic file sharing only, or a printer (or both if using an USB HUB).

Yeah, I'm very happy with it and would recommend one if you do have some spare money for it.

 

[TrumanHW]

Go with the D-link 655 or the 825 if you need dual band and more range. Although the reviews are better for the 655.

I despised the D655's UI. Any router I get going forward I'd want to be compliant with DD-WRT if I hate the UI. For that matter, have you used DD-WRT? Does it change performance? or just the UI? What are your thoughts on BuffaloTech?

Thanks Chev.

 

[Randomizer]

I have the DLink DIR-655 and I have been quite happy with it. Good n performance and a nice interface.

 

[TrumanHW]

I have the DLink DIR-655 and I have been quite happy with it. Good n performance and a nice interface.

Ha! Its UI was SO annoying and unintuitive I got in to an argument with my GF i was in such a frustrated mood. I will DEFINITELY only use a dlink with DD WRT. Good to hear it works well though.. I just picked up a buffalo WHR-HP-G300N for less than 67 shipped.. I'm going to throw a couple of High gain antennas on there and see how it does.

 

[TrumanHW]

Anyone have an opinion on using 2 of these with it..?

2.4GHz 12dBi WIFI Booster Wireless Antenna WLAN RP-SMA - eBay (item 250619191521 end time May-20-10 20:57:53 PDT)

 

[TrumanHW]

I'm very happy with my Apple Airport Extreme. Had owned the previous model which allowed me to run either 2.4 or 5GHz at a time, while this new one runs both at the same time. Had also owned a Belkin unit, which was only 802.11g but worked very, very well to my needs.

For configuration, it uses an Apple closed application instead of an internal http server.

For signal range, I have nothing to complain about. It sits on my desk and I can use it from my neighbours' house with a very strong signal rate.

As an added bonus, it has an USB port and allows me to plug an external HDD for basic file sharing only, or a printer (or both if using an USB HUB).

Yeah, I'm very happy with it and would recommend one if you do have some spare money for it.

How far is your neighbors house from your airport? What kind of throughput speeds do you get in comparison to wired-connection..?

 

[HQuest]

How far is your neighbors house from your airport? What kind of throughput speeds do you get in comparison to wired-connection..?

I believe around 100ft (approx 30m), and I have steady 24Mbps (fair enough for Internet surfing and gaming). We have like 3 walls in between devices.

On my desktop I opted for the old Ethernet (no wireless can beat the gigabit connection yet) but for the other computers at home, they pretty much sync at 70-80Mbps all the times at any floor.

 

[TrumanHW]

How far is your neighbors house from your airport? What kind of throughput speeds do you get in comparison to wired-connection..?

I believe around 100ft (approx 30m), and I have steady 24Mbps (fair enough for Internet surfing and gaming). We have like 3 walls in between devices.

On my desktop I opted for the old Ethernet (no wireless can beat the gigabit connection yet) but for the other computers at home, they pretty much sync at 70-80Mbps all the times at any floor.

What do you use to test this ~74Mbs speed? I don't know of anything to test speed between router and system.. only know of speedtest and the likes..

 

[HQuest]

This speed is the one reported in Windows Task Manager for the WiFi interface. I can see it using at least 50-60% when copying stuff from my USB attached disk. Suggest you to take a look at more specific reviews for this device. There are a ton of them on the Internet.