Need advice on new WiFi router for under $100.00

[jonnyhillow]

I bought the below model and i'm not particularly impressed with it , it costs me $79.99 + tax, i see Amazon has a 750 model for $10.00 more .

NETGEAR N600 Dual Band Wi-Fi Router (WNDR3400)

My computer is a Dell Inspiron running Win 7 sp1 64 bit , just a basic bare bones model really . A tablet running old android is the only other thing thats connects wirelessly and i'm not convinced the dual bands make a difference .

The tablet is still painfully slow and i see no improvement over my old 150 rated speed single band router .

Open to all suggestions

Thanks

 

[DMHolt57]

In order to use the dual bands, namely the 5ghz band, you need a dual band adapter. A lot of things in your house can cause interference with the 2.4 ghz band, cordless phones, microwaves, etc. I use the 5 ghz band on the weekend when there are many 2.4 ghz connections around me. The 2.4 ghz works best through walls and other obstructions.

 

[Berton]

I have had a couple of years of good service from my Western Digital N750 Gigabit Dual-Band Wi-Fi Router and it cost about $60. I'm feeding 5 Desktops plus 2 Network printers connected by Ethernet cable with an 8-port Switch and always 2 or 3 Wi-Fi Notebooks. Using WinVista, Win7, Win8.1, Mac OS X and Linux Mint.

 

[msalton1]

i'm not convinced the dual bands make a difference

As DMHolt57 states, your adapters must support 5ghz. 5 ghz is a short range frequency, i.e., a small 'bubble' of reception. It's advantage is that it minimizes interference. Others can be close by yet not in your 'sphere' of wifi. It also eliminates 2.4ghz interference. Some areas are rife with 2.4ghz signals.

It's beyond the budget you mention, but the Asus RT-N66U is an excellent router.

 

[theveterans]

i'm not convinced the dual bands make a difference .

The painful truth is that you need to pay on a mid-high end Dual Band router, namely AC1200 router as well as having a device that supports the 802.11ac standard to really see a difference. PCs can be easily upgraded to 802.11ac with a $30 Edimax AC1200 USB adapter but you need to purchase a "high end" tablet/smartphone to get 802.11ac

No 2.4 GHz single band router can achieve this kind of speed:

 

[jonnyhillow]

Thanks guys for the info , yeah this tablet is about 3 years old so i guess your saying it will not work with a new AC type router .

Regarding the adapters for 5 ghz , i don't think the computer has any adapters , are they a USB type of adapter .

 

[theveterans]

Regarding tablet, it'll work with an AC router but it will only connect at N speeds and not at AC speeds. AC routers are backwards compatible so no need to worry about your old devices not getting connected.

As for 5 GHz adapters they're mostly USB 3.0 but they should still work on USB 2.0 ports. Drivers are usually provided but you can easily download from the manufacturer's site.

 

[Slartybart]

My neighbor had the exact Netgear model you described in post# 1 and asked me how to get better throughput. After about a half an hour of reading, configuring, and updating firmware there wasn't much improvement. I told him that the rating on the device should be giving better performance. He decided to replace the Netgear router with this one: N750 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band N+ Router

Wow! What a difference!

I normally don't put much stock in brand name devices, but on a few occasions there really is a difference.

It looks as though Belkin is having a sale on it's routers - those are very good prices for Belkin.
Belkin site: Router Search Results

It's been written that the best performance, stability, and throughput is achieved when you match the manufacturer of both router chip and your adapter chip (i.e. both Broadcom or both Realtek ... )
How to Discover Your Network Card Real Manufacturer | Hardware Secrets

Bill
.

 

[mtp]

My computer is a Dell Inspiron running Win 7 sp1 64 bit , just a basic bare bones model really . A tablet running old android is the only other thing thats connects wirelessly and i'm not convinced the dual bands make a difference .

The tablet is still painfully slow and i see no improvement over my old 150 rated speed single band router .

Open to all suggestions

Thanks

You say the tablet is slow. Does this mean the dell is ok? If this is then the problem is probably with the tablet. Many tablets, especially older ones, only support single band n (and many of them do so very poorly). Changing the router won't help in this case. Also - how are you measuring the speed between the router and the tablet? Connection speed is the maximum theoretical thoughput. In practice you will often get less than half of that.

Other things to consider. Many older tablets have very slow flash, cpus, and gpus, making surfing seem very slow even when the connection is ok.