who has the best quality now

[fistv]

I was looking though the routers on amazon, walmart, target, etc. Seems that the lower end cisco/linksys and netgears tend to go belly up within months. I was kind of shocked at the number of dissatisfied customers. Biggest complaint I saw were the number of ticked off owners and their customer support. Have a friend of my wifes who just started a job doing house calls as a nurse, she hit rock bottom and is on her way back up. Stubborn woman, she needs a router and has set $50 as max and I better not spend a dime more the only thing on there will be the token $20 PC I got her here from work when I refreshed the company back in the 1st quarter this year and her nexus, 800 sq ft house. She uses it to pickup and schedule the visits and print out the paperwork. They just put her cable modem in yesterday so for right now she is direct connected with XP, Suggestions ?

 

[thiggins]

Most product feedback tends toward the negative. People with a beef, complain. Happy people just move on and are happy they dodged a bullet.

Wireless routers have one of the highest (if not most highest) return rate of any networking product. Part of the problem is user expectations, which networking companies set high with their focus on "the big number on the box". Part of the problem is overcrowded 2.4 GHz spectrum. And part is incompatibility with the huge range of ISP connection and network management methods and device quirks.

To lump all this on the networking product vendors as "poor quality" is unfair. But that's life in the big city of consumer networking.

In the end, people may have to kiss a few frogs to find the product that is right for them.

$50 for an N300 wireless router will require some careful shopping. I would stay away from Belkin since they are all old models. The Linksys E900 is a possible, as is NETGEAR WNR2000. TP-LINK has been getting some good mentions so look also at the TL-WR1043ND.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
I always get kick out of feedbacks on Amazon, Newegg, etc. 5 stars to 1 star ratings all over, when looked at little deeper period of ownership is like couple weeks at the most. To me it looks like most users have puch money to spend but only expect PnP every thing? I VERY seldom run into stuffs I am unable to make it work the way I want within it's limit. When that limit is realized, it's time to move on to next one keeping my brain in good exercise cycle.

 

[azazel1024]

If your price point is $50 and you don't mind something a little slower, go TP-Link WDR3500. If you don't mind spending less than a Lincoln over $50, look at the TP-Link WDR3600. Or look for it used.

I can't speak to failure rate on them, but I have a couple of WDR3600s and they've been absolute rocks the last few months I have been using them. Extremely fast. A little simplistic management pages, but they tick all of the basic boxes.

AFAIK the WDR3500 is the WDR3600, but with 10/100 ports. Not sure on RAM/Flash/SoC if those are cut down at all, but it has excellent range and performance despite the limitation of the 10/100 ports.

Thiggins mention also bears looking in to if you don't mind or want to stay with just 2.4GHz.

IMHO, TP-Link just seems to be the best bang for the buck. They just aren't necessarily the bestests.

Think AMD, if AMD were actually a little closer in performance to Intel and were a little cheaper in comparison.

 

[fistv]

Going to stop by wallyworld and pick up the N600 $39.24.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Going to stop by wallyworld and pick up the N600 $39.24.

Which N600? Check this out!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161367942036?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

[fistv]

So much for walmart, finally newegged a netgear wnr3500L for $50, she will just have to stay direct connected over the weekend. I'd like to get her off that xp box, going to take one of my laptops over and see if linux firefox or chrome will work with her employers web site then I can just pave it over with ubuntu and be done.

 

[fistv]

Which N600? Check this out!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161367942036?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I very rarely buy off ebay unless I know exactly what it is. They have come in handy though for printheads for some label printers in the warehouse/shipping dept to keep a half dozen old zebra war horses running.

 

[htismaqe]

Buying off eBay also means you can't return it, which is one thing Smooth says he does with these devices.

I can picture him having a garage full of old routers.

 

[azazel1024]

I had the Netgear 3500L. It was decent, but I would deffinitely have gotten a TP-Link WDR3600 instead if you were going to spend $50. That is what I upgraded to from my Netgear 3500L and it was deffinitely an UPGRADE.

Faster, better wireless range, 5GHz.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Buying off eBay also means you can't return it, which is one thing Smooth says he does with these devices.

I can picture him having a garage full of old routers.

30 day return policy. Best buy sells on eBay and you can return it in store if need be. Foscam is a trusted retailer.

 

[DaveMcLain]

About three months ago I was in a jam and had to buy a new router to replace one that quit working so I picked up a Netgear WNR2000V5 at the local Wal Mart for $44. It replaced a Linksys E3000 which lost its 2.4Ghz wireless(I've had that happen on two or three of those). I'm amazed at how well this wireless router works it has terrific range and it has been 100% reliable. After reading a lot of reviews and stuff on the internet this box has me wondering about product versions. I always assumed that later versions were generally cost down designs with the components more highly integrated and not necessarily higher or lower in performance. I wonder if that is the case here or is the V5 superior to older versions because this one is really good and I've had quite a few wireless routers in this location. I'm pleased with the quality and the speed of the connection is about 90Mbs.

 

[stevech]

"best" long term (10 years) average quality and good design/firmware? I'd say Linksys (still true as long as Belkin leaves them alone).
ASUS in the last 3 years or so is good in WiFi, IMO. Just avoid the latest/greatest, buy one generation back.

I like Newegg's return polices the best. And their ship times are amazingly fast.

 

[DaveMcLain]

"best" long term (10 years) average quality and good design/firmware? I'd say Linksys (still true as long as Belkin leaves them alone).
ASUS in the last 3 years or so is good in WiFi, IMO. Just avoid the latest/greatest, buy one generation back.

I like Newegg's return polices the best. And their ship times are amazingly fast.

Over the last 10 years I've had good results and bad results from Linksys routers. In my personal experience I've had the best reliability from the WRT320N/E2000 and I think it is the best Linksys wireless router model that I have used. I use them flashed with DD-WRT as client bridges, AP's and routers with great results and very few failures. With the WRT610Nv2/E3000 from the same period I've had at least three out of five fail when the 2.4Ghz radio gets shaky and then quits all together. Maybe it is one of those things where you buy the hardware and take your chances.

 

[stevech]

The mistake is made here very often of labeling an vendor's entire product line now and past/future, based on a sample size of one.
Add to this use of DD-WRT and it's worse, I say. Opinion. I used DD-WRT years ago when consumer WiFi was too spartan in features. But the analogy would be denigrating a Ford car whilst you've put in a brand X motor.