Basic Router Recommendations

[valient]

I have searched the net far and wide, and this site seems the most useful source of information, but even here, reviews aren't really oriented towards people with more modest needs. Hence asking on these friendly forums.

For a simple 802.11g network with two wireless laptops and a wired desktop, what is the best router to use? And by best, I mean most reliable and furthest range with exclusively 802.11g components (though both notebooks are theoretically upgradeable by USB adapters, I would prefer to avoid that expense if possible). Though I'm very open to buying a draft-N router if one of them works better with 11g adapters than 11g routers. It would be connected on the other side to a simple DSL modem. Thanks in advance.

 

[thiggins]

Welcome valient.
SmallNetBuilder is focused on helping you to become a more informed consumer so that you can make your own decisions about products. That's why we don't have "editor's choices" or similar awards. It may be frustrating if you are looking for someone to tell you what to buy. But, that's not our goal.

If you already haven't, please read How To Choose the Right Wireless LAN for You. That will best equip you to make your decision.

If you want to see what most people are buying, go to Pricegrabber and look at the Popularity sort (the default).

 

[valient]

OK, can you at least answer this then: For a pure 802.11g network, no draft-N adapters in our future, is there any reason to go for a more expensive DIR-625/628 over a cheaper WRT54GL w/Tomato? Those two seem the top two contenders so far after what research I could do.

 

[thiggins]

For a pure 802.11g network, no draft-N adapters in our future, is there any reason to go for a more expensive DIR-625/628 over a cheaper WRT54GL w/Tomato?

Yes. If you need > 50 Mbps routing speed and if you can use the automatic QoS in the D-Link routers.

Coverage/Range will be about the same.

Why do you need Tomato?

 

[valient]

Why do you need Tomato?

Because I like pretty graphs and I like to tinker. People also claim that it enhances stability (no reboots needed) compared to both the stock firmware and DD-WRT. No other reason, really, especially as your article about the other firmwares makes it look like a wash, performance-wise, compared to the stock firmware.

 

[valient]

Decision Made

If anybody is curious as to what I ended up doing, I tried them both so I wouldn't be forever wondering if I made the wrong decision. With all the Labor Day weekend sales, both the WRT54GL and the DIR-625 were around $50, the former at Fry's and the latter at Amazon.

The first thing I did was flash the WRT54GL with Tomato (the SpeedMod version, so handling large numbers of connections shouldn't be a problem). Sure enough, the range was around the same for both, and actually slightly better with the WRT54GL than the DIR-625. In addition, wireless browsing seemed "smoother" (for lack of a better term) on the WRT54GL (there were slight "hiccups" when connecting to sites using the DIR-625), and I enjoy playing around with all of Tomato's features, so the DIR-625 is on the way back to Amazon now. It's possible I didn't give the DIR-625 enough of a chance, that fiddling around with its settings more could have helped, but if the WRT54GL worked great out of the box (well, with an alternative firmware flash ), then why bother?