Buffalo vs TP-Link

[truoc]

Thinking of upgrading routers in the very near future and am contemplating these two brands. I have had a Buffalo wireless G router in the past that was rock solid until I decided to upgrade to a wireless N router. I also have a TP-Link Wireless N USB adapter that I use in a spare PC that hasn't given me any problems so that is why I'm somewhat torn on which brand to choose if I go in this direction. I would probably be looking at either the AC1200 Buffalo router or the Archer AC 1750 TP-Link since they are somewhat close in price and I'd really like to stay <$100. Let me know if any of you have Buffalo routers or TP-Link routers at the moment or have experience with them in the past and if it was bad or good. Thanks!

 

[stevech]

First, decide if you *need* the price premium of an AC WiFi router.

 

[truoc]

First, decide if you *need* the price premium of an AC WiFi router.

Yeah I probably don't "need" to upgrade, but I have that itch and it is hard to suppress sometimes. I really need to adopt the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality more often.

 

[RogerSC]

Yeah I probably don't "need" to upgrade, but I have that itch and it is hard to suppress sometimes. I really need to adopt the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality more often.

Yep, that's something that we all need to work on. New stuff is fun, but saving money for the future has its pluses as well...having some concrete goals in mind is helpful, like saving for a trip to Hawaii or something *smile*.

 

[stevech]

I used to like Buffalo products. Well done. But they were hammered by that lawsuit from an a-hole university in Australia who claimed they had a patent on 802.11/WiFi, and locked out of North America sales for years by court order.

TP-Link, I dunno, maybe it's ok. Kind of bottom shelf to me - and I've worked in WiFi for 15 years; TP-Link seems like yet another newbie from the far east.

I prefer buying the SOHO grade WiFi gear/routers rather than Consumer stuff like Linksys, Netgear, D-Link (yikes), and the rest. The one I like and use has a common firmware base for all products. That helps stability. SOHO stuff costs maybe 25% more than consumer. But you can also buy like-new SOHO gear on eBay. I've done that too.

 

[truoc]

I used to like Buffalo products. Well done. But they were hammered by that lawsuit from an a-hole university in Australia who claimed they had a patent on 802.11/WiFi, and locked out of North America sales for years by court order.

TP-Link, I dunno, maybe it's ok. Kind of bottom shelf to me - and I've worked in WiFi for 15 years; TP-Link seems like yet another newbie from the far east.

I prefer buying the SOHO grade WiFi gear/routers rather than Consumer stuff like Linksys, Netgear, D-Link (yikes), and the rest. The one I like and use has a common firmware base for all products. That helps stability. SOHO stuff costs maybe 25% more than consumer. But you can also buy like-new SOHO gear on eBay. I've done that too.

Thanks for the feedback. Could you provide me with an example of a SOHO grade WiFi router that you would recommend if you get some free time? I'd appreciate it.

 

[microchip]

I never have used Buffalo products so I cannot tell you anything about them. However, I've used TP-Link products since they first came on the European market. Never had issues with them. I currently have 2 routers in use from them, a low-end WR1042ND and the Archer C7 v1. Both work with no issues and I seem to like the Archer a lot. If you don't mind their archaic, albeit very functional web interfaces, I'd recommend the Archer. Unless you have Apple devices in which case you should stay away from the Archer v1 or try to find the v2 version. Lots of people complain on the TP-Link forum having (major) compatibility issues with Apple devices. I guess TP-Link will improve this with new FW but they are kinda slow in pushing updates.

 

[stevech]

Thanks for the feedback. Could you provide me with an example of a SOHO grade WiFi router that you would recommend if you get some free time? I'd appreciate it.

MBR95 from Cradlepoint is one. ALso has USB port into which you can plug a cellular modem if that's your primary or fail-over/backup internet source. eBay has a trickle of these at lower prices. Big deal on Cradlepoint is common firmware for all products. Consumer WiFi product vendors seem to change firmware baseline with every other new product leading to instability, IMO.

Another is the Engenious brand. Part of a very large company in Taiwan. See Newegg.com on this.

 

[sfx2000]

Buffalo (Melco) is a tier 1 OEM in Japan - they do their own HW and SW, and for the most part, their stuff is robust and stable - and sometimes you see interesting products from them...

TP-Link - mostly ODM gear from China and Taiwan - good value, and occasionally they produce something exceptional.

 

[microchip]

TP-Link - mostly ODM gear from China and Taiwan - good value, and occasionally they produce something exceptional.

Actually, that's wrong. TP-Link is and OEM and makes all its products in-house. Quoting wikipedia

TP-LINK is one of the few major wireless networking companies to manufacture its products in-house as opposed to outsourcing to “ODMs” (original design manufacturers). The company claims this control over components and the supply chain is a key competitive differentiator.

 

[truoc]

Thank you all for the fantastic information and for your opinions. I went ahead and purchased (I'm probably dumb for doing so, but I just had to satisfy the itch to get something new) the WZR-1166DHP. When I got it I immediately updated to the latest firmware, but the past 2 days I've been having a strange issue. For the past 2 days around 4:30 pm my internet just stops working. Each computer will show that I am still connected and WiFi will stay connected, but WiFi will be extremely slow whereas wired connections don't work at all. Originally I thought it was probably Comcast (have been having some major issues with them lately) so I reset both the modem and router and everything was restored. Today comes around and again it stops working around 4:30 pm so this time I chose to just turn the router off and wait a few minutes then turn it back on to see if it was just the router. Low and behold the connection was restored and everything worked fine again. This leads me to believe something is going on with the new router. Now I have a few questions. Should I do a factory reset on the router because I didn't do one after I upgraded the firmware? Or should I downgrade to a different firmware? Or should I go ahead and just contact support. I thought I'd get the advice from the fine people here first. Thanks.

*Aside from this small inconvenience occurring the router has been great*

 

[truoc]

Well I did reset the router to factory defaults a few days ago, but it looks like it didn't help matters much. I woke up this morning and again had no internet connection. The connection showed that it was connected, but when I would try to browse webpages it would say not connected. I turned the router off via the power button on the back, waited for it to fully shut down then hit the power button to turn it back on. Once it booted back up I had full internet connectivity so I don't think it is an ISP or modem issue. I guess I could try installing my old router back and watching it for a few days and see if I see anything similar, but I don't recall seeing anything like that when I had it installed. I have emailed Buffalo tech support, but I don't anticipate an answer for a few days. Anyone else have any ideas before I possibly send it back to Newegg after Buffalo's response? Thanks.

 

[microchip]

Well I did reset the router to factory defaults a few days ago, but it looks like it didn't help matters much. I woke up this morning and again had no internet connection. The connection showed that it was connected, but when I would try to browse webpages it would say not connected. I turned the router off via the power button on the back, waited for it to fully shut down then hit the power button to turn it back on. Once it booted back up I had full internet connectivity so I don't think it is an ISP or modem issue. I guess I could try installing my old router back and watching it for a few days and see if I see anything similar, but I don't recall seeing anything like that when I had it installed. I have emailed Buffalo tech support, but I don't anticipate an answer for a few days. Anyone else have any ideas before I possibly send it back to Newegg after Buffalo's response? Thanks.

Sorry for the troubles you have, but from personal experience, I would recommend TP-Link above Buffalo. Buffalo routers look very fancy on the outside but are in reality not that good. I've had quite a few headaches with them so I now stay away. TP-Link routers offer simple webpages to configure them but they don't miss much functionality. Also TP-Link tends to produce rock solid routers but not as configurable as ASUS

Since I had a lot of issues with various brands, I'm currently sticking only to ASUS and TP-Link routers

 

[Pierino]

If you are adventuresome and want to try, dd-wrt is available for that router.
Look over at the dd-wrt forum.

 

[truoc]

Sorry for the troubles you have, but from personal experience, I would recommend TP-Link above Buffalo. Buffalo routers look very fancy on the outside but are in reality not that good. I've had quite a few headaches with them so I now stay away. TP-Link routers offer simple webpages to configure them but they don't miss much functionality. Also TP-Link tends to produce rock solid routers but not as configurable as ASUS

Since I had a lot of issues with various brands, I'm currently sticking only to ASUS and TP-Link routers

Well I did replace an Asus with the Buffalo. Didn't have a whole lot of problems with the Asus (used Padavan's firmware), just wanted something new since I had the Asus for awhile. Guess there's the old saying of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" working again LOL!

If you are adventuresome and want to try, dd-wrt is available for that router.
Look over at the dd-wrt forum.

Hmm...I was wondering if it was available, but didn't see it listed on the official site. Didn't think to check the forums. Since I used alternative firmware on my previous Asus router I may just give that a try after I hear back from Buffalo support.

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it.

 

[truoc]

Buffalo tech support basically just told me to have the unit replaced by Newegg which is what I'm going to do. If the next one does the same thing I may just wait for DD-WRT to be officially released for it or end up getting a refund. We shall see.

 

[truoc]

Just thought I'd give an update in case anyone was wondering what the problem was. I contacted Newegg and they authorized the RMA to replace the router. I received the router on Saturday (5/17) and chose NOT to update the firmware. Got all my settings back on the router like I had and it hasn't shown any signs of the symptoms the other one did. So I'm not sure if I just got a defective unit or if something is wrong with the newest firmware they put out. I want to hope and believe it was a just a defective unit (bad luck), but can't really confirm that. Anyways everything is running just fine now without needed to restart it like I had to do with the other one.