from PoE to a good router: Linksys, ASUS or Phicomm?

[SpaceTofu]

Hello,
Looking at purchasing a good router.
Our house is not fairly big, however it is big enough that the router placed next to the entrance door would not extend at the back of the house / first floor.
We have used a Netgear PoE solution which has done pretty well, however it is a bit unstable at times.
As we are doing some renovation work in the house I had been able to lay a conduit from the office located at the back first floor all the way into the front room, I already purchased a 20 metres sFTP Cat7 cable.

The plan is to get rid of the PoE and install a router in the office, but which router is the dilemma!

What we need is:
- good 5 GHz uplink / downlink, as we are working from home on some days and I do data heavy stuff
- good 2.4 GHz downlink, as we'd like to be able to have a good wifi in the garden at the back of the house
- good NTFS USB3.0 read/write, seeing as modern technology allows it I would like to use the router as a NAS (I am aware it is limited, but rather than dashing out another £200, I'd rather start off with a router and see how I get along)

Also, it would be great if it has many LAN ports and a budget of ideally under £100, can stretch to £ 150 ($130, max $195)

Because of all of the above requirements, I selected the below routers:

Linksys EA8300
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...-stream-ac2200-tri-band-wi-fi-router-reviewed
good DL 5 GHz, ok-eyish DL 2.4 GHz, not great overall UL, " Meh storage performance" (as the review reads)

Linksys EA9300
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...-stream-ac4000-tri-band-wi-fi-router-reviewed
I'd pick this for the good read/write results

ASUS RT-AC86U
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...86u-dual-band-ac2900-wireless-router-reviewed
Good read performance, 2nd best write performance for the budget, good 2.4 GHz DL, not great 5 GHz DL though, quite good 5 GHz UL. It seems overall a good option

Phicomm K3C
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...mm-k3c-ac1900-mu-mimo-gigabit-router-reviewed
outstanding 5 GHz UL, good 5 GHz DL, outstanding 2.4 GHz DL, really sucky read/write performance, only 3 Ethernet ports, at a fraction of the other contenders though. Also, new brand >> uncertainty on support etc.

Can I have some opinions from someone who knows particularly well these routers / has them/ is experience enough to dash out some advice?

Thank you

 

[degrub]

Since you say your work has heavy data tranfers, hardwire that system.
Sinc we don’t know the details of the building - walls, layout, distances, user locations, it is hard to give more than general comment.

Your physical situation will have a much larger impact on wireless than other choices.

Did you use the wireless router guide ?
If your data bandwidth is local, you may be better off with a 4 or 8 port gb switch handling that and leave the low bandwidth wireless traffic to the router.
If the front wireless has 5 ghz and 2.4 ghz, you may have to turn off the 2.4 or set the channel to 1 and the new one in the back to 11 to avoid interference.
How congested is the wireless neighborhood ?

Btw, i would pull a couple extra cables in the conduit, both as spare and for extra devices to avoid saturating the single link.

 

[SpaceTofu]

It is a standard late nineteenth century built terraced house, hence mainly brickworks, it looks like something just like the below; I have never tested the congestion of wireless, but being terraced houses rather than a block of flats, it is not extremely congested.

The internet access (modem and router) is located in the Living room, I intend to install this router I am willing to purchase on the wall opposite the door in the bedroom at the back.

The wireless router guide you are referring to is the "How To Buy A Wireless Router - 2018 Edition"? If so, skimmed through it, mostly relevant to 802.11ax which I am not interested about.

Regarding hard-wiring, even though I would like for the router to have 4 ports (and my personal computer will always be wired), I wouldn't want a constant proliferation of wires so to keep the OH happy. Also, I wouldn't want to buy on switch and one router, I really would like to have one device only.

About the second cable, isn't a bit extreme? Again, I am not a network enthusiast, I simply would like to have a good all-round solution and spend my money wisely rather than going for the cheapest offer online. Right now is PoE, I could have gone for the easier route of a wireless extender, so I imagine an AP cabled with a Cat7 is anyway a strong improvement, I think having two cables to the modem/router is a bit OTT?