Upgrade from RT-AC66U. Tried Orbi already.

[exm]

Hi, thanks for taking the time to read this! Here's my situation. I live in a large 3 stories house, where I have WiFi coverage problems in the MBR and the 3rd floor. Last week I purchased a Netgear Orbi Router/Sat uni, and I returned it this morning. There was significant packet loss even 5ft from the main unit causing multiple iPhone apps (Facebook, Youtube, etc) to intermittently not work. Netgear offered some suggestions (reducing 2.4Hz power, disable MU-MIMO and BEAMFORMING), but do I really spend $350 and have to deal with this? Since I was within the return window I sent the unit back.

Right now I'm considering a non-Mesh upgrade for my Asus RT-AC66U/NETGEAR AC750 Wi-Fi Range Extender combination. I'm looking at the Asus ASUS RT-AC5300, ASUS RT-AC88U or Synology RT2600ac. I actually have a wired ethernet port in the MBR (cable runs outside the house though so I'm not sure if this last forever), so I could make my AC66U into an AP there. However, Wifi range is crucially important for me and ideally I would like one router to cover most/all of the house.

I like Asus products, so that's my slight preference here. In the past I've had bad experience with Linksys, Netgear (also see above!!!) so I'm not sure if I want to venture to non-Asus which has been working rock-solid. I do have a QNAP TS-451 NAS so Synology intrigues me since I know they make great NAS products (even though I ended up with the QNAP).

Here are my questions:
- The ASUS RT-AC5300 and ASUS RT-AC88U are only $30 apart in price. Does the AC88U have any benefits over the AC5300 besides looks and the 4 additional ethernet ports? Does either one have a better range?
- The Synology is slightly cheaper compared to the AC88U. How does it compare?

Thank you for reading, and thanks in advance for the responses.

 

[avtella]

The AC5300 has 2x 5Ghz bands vs 1 on the AC88U, in terms of range and performance they should be about the same, but if you have a lot of devices the extra 5Ghz band on the AC5300 might help, however I'm using a router with only 1 5Ghz band and it suites my needs just fine. I mean if its only $30 apart in price probably get the AC5300. As for the Synology it uses a Qualcomm chipset with a more powerful CPU and from one review I have seen the 5Ghz range is probably a bit better than the AC88U but the ASUS was much better on 2.4Ghz. One more thing to consider is that the ASUS ones you mentioned support link aggregation which you could take advantage of since your NAS has two gigabit ethernet ports. The RT-AC5300 and AC88U have 8 ports each.