Which to keep?

[Carnagerover]

Hi all,

Recently I have been having some issues with my Asus N66U with regards to dropping connections and slow web browsing on 2.4ghz, thought intermittent it can be frustrating as I rely on this router for my business needs, we use a lot of Ipads in the house and they are the only Wifi devices.

I bought a Linksys Cisco EA4500 as I liked the look of it and the reviews tend to be good. Everything is more or less fine on the EA4500 apart from video streaming on the web, I can stream Plex files from my PC no problem but when it comes to sites like Youtube and Twitch I get buffering, now my internet connection is 80 Down and 20 Up so buffering video has not been an issue for me for a long time.

As you can see both devices have issues but I have to stick with one and I wondered what you guys thought I should keep as I assume in the future via firmware fixes and what not I should be ok....mostly ok.

 

[tipstir]

Yep my EA4500 had those issues you describe in YT no more with ESR600H those are gone! I can't speak for the other brand you have in your poll. I've use all sorts of routers I usually stick with companies that only build routers or switches more network equipment than a company that makes computers, motherboards, monitors an etc. It's like they're trying to get into other markets.

Linksys company was better when it was one company now Cisco owns and runs them and it's not the same again. DLINK and Trendnet I won't recommend to anyone anymore. TP-LINK and Engenius fair better but Engenius has come a long way in routers indoor and outdoor network gear. Another company is Meraki they can give you a free AP cloud base if you own a business an attend there webnar online for 1 hr. 15x SSID AP well built not dual band but it's 300mb for 2.4GHz 802.11n 2x Ports 100mb or 1000mb plus POE. The only issue with that product is if your ISP has a limit or gap on your bandwidth usage. This product would use way too much of that. I've tested MR12 against the ESR600H and the results were a dead tie, but where the ESR600H stands out is with 1080p streaming HD over Vudu, Amazon Prime Instant Videos and Netfix HD over WiFi. Also FaceBook games like BP, WC that uses a lot MPU, RAM on WiFi using laptop dual core.

ESR600H there is a newer model for Business has stronger WiFi 26dBi from them and a newer design. That would need to be tested though. Right now I have ESR300H and ESR600H. The difference is RAM, MPU, Range. ESR600H is better suited for me here.

 

[TonyH]

Excuse me, was that an answer to the OP's question?

 

[stevech]

Linksys company was better when it was one company now Cisco owns and runs them and it's not the same again. DLINK and Trendnet I won't recommend to anyone anymore.

Cisco acquired Linksys in early 2003. Cisco left it as a consumer-focused wholly owned subsidary. In the last couple of years Cisco began putting their logo on the products; not sure if they changed Linksys' management.

Cisco acquired Aironet in 1999 to focus on the enterprise markets. Aironet is/was good. The Linksys acquisition came later, to enable Cisco to compete in the SOHO market.

Cisco acquired AireSpace in 2005 much to Aruba Networks' chagrin. This was to address the "thin AP" (managed AP) enterprise market.

Personally, I think Aironet (which came from Marconi Wireless) really built the foundation 802.11/WiFi.