Any downside to Asus RT-AC1900P from Best Buy?

[Lola]

For those that own or know about, has the AC1900P shown to be reliable? Is there any downside to it that I should be aware of before buying?
Hoping for it to go on sale this week (Black Friday).

 

[L&LD]

The only (known) downside is it's from BB.

I too hope to see the RT-AC1900P on sale again. Or even better, the RT-AC3100 (which sold in the past for $191).

 

[Pierino]

Newegg has the rt-ac3100 manufacturer refurbished for $170 and you can get extended warranty for it.

 

[L&LD]

Newegg has the rt-ac3100 manufacturer refurbished for $170 and you can get extended warranty for it.

No (thank you).

 

[RMerlin]

For those that own or know about, has the AC1900P shown to be reliable? Is there any downside to it that I should be aware of before buying?
Hoping for it to go on sale this week (Black Friday).

No, for all intent and purposes, it's an upgraded RT-AC68P, except it's often sold for less (at least here in BB Canada, the RT-AC1900P is much less expensive).

 

[Lola]

The only (known) downside is it's from BB.

I too hope to see the RT-AC1900P on sale again. Or even better, the RT-AC3100 (which sold in the past for $191).

I thought the RT-AC3100 and the AC1900P were essentially the same equipment inside. Is this not correct?
Let me know fast time is running out for Black Friday!

 

[RMerlin]

I thought the RT-AC3100 and the AC1900P were essentially the same equipment inside. Is this not correct?
Let me know fast time is running out for Black Friday!

No, the RT-AC3100 uses a newer wifi chip, and has twice as much nvram (which is used to store the router configuration) and twice as much RAM (useful if sharing a USB disk or running a third party software through Entware/Optware).

The RT-AC3100 is a better product, however at its price, the RT-AC1900P remains the best logical purchase (unless you can get a good deal on the RT-AC3100).

 

[L&LD]

I thought the RT-AC3100 and the AC1900P were essentially the same equipment inside. Is this not correct?
Let me know fast time is running out for Black Friday!

No, not by a long shot (just cpu is the same/similar).

RT-AC3100:
Superior RF design and hardware, including 4x4:4 antennae/streams, pre-amps/amps, etc.,
Double the ram, double the NVRAM of the RT-AC68U based RT-AC1900P,
Based on latest SDK (i.e. better software).

RT-AC1900P:
3x3:3 RF design (better than original RT-AC68U though),
Half the ram, half the NVRAM,
Based on very old (3 years plus?) SDK.

For $100 difference or slightly more, I would spring for the RT-AC3100 (if my budget allowed).

If the RT-AC3100 is offered for equal to or lower than the RT-AC1900P? Grab it.

 

[RMerlin]

(i.e. better software).

That's actually debatable BTW...

 

[L&LD]

That's actually debatable BTW...

What is better overall in the previous SDK?

 

[Lola]

No, not by a long shot (just cpu is the same/similar).

RT-AC3100:
Superior RF design and hardware, including 4x4:4 antennae/streams, pre-amps/amps, etc.,
Double the ram, double the NVRAM of the RT-AC68U based RT-AC1900P,
Based on latest SDK (i.e. better software).

RT-AC1900P:
3x3:3 RF design (better than original RT-AC68U though),
Half the ram, half the NVRAM,
Based on very old (3 years plus?) SDK.

For $100 difference or slightly more, I would spring for the RT-AC3100 (if my budget allowed).

If the RT-AC3100 is offered for equal to or lower than the RT-AC1900P? Grab it.

Best Buy has it on sale for $191.99 (RT-AC3100) so I bought one, supposed to be here Sat. That's cheaper then the AC1900P they wanted $199,99 for it.

 

[L&LD]

Best Buy has it on sale for $191.99 (RT-AC3100) so I bought one, supposed to be here Sat. That's cheaper then the AC1900P they wanted $199,99 for it.

Ah, those prices are back.

To me, $8 cheaper and twice the router. Looking forward to your impressions on the weekend. Btw, what is your current router?

 

[doczenith1]

YES!!! Been waiting for it to come back on sale. Anyone looking to buy a slightly used 68U?

When I started the order they had one available locally for pickup. By the time I got to checkout it was gone. Have to wait until Saturday now

 

[bodean]

Best Buy has it on sale for $191.99 (RT-AC3100) so I bought one, supposed to be here Sat. That's cheaper then the AC1900P they wanted $199,99 for it.

Went to BB Monday, price matched the AC1900P for $145 that was on Amazon. Was told I have 14 days to try it. Now I see the RT-AC3100 is onside for 191.99. Not sure what the move will be. I use to have the RT-AC3100, but sold it on crags list after I experience Wake on Lan issues with my iMAC. Then I bought an Airport Extreme, used for a while, and now in the process of selling that. So I'm back to ASUS. Not sure if I want to swap the AC1900P or not. I currently have XFINITY Gigabit internet service, have about 25 clients on my network currently (Mostly things like Hopper DVR, idle iPads, thermostat, 2 apple tvs, Harmony Remotes, etc). I have my Xbox One hard wired to the router, along with my NAS. My iMac and other computer devices are on the 5ghz network. So I am not sure if there is real benefit to taking the AC1900P back for the RT-3100, if I will really notice that much of a difference in the long run. I know neither will give me close to the gigabit speeds over wifi.

 

[L&LD]

So I am not sure if there is real benefit to taking the AC1900P back for the RT-3100, if I will really notice that much of a difference in the long run. I know neither will give me close to the gigabit speeds over wifi.

Depends on how long is your 'long run'. If you're going to consider the BRT-AC828 in the next few weeks to maximize the Xfinity GbE ISP service you have now, don't do it. If you're going to wait to see (6 months or more, after it is actually released) if the BRT-AC828 is stable enough to consider (and priced right too, of course), then the RT-AC3100 is easily worth the hassle of returning the RT-AC1900P and paying a few dollars more for it now.

 

[bodean]

Depends on how long is your 'long run'. If you're going to consider the BRT-AC828

Seems to be oriented towards businesses from what I've read. Have to do some more research to see if it a huge upgrade from the AC1900P / 3100. Plus its a first generation product.

 

[L&LD]

Seems to be oriented towards businesses from what I've read. Have to do some more research to see if it a huge upgrade from the AC1900P / 3100. Plus its a first generation product.

Yes, first gen, as I noted (thread carefully).

Depending on what you want the router to be able to do for you, it is a huge upgrade, imo. Just as the AC3100 is a huge upgrade from the RT-AC68U derived RT-AC1900P.

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/ne...-dual-wan-vpn-router.32839/page-2#post-265829

 

[RMerlin]

What is better overall in the previous SDK?

There's no correct answer to this question. Newer SDKs bring improvements, but they also sometimes drop some features that were present in previous SDKs. For a long time, SDK7 had broken BCM4360 support (hence the planned SDK7 migration for the RT-AC87U got scrapped), lacked repeater and bridge mode support (not sure where it currently stands, I believe they did re-add these, but I don't know if they work as well as under SDK6 - my recent attempts at getting media bridge mode to work for a planned test setup completely failed). SDK7 also uses a different architecture for wireless drivers.

So, I can't point at a specific SDK and claim "this one's better". The SDK is just a mean to an end - make the hardware work. Features can vary between SDK versions.

 

[L&LD]

There's no correct answer to this question. Newer SDKs bring improvements, but they also sometimes drop some features that were present in previous SDKs. For a long time, SDK7 had broken BCM4360 support (hence the planned SDK7 migration for the RT-AC87U got scrapped), lacked repeater and bridge mode support (not sure where it currently stands, I believe they did re-add these, but I don't know if they work as well as under SDK6 - my recent attempts at getting media bridge mode to work for a planned test setup completely failed). SDK7 also uses a different architecture for wireless drivers.

So, I can't point at a specific SDK and claim "this one's better". The SDK is just a mean to an end - make the hardware work. Features can vary between SDK versions.

Thanks for the honest reply RMerlin.

My take is this:

In this online world we live in, staying current is moving forward (overall). Even if some features were better in earlier versions, it will be a worse overall experience in the long run (been there, done that).

A new SDK brings (hopefully) security and better compatibility with the latest standards. An old SDK can't compete with that, no matter how feature rich it once was.

And, ime, the performance does keep improving too.

 

[RMerlin]

A new SDK brings (hopefully) security and better compatibility with the latest standards. An old SDK can't compete with that, no matter how feature rich it once was.

Remember the RT-N66U... The upgrade from 5.100 to 5.110 broke a lot of wireless clients from Intel, and the following upgrade to SDK6 (as the "fix") reduced wifi performance, most likely because the hardware wasn't really tuned for the newer SDK (a lot changed between SDK5 and SDK6).

So no, newer is not always better. The SDK has very little to do with security, it's more low-level. Security will become an actual asset once Broadcom decides to finally upgrade the kernel with a new SDK.