Help!! The more I read the more confused I am :s

[lukieno1]

I'm having some real trouble choosing a new router, please help as the more I read the further I seem to get from making a decision

I'm currently with BT with a Smart Hub and to be fair it's a good router, bit temperamental watching videos on the loo but other than that it cover the house pretty well. But I've just cancelled due to price increase.

Have gone back to Virgin 100mbps with a Superhub 3. I've had one of these before and whilst the wifi range/coverage wasn't bad it was one of the worst routers I've had. Config pages took an age to load, any serious traffic through it and it would need a reboot etc etc. Had to do a complete reset a few times which then meant all port forwarding had to be redone.

So to avoid this I'm going to set it to modem mode and buy a decent AC router, I was originally set on the Asus ac68u but then lots of reviews pointed me towards the Linksys wrt1900acs......then lots of forum posts complained about constant reboots which may or may not have been fixed with more recent firmware updates. The Netgear R7000 doesn't seem to handle the longer distances as well as the Asus models. Some people swear by the older TP-Link Archer C7. Then the Asus AC87U comes into the mix but most reviews seem to be when the model was new and the AC68U had been out longer thus had more stable firmware at time of writing..........

All I want is a stable, fast router with the same if not better range & speed as the BT Smart Hub thats not going to cost me £300+

Any ideas/suggestions welcome

 

[System Error Message]

well you can get confused more because a stable and fast router arent the same with range and speed. Many consumer and prosumer routers for you to look at but people never realise the better option of going with non consumer such as with pfsense, mikrotik, ubiquiti and so on. As routers they are very reliable and fast, flexible and their wifi APs have better range and speed than consumer, all for the price of less than £300 but its even more confusing as well.

I myself use a CCR1036 as my router, a CRS226 (with 2SFP+) as my switch, and asus as my wifi AP (soon going to switch to a routerboard). Currently my asus router is giving me very slow wifi but great range. And i use all this on my BT infinity 2 connection.

If you want my suggestion, get a mikrotik hEX (rb750gr3) and a ubiquiti UAC AP lite which will only cost you around £100+. Stable, great range, fast but even more confusing. You can repurpose a PC using pfsense for your router instead but you will need to get yourself a NIC preferably an intel server one (approx £20 for 4 port Gb intel server NIC used).

 

[lukieno1]

Thanks but this is to sit in my living room, my wife already moans that my tech is taking over the house as it is
If I had the space and possibly ditched the wife then I'm with your suggestion all the way but unfortunately I'm going to have to stick with all in one devices!
Thanks anyway though

 

[System Error Message]

Thanks but this is to sit in my living room, my wife already moans that my tech is taking over the house as it is
If I had the space and possibly ditched the wife then I'm with your suggestion all the way but unfortunately I'm going to have to stick with all in one devices!
Thanks anyway though

in terms of size its about the same when you put the 2 devices together. The routerboards and ubiquiti wifi indoor APs dont have dedicated antennas. They stick out less. They are also more reliable than consumer solutions, and at 3x less the cost.

 

[System Error Message]

Just so you know the best way to buy mikrotik or ubiquiti in the UK is through a supplier, not through amazon UK as amazon UK is horribly overpriced. The same suppliers i know double their prices on amazon UK than on their own websites. Searching through and comparing suppliers will get the devices cheaper.