I installed and used the WRT1900AC last night. I like it and am glad I took the plunge but its not without its faults.
My goal was to replace a router-only RTN-56U and WNDR4300 AP with one single router.
I had tried a few weeks ago to replace the two pieces of equipment with an R7000 but I could not get either of my media bridges, both netgear WCE4004's, to work through it. They work fine on any other old router I tested with so I sent the R7000 back and returned to my old setup.
The WRT1900AC is physically awesome. It's a solid brick and doesn't feel like cheap materials. The metal connectors of the antennas and the 'LINKSYS' on the antennas are a nice touch, even if irrelevant. The whole product just feels like its worth the $$$ before you even turn it on.
I don't heavily test routers, I just use them and decide if its going to work out or not. I quickly could see that having two PS4s playing online was not being hampered by Netflix streaming which told me the router has good stock software and QOS actually works. On top of this there was also a VPN connection to work running as well as an always-on security camera setup.
The user interface looks great. It's how a user interface should look in 2014. It's snappy as well. I've never understood why router GUIs are so slow. This one is much faster than the ones I've used recently.
My 1600sq/ft home has never been a problem for wireless signal. I could get 4 bars with the WNDR4300 at any place in the home and a useable signal outside. The WRT1900AC is 5 bars everywhere for both 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks.
Biggest complaints:
QOS - You can only input three QOS options as 'High'. Everything else is treated as 'Normal'. This means after you input two PS4's and the generic option "Playstation Network" in your QOS, you've now run out of slots. You can't place remote desktop sessions, DNS, or Skype, etc on the list below your 'high' choices. You only can place three choices in QOS. I liked how the R7000 allowed a long list of QOS priority to be created, even if I didn't like that router overall.
NAT options - NAT is on or off. There is no "Secure" or "Open" or "Full Cone" or anything else. With multiple gaming consoles in the home, I guess just turn NAT off. After all, the internet will only see you as one IP no matter what. Turning NAT off has worked for me.
Lack of monitors - There is no CPU monitor or memory monitor which would be nice for someone who constantly uses external storage or hosts VPN connections. There is also no UPNP port request monitor.
Constant wireless resets while using the GUI - I can understand connections resetting when a change is made but the WRT1900AC seems to reset connections when the user simply browses into certain areas of the GUI. Its as if the router needs to prepare itself for a possible change. For example, selecting the option to view the screen to reserve a DHCP address will reset wireless even though you haven't actually entered any info and might even cancel out of it.
What I like:
Build quality
Ease of using QOS (Even if you only get three slots to use)
QOS seems to work
Network Map - Once you name all of your network devices and select cute pictures to represent them, the network map ends up looking very nice and understandable and can be sorted using device connection type.
Fast, good looking GUI
Great looking box
Wireless signal strength
Works with the WNCE4004 media bridge unlike the R7000
No issues out of the box or with latest LINKSYS firmware which is a plus that is hard to find with the advanced routers these days