Netgear EX7300 versus Linksys RE7000

[RogerSC]

Wondering if anyone has experience with either of these network extenders? I've been looking at the new ones, and am considering these two mu-mimo capable models. According to the marketing literature, they both do everything except slice bread (although it looks like if they had thought of it they would have thrown that in, too *smile*).

Most of the reviews that I can find for these are apparently written by people that have been given the extenders to review, so I thought I'd ask for some real-world experience from those that might have purchased one of them. It may be that these aren't out there much yet, but any experiences with them would be helpful.

By the way, don't need opinions about what a bad idea network extenders are *smile*. I'm aware of the trade-offs.

Thanks!

 

[RogerSC]

Despite my reservations about Linksys at this point, I did just get the RE7000 in the spirit of trying it out. Not a great first impression, it was pretty unstable. Flashed the newer firmware image and reset to defaults, and that has helped. I'm extending 5GHz. band, and using 2.4GHz. band only for "Crossband" uplink. I don't do much with the 2.4GHz. band any more, so I'm not bothering to extend it. Still seeing some anomalous results. Interestingly enough, when I manually say "use the 2.4GHz. band for "uplink" only", that again is unstable. When I put crossband in Automatic mode, that's fine. For the first time, using 2.4GHz. for backhaul/uplink for the extender is actually increasing the 5GHz. speed over that I would see with a straight repeater. I'm seeing up to about 160Mbps internet download through the extender, which is more than half of my ISP's internet speed of about 230-240Mbps (at the time I was testing).

That's much better than I saw with "ExpressWay" mode on the Asus RP-AC68U and "FastLane" on the Netgear EX7000. Both of those were actually slower using 2.4GHz. only for the link to the main router than they were in pure repeater mode...very disappointing. The Asus desperately needed new firmware. The Netgear was more stable, but also needed some work.

Stability remains to be seen. Not too impressed so far, but it's hard to tell with wireless whether it's the router or client. I was testing with my Nexus 6P and Apple iPad Air 2, both of which are 2 stream wireless-AC (867Mbps max on 5GHz.). Anyways, I'll see if the extender remains connected, and if the speed stays up over time. Not going to keep it unless it is stable and consistent.

 

[sfx2000]

People are going to have various opinions with Extenders, best advice I can give is try to stay within the same vendor for the primary AP and the extender, as this will have the most vendor testing behind it, and the support/customer care teams will be most familiar with the interactions between the primary and the extender.

 

[RogerSC]

There are hooks referred to in the copious RE7000 marketing literature pertaining to the Linksys EA9500 and "seamless roaming". Don't want an EA9500 (or any Linksys router at this point). So I guess I'm going to have to pass on that. While the Netgear EX7000 (same brand as my router) was a competent repeater, their "FastLane" feature was a bust for me. The EX7300 is the other extender on my short list to try if the RE7000 develops problems.

The RE7000 passed my infant mortality test, by the way. Still running today after setup yesterday. Still getting more throughput than I expected, more like 2/3 of my ISP download rather than 1/2, so now we're into the longer term test realm *smile*. Very pleasantly surprised by this one. Ended up putting it on top of a 7' book case via an extension cord and am getting a stronger signal than I could get near the floor using a power outlet. Too much furniture by the power outlets, I guess *smile*. Not a visually pleasing place to put it, but above most people's eye level.

 

[RogerSC]

Okay, the rest of the story after a week of use. The RE7000 and it's technology has real potential, Linksys just needs to stabilize it *smile*. Too much rebooting, but I experienced an internet download speed of 180Mbps on my Nexus 6P phone fairly consistently, with my ISP providing 200-240Mbps download speed. This would be fine, except too often I would turn on my phone or iPad and find much lower speeds (like 30-40Mbps). After several internet download tests, all with lower speeds, I would reboot either the client in question or the RE7000 to restore full speed. When this happened, I tested the client device with my main router as well before rebooting the client, and the client would have a consistent speed with my main router. Which told me the problem was between the RE7000 and the client devices.

So I'm very impressed with the speeds that I saw with the RE7000. Now, if Linksys could just stabilize this device so that it would operate consistently well indefinitely, that would make this a very useful network extender.