Netgear R7500 and Asus RT AC87 - My experience

[cc666]

The first RT AC87 I purchased had a dead 5 ghz radio. Returned for exchange. The second one was much better but also would drop 5 ghz radio signal. USB 3.0 hd connection was also very unstable. Could not write to the hard drive and the share would disappear and reappear for no apparent reason. All with the latest firmware FYI. The QOS seemed to bog down the speed of the router over time. I really wanted this router to work but I was disappointed.

Returned the AC87 for good and purchased the Netgear R7500. Running great and the smart QOS feature works perfectly. I also noticed that the RT AC87 ran much hotter than the Netgear R7500. Open source support is a huge plus. HD plugged into the 3.0 port 1 so far is running with no hiccup. Streaming Netflix, Face timing with daughter and downloading a 1.4 gb file all at the same time with no slow down or buffer.

I gave the RT87 2 weeks when it was returned. I have has the Netgear now for 3 days. I will report back to this thread how it operates as time goes on.

Any other comments or comparisons welcomed.

CC

 

[bobsilver]

I have been using my R7500 for 2 weeks now. It has been rock solid with no issues at all. When I first set it up it did a firmware update and since that all has been good. Wifi range is similar to the R7000 as expected.

In my setup my router sits below a desk between 2 pc's. So I tend to use access points. I use a R7000 as a primary access point in my home and the router with wifi off although while using the R7500 I left wifi on. Range is what the R7000 was like when it set under my desk but not as good as my placed R7000 AP.

The R7500 seems to run cool and I heard no noise from it but again it is in somewhat noisy environment.

My primary impression that is something that is near and dear to me is the Dynamic QOS. I have slow internet access. My home can only get DSL and I get a 2mbs speed max. So for me managing that small pipe is key.

I turned on the Dynamic QOS when I set the R7500 up. And after a week or so of use I noticed that I didn't have the slow downs I normally see when downloading large files or bit torrenting files up or down.

So yesterday I put back my old router just to see if it was my imagination. Low and behold the slow downs returned. While downloading a file last night I could hardly use my iPad for news reading. It was painful it was so slow.

I am going to live with my old router (Netgear WNDR4700) a day or so and then go back to the R7500 to see what changes occur. Ill report back. But my guess is that the R7500 made a huge difference here and this might be a very compelling feature for users like me.

Bob Silver
NETGEAR Networking Assistant