RT-AX88U Thoughts

[phi1316]

I’m looking to purchase an Asus router and move to their AIMesh and wanted to purchase an RT-AX88U as mentioned. It appears getting an RT-AX86U is difficult right now for a good price but still may purchase one later to become the router. I’m looking to replace my NETGEAR R7800.

With that said, has the firmware improved for the RT-AX88U as I know everything I read initially reported buggy firmware although I don’t know if I would be affected by it. Could anyone out there give thoughts and if you are using it as your router or a node? I would be looking to move to Merlin’s firmware by the way but assumed since he built on Asus, it could still have issues but I’m not as familiar with this coming from Voxel on NETGEAR.

Thanks for any help,
Ben

 

[wolverine81]

I'm in the same position, lol. I really would like to pick up an AX86U, but the AX88U is currently more available and cheaper. I'm replacing an RT-AC3100.

 

[Gravityz]

i have the RT-AX88U running for about a year now
i came from the RT-AC66U with johns fork(merlin)
i can say i love the stock firmware. way more complete and it get's fast updatres(instead of merlin which is lagging behind)
It has been rock solid from the start and with every firmware update it got better.
Wifi is very stable and the range is good also

i do not do updates the minute they come out but i wait until things look stable.

al the problems in the beginning were related to the new mesh architecture.
Since i use it only a single router i do not have issues.
i am even using my old rt-ac66u router to extend the 2.4ghz signal.

if you have the room for the RT-AX88U(it is very big) than i would go for it.

also no problems with upgrades, just upgrade from the gui, no more resets, cleaning cache or reinstalling from scratch. to get things stable again.

the router also has a feature to bundle the 2 wifi radios into 1 ssid. this works very well and gives you the fastest connection depending on where you are(close it uses 5ghz and further away it switches to 2.4ghz without you even noticing

 

[SoCalReviews]

I'm in the same position, lol. I really would like to pick up an AX86U, but the AX88U is currently more available and cheaper. I'm replacing an RT-AC3100.

Get the AX86U. There is a reason why everyone is buying it over all the other routers. It's worth the extra money. It's a newer design. It's rock solid reliable. It's a better all around performer and it has a much smaller footprint. If you are persistent you can find it in stock at online stores. Amazon often has it come back in stock at current retail pricing. B&H Photo and Video has it at the time of this post right now in stock for $279 USD.

 

[Gravityz]

What's the verdict on the RT-AX88U vs RT-AX86U vs GT-AXE11000 if I'm buying today

Leaning toward the RT-AX88U over the RT-AX86U and GT-AXE11000. Read through a few threads and it sounds like AX88U may be better at longer ranges, 2.4 GHz on AX88U is a little better, similar performance but AX88U has edge but costs more. AC86U was better than the AC88U but that seems to have...

www.snbforums.com

it all depends on what you need
i needed 8 lan ports, a better 2.4GHz chip and wall mount. if you can do without then indeed the AX86U is the better choice

 

[L&LD]

The Asus 8 Port LAN routers have been worrisome, this is not a reason to get the RT-AX88U (not when a switch can be bought for $10 or so).

The RT-AX86U is demonstrably superior, in my experience.

RT-AX86U vs. RT-AX88U

386.1 Final 2x RT-AX86Us 2.5GbE Backhaul


As is RMerlin firmware over stock.

 

[SoCalReviews]

Get the better of both worlds. Wall mount shelves for vertical routers are inexpensive ($15). You can add an eight port gigabit switch to the AX86U for a total of eleven usable ports (5 + 8 =13... minus 2 for connecting them) for less than $20 USD. I like the use of the word "demonstrably".