Solid Upgrade for Netgear Router?

[denpa]

I am looking to upgrade my Netgear WNDR4500v1 (9 years of service; top of the line then). It turned out to be pretty decent except for firmware corruption about once a year that requires manual upload through Ethernet.

EDIT: Making it simpler, looking for:

• Solid 2.4Ghz performance (crowded condo area with 50+ APs)
• Also, solid 5GHz
• VPN server
• Price: $200-300, can go more if justified by features/performance.
• Recent model (any brand) with reasonable anticipated future proofing and stability.

 

[Grievous Angel]

With cars, the answer is always a Miata. To answer your question, I have the RT-AX86U, it's 250 if you can find it, and it seems to be the current darling of this forum. I've had no issues with mine. Fast, good coverage, stable.

 

[denpa]

With cars, the answer is always a Miata. To answer your question, I have the RT-AX86U, it's 250 if you can find it, and it seems to be the current darling of this forum. I've had no issues with mine. Fast, good coverage, stable.

Thanks, I did get the RT-AX86U (I was able to find it at a local Best Buy in stock last weekend) and I loaded Merlin as well. Very pleased so far and impressed with the software. Everything works smoothly and I experience less latency in browsing and apps.

The only thing that baffles me with ASUS is the DHCP limit for manually assigned IPs. It is not a problem for my usage, just weird to have that limit. If it ever becomes an issue, I can use the feature expansion add-on that is available.