Friend needs a router. (Purchased.)

[VirtualLarry]

Friend's router finally died after 4-5 years.

So what's the best router to get these days? He usually goes pretty high-end, I think. Unlike myself, that tends to buy budget routers and soup them up with 3rd-party firmware, he usually sticks to newest stock firmware I believe.

At first, I was thinking of recommending a Netgear R7000 Nighthawk, or an Asus AC68U. ($200-ish, I think.)

But then I was thinking, if he's going to keep the router for another 5 years, would it be better to spend the extra money now, to get a "cutting edge" new router, one of the "AC wave 2" routers, with MU-MIMO and other such features, for around $300?

 

[ch33zw1z]

what are his needs?

 

[Childs]

I bought a TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 for around $60 on Amazon. Not high end, but it supports dd-wrt and has performed well. I was looking at the Nighthawks and routers in that class as well, but it just seemed like too much money to buy without research. I dunno...home routers don't need to cost that much. The TP-Link was going to be a bandaid until I researched what I really wanted, but I actually forgot about it until I saw this post. Maybe your friend should do the same. Just get something cheap that is good enough, and maybe he'll forget he "needs" something high end.

 

[John Connor]

This seems to be the winner across several forums I have been on. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320091

 

[JackMDS]

Many time when Enthusiasts do the thinking for None Enthusiasts (Regular person) the regular person loses.

If the person needs are very humble let them get something in the $50-$70 range.

Otherwise they can get the around $100 good Router (Asus as an example).

Any one that emerges right no from a Router that was used more than three years has No reason to look forward for things like second wave AC or other fancy minute features that they do not understand and it would do nothing for them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, this friend is a bit of an enthusiast. He bought an R8000 Netgear Nighthawk X6. Sounds pretty nifty to me.

I was looking at routers tonight at Staples. The Netgear R6100 looked more my speed. (AC1200 for $100 + tax). The biggest problem I could see with that model is that they gimped it with 10/100 wired ports. Yes, you heard me right. 867Mbit/sec wireless 802.11ac, but only 100Mbit wired. I fail to see the point of that product.