[SOLVED] Linksys vs TP-Link vs Netgear

[andy88]

Hello, I am living in Europe. I need gigabit wireless router from Linksys or TP-Link or Netgear. Maybe there is more good brands so you could mention.

Spec:

1. I am getting 300Mbps internet.
2. Budget ± 100€.
3. Flat has monolithic walls, so need good range in all rooms.

One of the models could be: TP-Link Archer C7, what is your thoughts about this model?

Thanks in advance

 

[bill001g]

The name on the outside of the box many times makes no difference. There are only a small number of wifi chip makers and none of them sell routers directly. This means some units between these vendors can identical internal parts. The main difference will be software. Even then the software that runs in the wifi radio chips is provided by the chipset maker so the wifi function itself will likely be the same. The difference will be in how the screens look and if it has features like firewall or parental controls stuff.

Most the difference between vendors is their support. How good they are at replacing product and how often they put out patches. Some brands like belkin pretty much abandon support of any device that is more than about a 1yr old.

You also have to remember that your end device is 1/2 the communication and many times has much more impact than the router. Routers transmit at full legal power in most cases. This means the signal goes more or less the same distance. End devices many times have small antenna and transmit a lower power to save battery.

The tplink router you link is likely good enough for what you want. It uses 3x3 mimo but if your devices like most only have 2 antenna it will drop back and only use 2x2. This is why you need to be careful about just buying "bigger" numbers. Routers may support features but if your end device does not then a cheaper router will perform the same.

 

[andy88]

Big thanks @bill001g for explanation. How to check for example if my old macbook pro late 12 or other PC has 2 or 3 antennas? So as I understood if my device will have 2 antennas mimo function will be useless?

As I was writing this thread I found 2 more TP link models which prices are pretty the same but difference is WIFI 5 vs 6.

TP-Link Archer A9
TP-Link Archer AX10

Could you share your opinion in short about these models? As I understood A9 is newer model than C7, but AX10 has AX standard and prices are the same... so I am a little bit confused here.

 

[bill001g]

You would have to look up the part number of the wifi nic. Most laptops only have 2 antenna but there are some that only have 1 and some that have 3.

Again it all depends on your end device. The A9 has even a newer feature called MU-Mimo but it does nothing if the end device also does not support it. The A9 to get 1900 rather than 1750 is using a non standard radio encoding on the 2.4g band that most devices do not support.......BUT they get a bigger number and that is all that matters right ?

Wifi 6 is very new and not a lot of devices support it. It will of course work with older devices but it will not be able to use any of the new feature until you get wifi 6 devices.

The vendors intentionally make this confusing for your average consumer that does not want to learn what the numbers actually mean. They are betting on people that will just blindly assume bigger number is always better.

 

[helpstar]

D-Link or ASUS would be my bet. Netgear should be fine too.

Didn´t have much luck with a TP-Link router

https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-a9/#specifications
https://www.tp-link.com/de/home-networking/wifi-router/archer-ax10/#specifications

 

[andy88]

@bill001g thanks I've got your point!
@helpstar thanks for your opinion, which models you would recommend from dlink or Asus?

 

[helpstar]

Equal price range and features, don´t know any personally

 

[andy88]

I have one more question about data stream.

TP-Link Archer AX10
1201 Mbps (5 GHz, 11ax)
300 Mbps (2.4 GHz, 11n)

TP-Link Archer C80
1300 Mbps on 5 GHz + 600 Mbps on 2.4 GHz

I know that N standard can only has speed up to 300Mbps, so why do manufacturer shows 600 Mbps on 2.4 Ghz while on 2.4 frequency it supports only B/G/N standards? Or Do they mean that 2 computers will be using full data stream at the same time 300Mbps each?

Hope you understood my thoughts.

 

[bill001g]

You can get 600 on 2.4g with 802.11n. This is 4x150 which is 4x4 mimo. It was part of the standard but it took them a very long time to get it to actually work. It is extremely rare to find a nic card with 4 antenna so it really doesn't matter.

The other way they get 600 on 2.4g is in effect running a 802.11ac data format on 2.4. They are using a data encoding that can get 200 per stream rather than 150. So instead of 3x150 they are using 3x200. Neither the official 802.11n or 802.11ac standard has this option. Like anything else that is non standard support will vary greatly between devices. Some vendors like apple will not implement things that are not part of a official standard.

Just more attempt to con the consumer who does not do the research into how they get those numbers.

 

[andy88]

@bill001g thank you, as always very good explanation! So I see that this is only marketing tricks.