Router upgrade un$150

[goodbye8l]

I have 5 Pc's, 3 Tablets ,and 5 phones. Only 1 PC is wired. My question is what are some good routers for me and under $150? I want to upgrade from the time warner modem wifi.

 

[Dynomite54]

You will want some thing with more range and can handle more requests and traffic some thing like a NETGEAR Nighthawk X4 could fit in the price range. But there are cheeper options that do the same thing just only dual band. If you want to go all out get the X4 but if not than get a NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1750 or some thing cheaper form asus like a RT-ACRH13.

 

[RealBeast]

If you want AC in that price range, I would go with an ASUS RT-AC68U (Amazon $149.61) or Netgear R7000 ($159). I've installed many of each and never had issues and both have excellent range and throughput.

Anything more that an AC1900 or AC2600 is just marketing nonsense, as explained quite well HERE, and should be avoided unless on clearance or you need a feature such as 60GHz wireless.

 

[bill001g]

It really also depends on the nic cards in your machine. It does no good to buy a router than can run 3 or 4 feeds if your end devices also do not have the same number of antenna. The vast majority of devices only have 2 antenna and this is true for even the newest devices. I think there are only 2 nic cards that have 4 antenna in existence. There are other feature like MUMIMO that end devices also must support to be used.

The generic recommendation for most people is to buy a router that says it runs at 1200. These have 2 antenna and match most end equipment. These price on these is well under $100 in many cases. You get routers with 3 antenna that say 1750.

Be very careful to not get into the bigger number if better trap. Unless you can use the features in the router you are wasting your money. You will get no benefit if only the router supports the feature.