[SOLVED] Totolink AC4300 your thoughts?

[Jeff_120]

Never bought a Totolink router, this one looks awesome on the specs sheet, but will it really be that good with wifi range? To good to be true for 80$?
https://www.totolink.net/home/menu/menu/menu_listtpl/prod/id/57.html

 

[Lutfij]

I've worked with their Totolink A2004NS Router, the router is nice, design(aesthetics) wise but their GUI is...a little jumbled up. I think they're cheap because they lack firmware support, don't have much in terms of tech support and their gear are sub par in quality. I've worked with TP-Link, Asus and Netgear and out of all of them, Ass has won me over due to their firmware updates, GUI as well as stability with devices.

My 2 cents on the matter though.

 

[Jeff_120]

I've worked with their Totolink A2004NS Router, the router is nice, design(aesthetics) wise but their GUI is...a little jumbled up. I think they're cheap because they lack firmware support, don't have much in terms of tech support and their gear are sub par in quality. I've worked with TP-Link, Asus and Netgear and out of all of them, Ass has won me over due to their firmware updates, GUI as well as stability with devices.

My 2 cents on the matter though.

Do you know if the tplink AC1750 is a good wifi range router? Reviews said so but people on amazon reviews are saying it's not better than a standard wifi router

 

[bill001g]

Wow a review on amazon that is actually useful. Most people are just saying router works great for me or it is a piece of junk. The problem is people houses make much more difference than the routers when it comes to wifi converge.

They are correct it is no better than a standard router. In fact all modern routers pretty much have the same coverage. The actual distance the signals go it a function of transmit power. This is limited by the government and almost all router transmit very close to the legal maximum.

What makes this confusing is router manufactures are combine the concept of signal level and data transfer rates. There is no standard defined on how you test this so they all make up whatever makes them look best. The only clear standard is the output power level that the FCC has defined in great detail how it must be tested.

I have no idea about totolink. The key difference is going to be manufacture patch support. The actual wifi likely uses the identical chips as other routers with similar specs. Hard to say for sure that is not a common brand so there are very few entries in the databases you can find that show what is inside these units.

TPlink makes solid devices. The ac1750 likely will work fine for you. It all depends do you really need 4x4 mimo and 2 5g radios. Those tend to push the price up and provide little benefit for most people.

 

[Jeff_120]

Wow a review on amazon that is actually useful. Most people are just saying router works great for me or it is a piece of junk. The problem is people houses make much more difference than the routers when it comes to wifi converge.

They are correct it is no better than a standard router. In fact all modern routers pretty much have the same coverage. The actual distance the signals go it a function of transmit power. This is limited by the government and almost all router transmit very close to the legal maximum.

What makes this confusing is router manufactures are combine the concept of signal level and data transfer rates. There is no standard defined on how you test this so they all make up whatever makes them look best. The only clear standard is the output power level that the FCC has defined in great detail how it must be tested.

I have no idea about totolink. The key difference is going to be manufacture patch support. The actual wifi hard likely uses the identical chips as other routers with similar specs. Hard to say for sure that is not a common brand so there are very few entries in the databases you can find that show what is inside these units.

TPlink makes solid devices. The ac1750 likely will work fine for you. It all depends do you really need 4x4 mimo and 2 5g radios. Those tend to push the price up and provide little benefit for most people.

What about Mesh? A 2x or 3x Deco M4 should keep the same speed as the modem on the covered space?

 

[bill001g]

Mesh is all marketing hype it is mostly just another form of repeater.

A repeater will cut your speed in at least 1/2 in exchange for more signal strength in remote rooms. It takes very careful placement. It must be able to receive a strong signal and still be able to transmit a new signal to the remote location. Many times this location does not exist with walls or floors absorbing the signal. Some of the very expensive mesh systems have a dedicated radio chip to talk to the main router. The slightly reduce the speed penalty but you now are using all the 5g radio bandwidth which guarantees at least one of the 2 feeds is being interfered with by neighbors.

The only good way to increase coverage is to not use wifi to do it. You use some kind of wire to extend the network to the remote room and then put in AP or cheap router running as a AP to provide the wifi. The best is actual ethernet cable. If you can't have that and you have coax tv cables in both rooms you can use moca. The third option is to use powerline networks like av1000 or av2000 units. Then when you absolutely no option where a crappy signal is better than no signal you consider mesh or repeater based solutions.

 

[Jeff_120]

Mesh is all marketing hype it is mostly just another form of repeater.

A repeater will cut your speed in at least 1/2 in exchange for more signal strength in remote rooms. It takes very careful placement. It must be able to receive a strong signal and still be able to transmit a new signal to the remote location. Many times this location does not exist with walls or floors absorbing the signal. Some of the very expensive mesh systems have a dedicated radio chip to talk to the main router. The slightly reduce the speed penalty but you now are using all the 5g radio bandwidth which guarantees at least one of the 2 feeds is being interfered with by neighbors.

The only good way to increase coverage is to not use wifi to do it. You use some kind of wire to extend the network to the remote room and then put in AP or cheap router running as a AP to provide the wifi. The best is actual ethernet cable. If you can't have that and you have coax tv cables in both rooms you can use moca. The third option is to use powerline networks like av1000 or av2000 units. Then when you absolutely no option where a crappy signal is better than no signal you consider mesh or repeater based solutions.

Even a router that acts as a repeater will cut the speed by half?

 

[bill001g]

Wifi is half duplex only 1 device can use the bandwidth at a time. The main router and the repeater must share. This is ignoring that they also share with the end devices which is partly why you never get the magic numbers they put on the box.