Wireless Networking: Nine 802.11n Routers Rounded Up

[mayne92]

[citation][nom]williamvw[/nom]Dear readers,Clearly, the choice of whether to test with a single independent client adapter or a "matching" adapter from each vendor was faced early in the planning stage for this article. As I mentioned in the story, I took the latter road, knowing that I would face criticism for doing so. However, the choice was made both to avoid potential accusations of incompatibility as well as to reflect this site's bias toward desktop technologies. As many of you have pointed out, a round of testing done with a single (probably Intel) integrated adapter would be very appropriate for reflecting performance on notebooks. Reader feedback is what drives many of our testing decisions, and future wireless networking pieces may well include both types of testing. In any case, it sounds like a follow-up piece taken from a notebook perspective may be in order as we head into the summer and gravitate more outside.As always, many thanks for your input. We're listening. [/citation]
Very nice article I must say! I will say, as some others have said, was disappointed to hear of your testing with the sufferings of the Netgears but I think you get the point by now so I will end that there. Could you please later on do a followup to fix this issue? Again, still a very nice article...

 

[Guest]

I think to be fair for TPLINK you should at least try the TL-WR941ND or the TL-1043ND.

 

[Kewlx25]

Linksys 610N is got A LOT of negative reviews from NewEgg because it likes to die shortly after the warranty ends.

Most negative reviews for the Netgear 3700 is "it's expensive" or "it takes a while to apply settings" etc.

Linksys is more like "IT MELTED!"

 

[xophaser]

how old are the product you are using. I been using d-link 825 for over a year and it does 5hz as well as the 2.4. The 625 is a dinosaur. You should use the latest of each companies.

 

[skystreak2]

I have the Netgear WNDRr3700 and I love it. I have my gaming PC set up in QoS as #1 priority for WoW. At the same time I connect to work with my laptop. Meanwhile my girlfriend steams HD movies from Netflix on her iMac or the Blue Ray player. Never any problems. By the way I have the Netgear wireless USB dongle and I do not have any speed issues with it.

 

[skystreak2]

I have the Netgear WNDRr3700 and I love it. I have my gaming PC set up in QoS as #1 priority for WoW. At the same time I connect to work with my laptop. Meanwhile my girlfriend steams HD movies from Netflix on her iMac or the Blue Ray player. Never any problems. By the way I have the Netgear wireless USB dongle and I do not have any speed issues with it.

 

[skystreak2]

I have the Netgear WNDRr3700 and I love it. I have my gaming PC set up in QoS as #1 priority for WoW. At the same time I connect to work with my laptop. Meanwhile my girlfriend steams HD movies from Netflix on her iMac or the Blue Ray player. Never any problems. By the way I have the Netgear wireless USB dongle and I do not have any speed issues with it.

 

[dwblack99]

After using approx 8 different routers, over several years, at my home the Linksys WRT610N has been a dream. Rock Solid and noticeably faster. Good Mixed mode support for iPhone 3GS, Old G Notebook and Win7 32&64bit N Netbook, Notebook. Not had to touch it in 6 months. I even bought it Refurbished direct from Linksys for around $100. I would recommend.

 

[Guest]

it's not a fair test and review at all. Some products are 300M dual band routers, but some

products are 300M normal products, even some products are only 150M routers(Belkin N150 and

TP-LINK WR741ND), like V8 car comparing with 4cylinder car,but the editor didn't mention

any this kind of information. I just wonder where there the profession and objective are,

especially for a publib technical review website? Very disappointed.

 

[Guest]

it's not a fair test and review at all. Some products are 300M dual band routers, but some

products are 300M normal products, even some products are only 150M routers(Belkin N150 and

TP-LINK WR741ND), like V8 car comparing with 4cylinder car,but the editor didn't mention

any this kind of information. I just wonder where there the profession and objective are,

especially for a publib technical review website? Very disappointed.

 

[Guest]

Where is the power consumption tests?

 

[Proximon]

I see several comments around about the Linksys getting pretty hot. That would be a concern for me... not that it's hot but that the enclosure is really supporting those temps.
Regardless, I don't personally need those features. As another stated I'm very happy with my D-link DIR-655. Nice mix of performance, features and price.

 

[Guest]

am running with my Asus RT-n16 quite well. it also has multiple SSID as i've created another SSID for my bro. For me the most significant feature is its 300,000sessions for BT download as well as the DLNA write support, UPnP... but it's suggested to download the latest firmware from asus website unless their current stocks on shelves already came with it.

 

[Guest]

I wonder why the Apple airport hardware wasn't covered by this review.

 

[timobkg]

It's pretty damning for Netgear when their router doesn't work well with their own wireless adapter, that they supplied. Interoperability of routers and adapters should not be an issue in this day and age, but clearly it is, as the Netgear to Netgear example demonstrates. Maybe the router by itself is great, but when their adapter won't work well with it, it makes me hesitant to buy their products, and I can understand Tom's not recommending them.

 

[2dpsk]

The WR741ND uses a 2x2 MIMO array, but with a single external antenna

Who told you that, man! This router is 150Mbps!!! Not MIMO!!! You guys need to go home and learn more, otherwise you are playing us!

 

[x3style]

Just bought one WRT610N v2 yesterday after your article convinced me i was unsure at the time -
Test benchmarks are as followes:
Using WPA2
Wired 1Gb - 100-110Mbytes/s "(hardware cap here my HDD's are the bottleneck i should have made that raid 5 instead of jbod but now its too late)"
Wireless 2.4Ghz - Type N - 144Mbps(connection) - 9-11Mbytes/s "(Signal was so strong my wireless mouse stopped working - there where also 15 routers using 2.4ghz in the area and it could out-signal them all)"
Wireless 5Ghz - Type N - 300Mbps(connection) - 30-31Mbytes/s "(And mouse was working too no other router was on 5Ghz in the area)"
Laptop Wireless Card is a Intel Wi-Fi 5300 AGN.
USB - Attached transfer speeds 4-6Mbytes/s - "I blame it on the 1TB heavily fragmented drive need to defrag it someday - Theoretical limit would be in the 20's but i presume a 10-15 would be fair on a proper drive"
I think i made the right choice and i can say i love it and I'd recommend it. Just my opinion!

 

[Guest]

I'm very dissapointed with this testing. Models are not chosed professionally. It has been compared different class of routers. I recommend new testing!!!

 

[pogsnet]

I go for the ASUS RT-N16 since it is the cheaper but good enough. You don't need super high end just to be used by 2-3 computers only

 

[allengorden]

People, they can't possible review every wireless router out there, so quit spamming by saying stuff like- "what? no xxxxx router reviewed?"

 

[SeanFL]

Really wish a standardized client would have been used so the router performance could be isolated. I'd really like to know if the Linksys router is better than the Asus, or if the Linksys adapter is what caused it to do so well. I agree with other commenting, the vast majority of users will be on an intel integrated adapter with one of these routers. Please consider an addendum with that comparison. Sean

 

[Guest]

Very surprised by the results of this article. I scoured the internet for weeks before making my purchase (Netgear WNDR 3700), and no other review paints such a negative portrait for the product as this one does. 2 months after purchase, I've had ZERO issues. The Linksys 610 would have been my runner up, if not for the dozens of reviews saying how it doesn't stand the test of time. Nearly 1 in 4 reviews(23% of 290 reviews) on Newegg have said how horribly the product performs. Compare this to the number of negative reviews for the WNDR3700 (6% of 215 reviews), and we can see who actually stands tall in real world performance!

 

[Guest]

I am the owner of a tp-link 941-ND. It's the 3-antenna version of the tp-link router in this comparisson. The 941-nd is still the cheapest of all of the routers shown in this comparisson, however, the 741 was included instead of the 941. The funny thing is i owned the d-link dir-685 before, and where the d-link had a 70-80 mbps constant throughput, the tp-link 941-nd gets 100-110 mbps. So this is the mos flawed comparisson i've ever seen, comparing the entry-level product of a company (tp-link) to the tops of the other companys, even if TPLINK has his top router cheaper than any of the comparisson (and the 1041-nd, which is the 941 with gigabit ethernet is still cheaper than any). Good work TH, every day your readings are less interesting.

 

[Guest]

Comparison should be done under fair condition. But this one, It sames not fair for many Brand....Such as TP-LINK741ND. It is only a 150Mbps (one antenna, without MIMO) routers, having totally different designing speed and huge price difference with other 300Mbps model.

Why take them to comparison together? DOES IT MAKE ANY SENSE?

It just like your guys compare a lot of car with differnt volumes, including 1.8T/2.4T/3.0T, and taking them for acceleration test? So ridiculous! Even the customers know that they are different level products of those manufactures, with totally different PRICES!

In a word, it just a Ridiculous test done by Amateurs!

 

[moullas]

How come this is caller a router test and only the Wireless performance is tested?

I didn't see anywhere a mention about routing performance (Wan ->Lan), which is the primary reason of buying a router. Next step would be reviewing hard drives and just mentioning power consumption, or graphics cards and mentioning noise levels...

Thus, this review is good if you are looking for a wireless access point, but utter nonsense if you are looking for a router.