Recommend me a wireless router

I currently own an E2000 router and I'm not happy with it so I'm looking for a new one.
My budget is around $100

Features I don't need:
-ethernet ports. I'm going 100% wireless
-AC support. N is fine
-usb/printer port

What I'm looking for:
-reliability, stable and without drops, nice hardware specs(ram and so on) and cooling
-range(maybe something with external antenna(s), must be better than the E2000's range, if possible - a lot better)
-better..well routing and QoS. I do a lot of samba steaming over my local wifi(content(mostly low res, almost no 720/1080p) is on my desktop, clients are the laptops in the house). Currently streaming is impacted by moderate internet activity(the connection suffer packet drops from time to time) and become unusable if I decide to watch something and download something at the same time on the same machine.
-dualband is a must, actually it might be the solution of the above

I realize the perfect router doesn't exist - especially for a hundred bucks lol - but maybe you can recommend me something close.

Edit: At this point I'm set on the Netgear WNDR4300 which I can get shipped for around $110(think Europe) but I'm still looking.

 

Look into Netgear. Got 3 of them at 3 different houses. Never had a moment's trouble with them.

And stay away from Belkins. Those things are cheap cheap cheap (IMO).

 

The range is the most tricky part it seems, so I would start with this and eliminate routers that are over budget and then go through the rest eliminating those with poor hardware and no 3rd party firmware support.
Based on this I ended up with Asus RT-N66U although this one might be over budget.

I'm struggling to find anything else competitive.

 

Not sure what wifi cards you have now, but upgrading wifi cards can be option, intel 6200/6205 have some(huge sometimes) improvement over ralink/realtek "stuff".

For range, the n66u is definitely phenomenal. My experience is that QOS is not really needed for streaming~, just need enough bandwidth and no interference (think 2.4ghz).

 

If you want to try used or refurbished routers

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=13DQXVSDVVH2TRVQ36H7

Amazon.com: Buying Choices: NETGEAR N900 Dual Band Gigabit Wifi Router (WNDR4500v2)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...364676&sr=1-1&keywords=R6300v2&condition=used

 

Asus RT-N66U looks very nice but the lowest price I could find is $150 and that store seem a bit shady, normal stores pricing is closer to $180.
Not really sure if the range is my biggest problem because currently I suffer drops when I'm located 2m from the router and no obstacles in between. Also I'm sure the problem is not in the laptop because sometimes my wife would be around watching something else on her laptop and when drops occur we both suffer from it.

Also I live in apartment, the farthest a device could be from the router would be around 12 meters(2 brick walls in between). A T60 placed at that point with an Atheros card gets around -71 avg signal strength, an X201 with Intel card gets around -60 with and occasional(every 10-30 seconds) drop to -70. Measurement info is from inSSIDer and while on 2.4 band, no overlapping channels, I have a couple of other networks currently in range, nothing more.

I use mostly Intel cards, the only exception is an old Atheros card, can't remember the model but it does support N and 5Ghz. You're right though, the Atheros card shows the lowest signal than the rest

I would, only I don't think refurbs are available in Europe.

Edit:Here you can see what the drops look like. I'm pretty sure it's not the range that's causing this although poor signal certainly wouldn't help.

As you can see in this case even the connection is dropped(hence the "host unreachable" messages), normally I get a bunch of "request time out" but the connection stays active, according to Windows anyway. In either case 99% of the times the connection restores itself.

 

What about a TL-WDR4300

Three external detachable antennas, dual band, 560MHz CPU by Atheros, 128MB RAM, OpenWRT & Gargoyle support as well as DD-WRT and stock TP-Link firmware.
It costs about $60 in the US so you should be able to get it for less than $100 Europe as well (it costs less than $70 where I live).

It seems like a good platform - even more than you wanted (two USB ports are also available) but with a good hardware, reasonable price and wide choice of 3rd party firmwares and an option for replacing antennas if needed, this should suffice.

 

I was actually considering the TL-WDR4300 and now that you mention it I might go for it and if it doesn't work great I'll blame you
I can find it for $80 over here though not not sure which hardware version they offer.

 

Hardware version doesn't matter at this point all are v1.x. Hardware is exactly the same as far as end-user is concerned - similar case as with TL-WR1043ND v1 that went all the way up to v1.11.

 

I know this is double your budget, but IMHO, spend once on a quality device better than buying one that wouldn't please you then buying another and another.....

I spent $200 USD for an ASUS RT-AC68U and that thins is absolutely fantastic! I can get a WiFi signal even if I am standing at the end of my building corridor which is really long..... speed wise it is amazing with very low ping rates.

At least get the Asus RT-N66U if the AC68U is too expensive

 

I hear you and normally that's what I would do. The RT-N66U costs $180 and the AC68U is around $230..the extra cash aside I know myself quite well, and I know that in a couple of years I'd probably want an a nice ac router and the one I'm going to buy now will end up in a box so not sure it's worth it.

By the way the ac standard is still "draft", right?

 

Maybe...although I haven't tried it myself:

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-Arche...ed&sr=8-1&keywords=tp+link+ac+wireless+router

Good luck.

 

Yeah I was considering this one as well but but unfortunately it's around $150 over here.
Anyway, I think I'm going to get the cheaper TL-WDR4300 and spend the "extra" cash on a new display. Thanks guys!

 

N or AC, to me a a normal user mean nothing......reason being, you are always limited by your ISP's bandwidth,,,

say for example......

you have a 100 MB connection......then an N router which will give you 300MBPS is not going to be worse in terms of internet connectivity than an AC router which would give you 866 MBPS such as my setup with my Broadcome WLAN WiFi AC Card + ASUS RT-AC68U. at the end of the day....my connection is 50 MBPS and that's what I get in speedtest.net so I don't really care about AC unless you are someone who transfers files over a network on a regular basis.....

Now, what DOES matter is......these ASUS routers are called Gamer routers.....and by that, where they shine is their low ping rates......snappier to connect to a website.....less lag......and if you game online, that's an added bonus which I don't personally do.....

So let me give you a real world example......

I want to connect to site X.......with a normal router because of the ping rate, it might take a fraction of a second to start the connection.....with the ASUS router it would happen instantly.......that's why I paid $230 USD because to me every second counts....life is short.......we need to maximize the way we use our computers to benefit......that's just my way of doing things....

what surprises me is......I bought this ASUS RT-AC68U around a year ago.......and till this date........that price hasn't dropped one bit yet.....

Although.......you might wanna keep in mind.....that the ASUS RT-AC87U is floating around @ $279

I know they are all way over the budget, but no matte what. when I recommend something to someone, it has to be decent so they would thank me on the long run and for your needs I simply cannot:

a) recommend a low end router

b) would never recommend a Linksys Router......I bought the latest and greatest Linksys AC4200 2 years back and it was one slow pile of crap with crappy firmware and even when upgraded to the DRWT firmware or whatever they call it it had connectivity issues with dropping down signals randomly

 

Majority of the ping/ latency is contributed by the outside network, the router/local network hardly matters with any proper setup.

 

Actually my major problem is the LAN . I'm on a slow internet connection and I don't really care for online gaming but what I do want is to have my wireless LAN to work flawlessly - no drops during local in-house streaming and fast transfers.

 

well I can tell you this, with my RT-AC68U I never had a dropped connection in the 1 year that I've owned it. I'm sure the N66U is the same as well. ASUS are known to have some of the best routers although their laptops are rubbish when it comes to quality or reliability.

 

I got the TP-LinkWDR4300 v1.7. It came with the latest firmware however in a couple of days TP-Link published a new version(a bit surprising considering last version was from over an year..) so I updated to the latest version. The only problem I had was when I tried to set it up, as it turned out my ISP was using static MAC for my connection(LAN) for whatever reason so I had them change it to auto, after that it was a piece of cake.
So far the router works great, better coverage and no drops but it has been only a week, we'll see..