Ask Engadget: What's the best dual-band router?
By Darren Murph 
posted May 28th 2009 11:56PM
posted May 28th 2009 11:56PM
C'mon, admit it. Seeing Ask Engadget is your favorite thing of the week, as it definitely marks the unofficial start of the weekend. Before you break out the Dos Equis and engage in copious amounts of "chilaxing," why not give this question a serious look (and an even more serious answer)? "I recently came across the article of "How-to: set up dual-band WiFi." I have been thinking about upgrading my wireless network in order to wirelessly stream video and data from my desktop to my media extenders around the home. What would be a good simultaneous dual-band router? I have Windows Vista on a Dell Inspiron 530 and other laptops running Windows XP, Vista, etc. I also have media extenders like the Linksys DMA 2200 and PS3. If possible, I would like to stay under $150."
We're certain Pradeep's not the only one looking to do the dual-band thing, and we know quite a few of your are already rocking such a setup. If so, what kind of kit are you using to make it all happen? Don't stay quiet, ya heard?
D-Link DIR-825. Discussion over!
Is it better than the D-Link DGL-4500?
How about the D-Link DIR-855?
agreed. I got the 825 after Nilay's rant about how good dual band was and it's been fantastic. 300Mbps on my N based notebook and standard G performance on everything else. No complaints.
For shore, DIR-825 FTW...wireless HD streaming to every room in the house off the NAS box with the D-Link USB adapters. 7-12MB/sec file transfers on the 5 gig channel, couldn't ask for more...well I could, but it gets the job done.
Does it allow you to assign specific ip address per mac address? and does it have QoS?
LINKSYS WRT320N w/ DD-WRT beta firmware pwns...
No way.. Too may issues with D-Link. I have a D-Link print server and D-link DGL-4300. The print server is very erratic and does not work all the time and sometimes it's DHCP realses the IP but does not renew. The DGL-4300's NAT and UPNP does not work well and generates lots of headaches. The DGL-4300 is a high end router that is more than 3+ years old, so it's a very mature product and even after the latest update from a few months back (v1.9), it's still broken and UpNP/NAT dont work right.
With that said, I just bought a Linksys router and I am in love, this thing is 10x better than the D-link, stable, fast, and haven't had any issues yet. The Linksys WRT-610n is a tough competitor and probably won't be beaten untill the N-spec is finalized. You can find one for under $150, newegg.com is asking $144 but a google search turns of even lower prices.
You may find other rotuers with dual band, but they have 100 MB/s swithces. The WRT-610n has gigabit.
http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/WRT400N
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124296
Sorry, I gave the link to the WRT-400n, the correct link for the WRT-610n is here:
http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/WRT610N
I've had the DIR-825 for about 6 months now. Let me give you a quick rundown on pros and cons:
Pros:
-NEVER ever, down. It has never had to be reset because of connection loss, or anything.
-Very detailed menus.
-Visually appealing
-1 USB port to be used as a print or file server (With mac and pc support)
-New firmware has captcha support (if you're really concerned about security).
-QoS, uPnP support, all the things you could ask for in a router feature-wise
Cons:
-Range blows, ESPECIALLY with 5 ghz band. My bedroom is one floor up and about 40-50 feet away and I can barely pick up the 5ghz band, and then 2.4ghz band is pretty slow.
-Only 2 antennas, and no option for a third.
Honestly, it's great, but I wish I could get better reception in my room. If you do look at the Airport Extreme make sure you get the current gen, because it's the only one with Dual Band.
I would have agreed for the money until this latest firmware update seems to have hurt my stability. Seems to freeze about once every two days, and I can only remember it ever doing that once in the last 6 months previously.
Problem is I can't revert back to the prior firmware after this one. :(
@Barcode
nooo, stay away from the WRT-610N!! I have had the thing for about 3 months now and I am extremely dissappointed. First off, the 5ghz channel only reaches about 20 feet from the router, making it obsolete if you are trying to connect your media devices from other parts of the house.
secondly, the 2.4ghz reach is worse than my 5 year old Linksys wireless-B Router. This may be a solid choice if you live in a very small apartment, but for anyone who wishes to use this in a house, where multiple rooms can connect at N speeds on both bandwidths, you would be wise to hold out for another router which broadcasts a little farther.
Again, DO NOT believe what they tell you when it says you get extended coverage area over your standard ABG router. It is a load of bullshit.
@Barcode
I forgot to add, the worst part is that none of the open-source firmware hacks work on the WRT-610N which means you can't get the settings that it ships with
airport extreme....duhh
@William Briere
Looks like the 855 is almost the same as the 825 but has your 3 Antenna
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=548&sec=0
We'll, I am still using 2.4GHz and have not upgraded all my stuff to 5.2GHz. Also your home has a different layout and could be made of different materials that don't allow the higher frequency to pass or you may be experiencing signal reflection. But I get a strong signal from a good distance away, much better than the DGL-4300, way better.
I really like my dlink DIR-825, it rocks.
D-Link DIR-825, is there rly an argument here?
DIR-825... I guess...
I recently purchased a refurbished Netgear WNDR3300 for under $50 and it works beautifully.
not comparing performance, but netgear WNDR3300 is one ugly router.
yea i had one its was awful after the first 3 months
I like wifi at Starbucks
i hate people who use wifi at starbucks
I hate people who drink burnt coffee. People, 'double roasted' is not a good thing!
i hate people.
agreed
Agreed. "Deep French roast" is PR speak for "burnt all to fuck." I know they have to do this for the sake of brand consistency, but even the best barista can't make up for a shitty bean. Plus they auto tamp instead of doing it by hand. If you're going to charge six bucks for coffee, it should damn well taste like a six dollar cup of coffee.
i drink burnt people.
I burn drunk people.
The Drink Burned my Tongue People!
Is Engadget forwarding to reddit.com, now? Does that mean I get to be a grammar nazi and not get downvoted?
For the record, a proper french roast isn't such a bad thing. It's not my cup of coffee, but if it's done long and slow, to taste to make sure it doesn't go too far, it's a rich, low acid, and relatively low caffeine cup. Personally, I prefer that nice acidic finish of a good medium roasted Ethiopian or Costa Rican.
It's kind of like caramelizing onions, or making a dark roux for a gumbo. If you take it nice and slow, you can get amazingly dark without burning. But if you try to go too fast, you're Starbucks.
DIR-825 is definitely the best so far except for the crazy price... For the $150 limit check back to those Linksys and try your luck. If you need some nice reviews check www.smallnetbuilder.com for details.
Hmm, I have an 802.11G router, and regularly stream 720p and 1080p H.264-encoded video. Considering 802.11G is 54Mbps (which is usually around 48Mbps on a good day), and most 1080p video looks fine at a bitrate of 20Mbps or less...I guess I don't see where the problem is?
If you don't believe me, find a two-hour-long movie, in 1080p, and copy it over to your computer wirelessly. Does it take less than two hours to transfer? Congratulations! Your network is fast enough to support 1080p HD video wirelessly!
You must have one hell of a device there - I've never been able to stream a 1080p clip via consumer Wi-Fi gear. Sustained transfer is around 1.5-2 mbyte/s with dropouts every 30 seconds or so. Translates to 12-16mbps (excellent signal strength, right next to the access point).
What are you using as an access point?
@Simon: Access point for the network? Just a run-of-the-mill Netgear 802.11g router. The server is just an old Dell box. I've never tried it further away than 25 feet + 3 walls for 1080p video though; perhaps that would make a difference?
I'm afraid its not that simple. See there is a fall-off of bandwidth depending on distance and interference [obviously, maybe]. Some video streaming is decoded on the host side; and sometimes its on the client side. client side decoding [connect360] may work on a good day [this is similar to your comparison of 'copying' the content to see if it works]. host side decoding won't stream hd over G, in fact, in most cases it will struggle with standard def.
see most wireless communications are in bursts. this is the 'transfer rates' you're quoting ... burst speed. a stream requires a sustained quantity of bandwidth, and this number [although rarely published] is usually far less than the peak burst [similar to how audio amplifiers work if you are familiar with that].
streaming full hd is really a task for close range wireless n. dual band isn't really necessary since there isn't much a need for bidirectional synchronicity.
i'm a huge fan of netgear, but i haven't had the pleasure of using a wireless n netgear router. i have an extreme base station, and i have found that it has superior signal range and reliability. i use it to connect a macbook pro and a hand-crafted windows box. the results don't care what machine you use. it has superior broadcasting power in my opinion. for most users [not on this news feed] the software is used to setup the device and rarely beyond that. so, even though the base station software is fantastic, the real star is the reliability of the connection [particularly for streaming] and the industry leading antenna-less range.
on a side note: i do wish there were a couple more [discretely located] indicator lights. i don't like having to run the software to know what the problem is when there is one. the single indicator light isn't alway descriptive enough.
cheers-
Hexydes, it sounds like you missed the difference between COPYing a 1080p file over your network and STREAMing, or actually watching it real time, over your network. You can copy a 1080p file from the internet using a dial-up modem no problem, it'll be slow, but it'll work. You sure as hell aren't going to watch it in real time like that, though. Same deal, just localized.
DIR-615
Not a dualband, but works for me on SDTV.
My initial reaction is simply: anything which runs DD-WRT or Tomato. However, your selection of N or even dual band N routers which are supported by DD-WRT or Tomato are pretty limited.
There's the WRTXXXN series (where XXX is 150, 160, 300, 310, 350, e.t.c.), and there are a few Buffalo routers that are also equally supported, but generally the N support in that development tree isn't fully finished. Even better, Linksys has moved onto other form factors which have internal antennas, like the WRT54G2, which bears almost no similarity to the legendary WRT54G which it tries to bear the same namesake of.
Engadget's review was acceptable, but honestly the benefits of 5 GHz over 2.4 GHz are going to be a strong YMMV type thing. If you're in an area where the 2.4 GHz spectrum is way overpopulated and noisy, sure, it'll matter. If you're by yourself somewhere, do yourself the favor and just look for G-band N. Remember, lower frequencies propagate through walls and such better than higher ones...
I dig my dual band Time Capsule. Please no shit, it's actually a good product!
I agree - The new Dual-Band Apple routers are solid and fast!
My Dual-band Time Machine works like a charm. Expensive though...
I'm not denying that it works but there are solid option for much less money. I guess incorporating a backup system into it is the reason for the high price tag.
I think the way the Apple networking devices all work together is a big selling point (all of your base stations can communicate and act as a single entity for configuration, port mapping, and access lists) and the feature list is quite robust. Aside from the usual dual-band N-WiFi, encryption, and firewall we'd all expect, you get support for multiple profiles on the device, power over ethernet, scheduled network access control, guest network setup, USB hard drive sharing via AppleTalk and SMB, WAN disk access through MobileMe, and a built-in print server. You can even use a hub to connect and share multiple printers and multiple hard drives. $179 may seem a little pricey, but you can't argue that that's a lot of device in a pretty package, and I don't believe that Linksys offers a single package with all of that functionality at any price.
At $99, the Airport Express offers great value with the ability to act either as an access point or WiFi/Ethernet bridge (serviced my PS2 nicely), stream multi-channel audio (via stereo mini copper/optical interface), and function as a print server for a USB printer.
Airport administration software is also really nice compared to all of the web-based stuff I've used (though I would *really* like to have a web UI at times, Apple).
It never cease to smother me, the degree of incommentability received by virtually anything Apple. One must prepared to be mucked with deeply roasted gorilla excrement if they want to talk (whether good or bad) about Apple products. The only way to solve it, apparently is to add some "shit" to your comment like "please no shit" indicating your resentment of that kind of shit.
Pretty tough shit hum? it keeps reminding us what a sad little weird world we are live in. or country?
Apple's routers have always been extremely solid routers. I've had D-link, Linksys, and a few other brands of routers before and although many of them work just fine, the Apple one was significantly easier to set up, maintain, and I literally have never had any problems with any of them.
If you're one who is adamantly opposed to Apple products for whatever reason I'd say go with a D-link router. Pretty solid, but setup can be a little tricky, especially if you're not completely familiar with all the lingo that is involved with the internet and wireless routing.
Yes the Apple router costs a little bit more, but there are a couple reasons why I believe it's worth it. First of all, very elegant design that fits in almost any room. The nerd side of me likes routers with big antennae floating around and lots of cool looking lights on it blinking with data transfers and all of that, but the Apple one is much more subtle, without sacrificing any power. I've never owned another router with a more solid, reliable connection at the edges of the network. Also, as other people have mentioned, it's SUPER easy to extend the network if needed with either another Extreme (or time capsule) or the little airport expresses. Other people have mentioned the advantages of the expresses so I'll just leave that out for now.
The second thing that is really awesome, and easy to set up is the ability of having the "guest" network off the same router. This makes it so you can have the "N" network, the "G" network, and then a third network that's completely separate. You can have a different password, or no password, and it allows people access to the internet while blocking them completely from seeing your computers, printers, disks, or whatever else that is on your private network. Very handy for a lot of people!
The biggest reason of all is the bundled software that comes with it. There are a few advantages to being able to set up your router through the internet, but the software that comes with the Airport (or Time Capsule) is really quite outstanding. You can either have it walk you through the setup step by step, guiding you along, or you can just manually change anything you want, if you're a little more advanced of a user (i.e. port mapping, etc.) It's the easiest software you can find for setting up your airport/airports. If you do ever decide to add more expresses on to make a bigger network, you can control all of them right in that one piece of software.
Anyway, my point is I agree that the Apple routers, though a little more money, are really the best routers out there. Simple, powerful, easy to set up, and don't have any problems with use. The other nice thing is that it's just as easy whether you're using a mac, or a PC.
Agreed, I upgraded to an Airport Extreme from a Linksys WRT54GX and couldn't be happier. I work from my house and am on Skype all day long with my co-workers. With the Linksys router, my connection would be dropped 3 - 4 times a day. I lived with this for about 3 years thinking the issue was either by cable internet connection, PC wireless card, or Skype itself. After upgrading to the Airport Extreme, I haven't been dropped yet in over a month. $200 well spent.
My D-Link I524 died couple of weeks ago after only two years in service, but my "Snowball" Airport Extreme bought six years ago still works. So to replace the dead D-Link, I bought the new simul-dual band Airport Extreme Base Station so I could set up WSD without issues. It wasn't all smooth at first because I wasn't aware of the additional hidden options on the new AEBS (you have to press the Option key to access them. Once I figured that out, everything worked like it supposed to. Although I wish it has four LAN ports instead of just three.
Go with the DIR-825. or the DIR 628. I've got the 628 and have had no problems with it streaming 720p and surfing the net simultaneously.