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Best wireless router?

ohla313

ohla313

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 24, 2010
778
0
I'm looking to purchase a wireless router for my apartment and don't know which to go for. I want something that is both PC and Mac friendly as I will be using my MBP and my roommate will be using their Windows PC.

This router will be used with a cable modem and it would be cool to have one that can have a USB device plugged in, like a printer or hard drive for wireless printing or backups.

Any ideas?
 
Just got the Airport Extreme, working great! I know there are cheaper options but I've wanted one for a while and I'm loving it so far.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
those are a bit pricy I want to stay under $100 though. Any other routers that have a USB port to hook a printer or hard drive to?
 
You can't go wrong with one of Apple's AirPort routers.

For a little less money, the D-Link DIR-655 has my wholehearted endorsement, because that's what I use in several installations. It's fast, well-priced, and it has an industrial-class firewall that plays nice with my company's VPN, and an excellent Quality-of-Service (QoS) engine that optimizes streaming and VoIP applications.
 
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ECUpirate44 said:
Linksys or netgear.
Click to expand...

Meh. Sorry to say, I've had mixed results with Linksys routers and nothing (nothing!) but trouble with Netgear.

I use a Linksys analog telephone adapter (in accordance with instruction found here and it works very well but is poorly documented and hardly supported. (It was an acquired product and seems to have no advocates in Cisco, Linksys' current owner.) I've had two Linksys routers; they were okay but lasted only a couple years. A Linksys range extender I tried was an astonishing piece of crap. So, mixed results with Linksys here.

Netgear, by comparison, has been a washout with each try here. My first WiFi router was a Netgear, and it had a "feature" of turning itself OFF to save power if unused for more than 24 hours. So, we'd go away for the weekend and find ourselves with no WiFi when we returned. Maddening!! Subsequent Netgear trials have all been poor. I wouldn't waste my time with them.
 
I'm currently using a Cisco Linksys E2000, it's a dual band unit that offers both 2.4- and 5-GHz frequencies. The speed is fantastic, it's very stable and consistent in it's performance.
 
sjinsjca said:
You can't go wrong with one of Apple's AirPort routers.

For a little less money, the D-Link DIR-655 has my wholehearted endorsement, because that's what I use in several installations. It's fast, well-priced, and it has an industrial-class firewall that plays nice with my company's VPN, and an excellent Quality-of-Service (QoS) engine that optimizes streaming and VoIP applications.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I looked at the D-Link, it seems right up my alley. Cheap, USB port, and good reviews. Might pull the trigger and get this.

I was reading Netgear reviews and they all seemed mainly about needing to be reset a lot. I use an old Linksys WRT54G at home so that's all I know.

Anything else about the D-Link that stands out? Does it maintain steady connections? easy to set up?

I am planning to connect 2 laptops, an iPhone and an iPod touch to it mainly. More later but the minimum those.
 
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Pulled the trigger and bought the router sjinsjca suggested. Thanks! Was hesitant about Netgear after reading all the reviews and Linksys doesn't offer what I want so D-Link looked good. Checked the reviews and that router seems solid.

The speeds are great and I can turn my printer wireless for my roommate and I so I think it will be fine. Will update the thread after I have used it for some time as reference for others
 
I have a netgear range max 150 router and it sucks. Stay away. It is not fast and the range is poor. Only reason I have it is because comcast gave it for free.
 
I'm considering purchasing an Airport Extreme Base Station soon. Is it considerably better than a Linksys router? The Linksys router I have now is doing a crap job of keeping up with the 2 iPhones, iMac, MacBook Pro, and 65" HDTV that's in my house. I'm hoping that an Airport Extreme Base Station will handle all of the devices in my house well or at least better than the Linksys router can.
 
ohla313 said:
Pulled the trigger and bought the router sjinsjca suggested. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hope it goes well for you. We have two (one at home and one at our vacation place) and they've been great: fast and stable, and the QoS engine and firewall are top-notch. Hope your experience is similar!

I haven't used the USB port so have no idea what it's for or how well it works.

Please return to this thread and let us know how it goes for you.

Incidentally, and this is mentioned far too rarely around here: it's always a good idea and wise investment to run your cable/DSL modem and WiFi router off a UPS. For one thing it ensures you will have Internet during minor power outages, but it also conditions the power going to your sensitive devices, and they'll last longer. Same goes for your TVs and other stuff. If it's digital, it will benefit from being fed by a UPS.
 
Here to bump the thread and give an update on the D-Link DIR-655 Wireless Broadband Router I bought.

It works great and is handling two laptops and iPhones well. The problem is having to set up the USB Shareport feature to get my HP printer working via the USB port on the router. Does anyone have any idea how to do this??
 
consider tomato or dd-wrt

google tomato router or dd-wrt routers. they are usually buffalo routers which you can flash with an open source firmware to give you advance router features for a budget price (QoS, some USB Print Servers, Drive Servers). it will require some technical skills but the features are unbeatable - and once you flash with the right firmware the reliability is amazing.

my buffalo whr g54s router has lasted me 4 years + (they probably have newer models now). and the tomato router gui is very mac-esque. just browse the web pages and forums and find a suitable low cost router.

http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato
 
Thanks for the suggestion but I'd rather not do that just yet. The stubbornness in me wants to figure out how to get the printer shared via USB through the default settings.
 
ohla313 said:
I'm looking to purchase a wireless router for my apartment and don't know which to go for. I want something that is both PC and Mac friendly as I will be using my MBP and my roommate will be using their Windows PC.

This router will be used with a cable modem and it would be cool to have one that can have a USB device plugged in, like a printer or hard drive for wireless printing or backups.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
i have 2 Airport Extremes to fully cover my house, i have never seen such amazing routers!! they r blazing fast an east to setup, but if u want to connect an HDD to it format it as FAT32 because it cannot read NTFS since ur going to be using it for both windows and mac.
 
liynus said:
google tomato router or dd-wrt routers. they are usually buffalo routers which you can flash with an open source firmware to give you advance router features for a budget price (QoS, some USB Print Servers, Drive Servers). it will require some technical skills but the features are unbeatable - and once you flash with the right firmware the reliability is amazing.

my buffalo whr g54s router has lasted me 4 years + (they probably have newer models now). and the tomato router gui is very mac-esque. just browse the web pages and forums and find a suitable low cost router.

http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato
Click to expand...

I looked up the router and it is not supported. I am going to return this router and find another kind. Unbelievable how annoying it is to setup the SharePort function.

Any other suggestion for a router that can allow my USB printer to be wireless besides the airport extreme?

-----

EDIT: Most likely will now sell the printer and look into a all in one networked printer. I have an old HP printer at home that has an ethernet jack so I just plug it into my old router and it can be wireless. Any printer suggestions? and simple router?
 
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Over the years, I have had mixed results with Linksys, D-Link and netgear (regular lockups and failures). I love my AEBS. I currently have 11 devices connecting to it and have had no issues in the last 4 years.

Wired -
1 PS3
1 Desktop
1 Xbox

Wireless -
2 Laptops
1 Desktops
2 iPhones
2 iPads
1 bridged Linksys router (dd-wrt) for second XBox

(admittedly, I do not have much experience with the latest competition)
 
I'm not saying this just because this is an Apple forum or anything like that, but you'll probably find that an AirPort Extreme is actually the best performing router on the market in terms of raw speed. Certainly isn't the most featureful, but it's very, very fast.

DD-WRT is great, as a former user, but make sure that you pick a router that has had the firmware available for a long time. DD-WRT builds for routers that have just come out is usually pretty terrible, and there are usually many bugs (as you could expect).

Value for money though, Linksys do some great routers, as do Netgear, but do a lot of reading. Both companies produce their range of crap routers, and they are mingled in with the rest of the models seamlessly.
 
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