ASUS RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router + 500GB Western Digital Elements USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive $170 + Free Shipping

This is a great deal. In for one. I will likely sell the portable drive though.

Quote from jwadethack : Better hope you don't have an issue with the router or they'll replace it with a refurb. I found out by experience and won't buy an Asus product again.

I had to get a warranty replacement from them. The replacement looked like a brand new unit. Plastic stickies and all. But even if it is a refurb'ed unit, it's been working like a champ so no worries.

This is one hell of a router!

Quote from index : Agreed. I'm in need for a new router, since my Netgear WNR3500 (v1) is consistently disconnecting/restarting and wireless just stops working. However, I'm having a hard time justifying a puchasing a $150 router. The RT-N66U is a fantastic router, but it's just painful to spend this much on a router when a few generations ago you could get workhorses like the WRT54GL for sub-$100.

I really don't want to pay this much so anyone who has recommendations I'd really appreciate it.

I currently have a Linksys Wireless-G 2.4 ghz (54mps) broadband router. I think it's going because I keep having to unplug and re-plug it in several times a week. I need to know what to buy as well as does it matter that we have trouble watching movies thru our blu-ray player. They can't be viewed in hi def (with any company) and we can't make it thru a whole movie w/Amazon without getting an error saying to try back later.

The items I use this for is one desk top, wireless printer, a lap top and 2 iphones.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Anyone else notice that they are bundling a USB 3.0 hard drive with a router that only has USB 2.0?

Quote from AaronDotNET : Anyone else notice that they are bundling a USB 3.0 hard drive with a router that only has USB 2.0?

Not really all that odd with USB 3.0 being backwards compatible. Most drives are 3.0 now.

Quote from Fwantastic : I should have waited for this. I bought just the router for around $190. It's awesome

By this one and return the one you bought for $190. I do this all the time unless the store in question has price matching policies.

Quote from The Debater : Very tempted. Is this worth upgrading from the RT-N16?

I did. Had been running Tomato on the N16. Went with Asus firmware for the 66 and I am very pleased. Range is excellent. Have had it around 3 weeks or so and I am glad I made the switch. I also have a USB HDD attached to it using it for a NAS. HD 1080P media plays perfectly.

Been waiting for this router to go on sale. In for one.

Still kicking myself from selling my E4200v1 to my stepfather and thinking I could get by with a RT-N12B1. Won't make that mistake again.

I got this router on Black Friday for $129.99, so here are a few responses based on two months of experience:

Quote : what's up with these $200 priced routers, since when have we started feeding this trend to the manufacturers... half the price of a laptop/tablet but with a lot less functionality. In fact, most of us dont even use the stock firmware.

You can still get normals routers at familiar price points; routers like Asus RT-N66U/AC66U and the Cisco Linksys E4200v2 are really top of line routers with noticable improvements. Starting from the basics, the range and speed of the RT-N66U can be 2-3 times greater than a cheap $50 router. The stability is rock solid; in two months, I have not been dropped from the network a single time, nor have I had to reset the router for any reason. The N66U is "dual band", with separate functionality for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies (5 GHz has less interference from other household devices like microwave, but has sharper attenuation going through walls). More, it can set up multiple SSIDs on each frequency, including guest networks that are isolated from your home network sharepoints. One last point is that the N66U has two USB ports, and with a USB hard drive, you can effectively set up a NAS along with a network printer.

Check out http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/la...charts/bar for a quantitative comparison of routers. You'll see the RT-N66U near the top in many categories.

Quote : Tomato features I always use are the QOS and the Access Restrictions. This helps a lot with teenagers in the house

I've been a DD-WRT person up until this router, but the Asus firmware has improved to the point where the benefits from 3rd party firmware are not worth the effort. The Asus stock firmware does in fact have QOS and Access Restrictions, in addition to quite a lot of other features like a media/DLNA server, FTP access to attached storage, and a minimal cloud storage system. One worthwhile 3rd party alternative is Asuswrt-Merlin, which is an enhanced version of Asus's firmware maintained by some dude with too much free time.

Quote : Also currently using the RT-N16. Think I'm gonna hold off for a 802.11ac router.

There is actually an AC version of this router, selling for some $30 more. The RT-AC66U has mixed reviews on the firmware so far, and my impression is that the N66U is more popular. And regardless, there aren't too many devices that use AC yet anyways... does anybody have an idea what the timeline will be like for this transition?

Quote : Better hope you don't have an issue with the router or they'll replace it with a refurb. I found out by experience and won't buy an Asus product again.

To a scientist, statements like this are infuriating. You have essentially conducted an experiment with one trial and no control, and wildly extrapolated to an incorrect conclusion. Quality control isn't perfect, and customer service experiences will vary, but you cannot draw correct conclusions from your own singular experience without an idea of the "broader picture."" In layman's language, the statement "my product was defective" does not translate to "every product Asus manufactures is defective"; "I had a bad customer experience with Asus" does not mean that "everyone has a bad customer experience with Asus and also Asus is way worse than every other company." By running without a control sample, I refer to the earlier post that points out that issuing refurbs for warranty claims is a pretty common industry practice; your lack of knowledge about what other companies do has led to your incorrect belief that Asus alone is a deceptive, unworthy company.

Not bad, but fail to see how this justifies FP.

Unless you really want a 500gb external drive -- and does anyone really? -- I'd rather buy the "replacement" model for this, the AS-RTAC66U, for $178 right now at superbiiz. And that is not actually that good of a price for that, a better router than this.

Asus makes some great routers. I have rt n56u and it's a beast! Never dropped my connection and its always on.

Amazing Router! Been using for the past 4 months. Range is amazing.

Quote from blazah : Tomato features I always use are the QOS and the Access Restrictions. This helps a lot with teenagers in the house.

This router uses DD-WRT as its firmware and includes QOS, Access Restrictions, and much more without the hassle of needing to reflash the firmware and pray you don't brick your router. I've used DD-WRT for many years on a WRT-54GL then finally took the plunge on the RT-N65 a couple months ago as the bandwidth consumed in my house has increased drastically as the kids have gotten older and the old router just couldn't keep up. The rock solid stability and features available in DD-WRT were one of the main reasons I went with the router I did. Nothing at all against Tomato as it too is an extremely stable and feature packed firmware that is a far cry better than what is normally available on an out of box consumer grade router, but in this case the reflash risk/reward is not warranted IMHO.

I'm tired of my current router dropping out all the time. In for one.