Recommend me a reliable budget wifi router for a normie

Networking Networking Hardware
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Asking for a friend. Needs to support 400mb speed and be as plug and play as possible.

2

400gbps? You sure?

Does it need to manage internet connections or is there a modem already?
What devices? 802.11n/ac? 6?
How many devices

Might help narrow down choices

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Would that be 400 Mbit DSL or Cable?

4

cable

5

ha, oops, mbs…

ac

One person in an apt, so probably max around 6 devices.

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Which country would that be? I’m not quite sure cable internet adheres to PAL or NTSC any more but there might be some differences anyway.

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USA. Not looking for a modem, just a consumer wifi router.

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I know you said budget but eBay is actually a good place to get stuff

Lately you can find the NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S on eBay for cheap. Not Uber cheap but cheap it’s got the most solid wireless performance of anything I know

Alternatively you can seek out used versions of good routers such as the rt AC68u

I recommend eBay but be careful. Analyze the details well lol.

Most AC routers will do just fine

Absolute best budget router is the TP-Link AC1900 and load openwrt on it . Everything you will ever need lol

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Way too complicated. This needs to be installed, configured (if needed) and maintained with no technical network knowledge whatsoever.

I agree, but for this. Want to keep risk to a minimum.

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Too expensive, looking for sub $100. $75 would be ideal.

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On the $100 nose, the Asus RT-AC66U, cheaper younger brother in the $75 department, the Asus AC1300. I mostly like it because they’ve been reliable for me with the RT-N65U & RT-N56U running as access points in my home for nearly 8 years.

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I frankly haven’t found anything in that price range to be worth it. I’ve had so many die within a year tops. I’ve had better luck with $200+ but even those seem to give out after a couple of years.

If you already have an old PC sitting around that can accept a couple of cheap NIC cards, you could then install pfSense for the router functionality and then purchase a prosumer level wireless access point for around $80.

Key thing here would be if you already have an old PC with dual NIC and a switch available… but the end result would be very much more robust and expandable for the future.

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Come on guys, this is not for me or someone with a technical background. I just need the least terrible consumer wifi router around $75. Process for setting it up should be:

  1. Call ISP to set modem to bridge mode
  2. Plug in router
  3. Set wifi name and password
  4. Done

Ideally it will self update and never need to be messed with again until it dies.

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I second Novasty’s suggestion.

The Asus RT-AC66U is a good option, and probably worth spending the extra $25 on. The 1300 is a okay option if you absolutely must come in at the $75 price point.

The web interface is consumer oriented with a basic setup wizard.

The stock firmware is based on OpenWRT with a custom interface, so it’s reasonably secure without having to flash anything. It will hold it’s value well because it has advanced options should they need them down the road.

Call ISP to set modem to bridge mode

I’m not even sure this step would be needed. As long as your modem has an ethernet port, it should already work. Just plug it into the LAN WAN port on the router.

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Can confirm one of the best consumer routers you can find AC wave 1

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Awesome. Thanks @Novasty I missed your suggestion initially. I will forward it along.

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