In this review, I will be comparing four different routers on their performance, price, speed, ease of setup and build quality. The four competing routers are the Netgear WNDR3700v2, the Netgear WGR614v9, the D-Link DIR-825 and the TP-Link TP-WR1043NDv1.8. Now the main purpose of this test was because my house was in need of a new router and because I could not connect to the internet from the family room which is a few rooms away from the router. So I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and review some of the routers I was buying.
For the test, I wanted to get a whole range of routers not just the high end ones. I bought two high end routers, one medium end router and also tested the cheap router I bought over five years ago. In the high end category, we have the Netgear WNDR3700v2 which retails for $130 and was number three on the top ten router list. Next we have the D-Link DIR-825 which retails for $110 and was number four on the top ten router list. Going down in price range to the medium category we have the TP-Link TP-WR1043NDv1.8 which retails for $70. Now this router brand is not very popular but does have comparable specs which is why I added it to the test. Finally we have the five year old Netgear WGR614V9 which retails for a mere $30. Going by the prices we would assume that the Netgear WNDR3700v2 is the best but as I will illustrate later, it is far from it.
To test these routers I ran speedtest.net and used both inSSIDer 2.0 and Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector to check the network and signal strength. All of these programs are free and can help a great deal in testing and checking your wireless network specifications. For the test computers I used my Asus G73SW laptop and my Droid X.
Now the whole point of the test was to find the best router for range, ease of use, and power. So I set up all the routers in the room that they would normally be in and had my laptop on hand so that I could move around the house testing the network.
So to start off with, I set up the routers one at a time and checked to make sure they all worked before I went and tested them all. For the Netgear WNDR3700v2, it took under five minutes to get it all set up and updated. The Netgear WGR614v9 and the D-Link came in second taking about 10 minutes to fully set up. Now the TP-Link was by far the worst of the four and took over 15 minutes to setup and I had to restart the setup multiple times due to a bad setup.
After all the routers were setup I then opened up the two wifi programs and began scanning.
This screenshot from inSSIDer shows all the routers turned on and broadcasting. Now because the three newer routers are dual band B/G/N routers they should have a slightly weaker signal than the B/G, five year old, Netgear router. This is the case for the TP-Link but the two "high end" routers are significantly lower in signal strength than the old Netgear. I then moved up to the family room to test the signal strength/range of the routers because this room is the know "dead zone". After refreshing both Xirrus and inSSIDer, I found that only the dual band N routers showed up and that the old Netgear router was non-existent.
As you can see by the graph in the screenshot of Xirrus, the WGR614v9 and the TP-Link are very strong at first but then drop off almost immediately after I leave the room. The D-Link and WNDR3700v2, however, slowly decrease in signal strength and then reach the levels of the WGR614v9 and the D-Link. But the WNDR3700v2 does stay a bit higher than the rest of the routers and has a pretty level signal. So I turned off all the other routers and began to test the routers one by one.
Because the WNDR3700v2 had the best signal when in the family room, that was the one that I chose to test. In the screen shot below, we see that the two programs can pick up the signal but that it is in the 75 range (the lower the number the better). I then used the built in connection tester in Xirrus and tested the network. As you can see, the results were what I expected from a router that far away and with that kind of signal.
I then tested the WGR614v9, the TP-Link and the D-Link routers. Out of the three, only the D-Link passed which was very interesting because it was also in the 75 range and had a choppy signal.
So I then tested the network using Pingtest.Net. The results were far from excellent but still mediocre for the signal strength/quality of the router.
As a final test I opened up Firefox and tried to connect to google.com which failed. I re-ran the connection test which then came back as all fails.
At this point I realized that If I wanted to get internet in the family room, I would need to get a repeater/range extender, or a new antenna. So I began to look around for antennas on both the internet and in local electronics stores. Since the WNDR3700v2 and the D-Link placed best out of the four routers I chose, I looked for viable antenna options for those models. Because the WNDR3700v2 has internal antennas, it made more sense to choose the D-Link because of the external antennas.
After some time, I finally found a decent $30 7db antenna at a local electronics store and brought that back home for testing. With this new antenna I found that the signal jumped from 48ish to 40. Now this is a significant improvement from the old signal strength but I had expected more since the antenna was so strong and because I was so close to the router. I then realized that I had not configured the router. When I went into the configuration module, I found that the router was broadcasting both 5ghz and 2.4 and that it was on channel 1, which is the default channel for most routers. So I turned off 5ghz broadcasting which left only the 2.4ghz N and switched over from B/G/N broadcasting to just G. Using just G allowed for fewer conflicting frequencies and allowed the router to focus on just one band as opposed to trying to broadcast all three. I then switched from channel 1 to channel 7 and saw a significant jump in signal strength (from 40 to 25).
Here is the router originally.
After attaching the antenna.
And after changing the channel and band.
I then moved back to the family room and low and behold! INTERNET!!!!
And to wrap up heres the main info on all the routers.
Netgear WNDR3700v2
Speed:
300mbps n 2.4ghz/300mbps n 5ghz
Setup:
Very easy. Under five minutes to get it up and running.
Build
Quality: Sleek glossy black plastic. Very nice looking. Stealth. High quality
plastic
Price:
MSBR $130
Netgear WGR614v9
Speed:
54mbps g 2.4ghz
Setup:
Easy. Takes about 10 minutes
Build
Quality: High quality plastic, matte white color with clear edge. Small
Price:
MSBR $30
D-Link DIR-825
Speed: 300mbps
n 2.4ghz/300mbps n 5ghz
Setup:
Easy. Takes about 10 minutes
Build
Quality: Glossy white. High quality plastic. Black band around edge. Very
durable
Price:
MSBR $110
TP-Link TP-WR1043NDv1.8
Speed:
300mbps n 2.4ghz Couldn’t even connect to the internet.
Setup:
Medium. I had to restart a couple of steps. Took about 15 minutes
Build
Quality: Cheap plastic. Copies dlink outer black ring.
Price:
MSBR $70
So overall I would definitely purchase the D-Link DIR-825 router because of its customizability, specifications, price and build quality and would also strongly recommend purchasing a higher strength antenna if you face signal problems.
Well I hope you enjoyed this lengthy post and I will also be uploading a few more projects very soon!
