Who's the new WRT on the block?

[Mike Lovell]

On 08/03/2012 12:12 PM, AJ ONeal wrote:
> Since the last time I bought a WRT54G-TM it's dropped from $60 to an
> average closer to $30.
>
> So who's the new kid on the block? Why is this beast no longer in demand?
>
> The last time I checked the only router that has anything near the specs
> that the WRT54G-TM has is the ASUS RT-N16 (which has about 2x the specs for
> $90).

i'd never heard of a wrt54g-tm before but a quick search seems to 
indicate its just a t-mobile branded wrt54gs v3. i've never used one of 
those before but it is an older model that i'm guessing isn't made 
anymore. the price drop might be trying to clear old stock. it is a 
rather old model that has already shared its secrets.

as for whats new, i can only really give info on the things that i have 
looked at and find interesting so here is my view of the landscape right 
now.

there are a variety of newer routers out there that have as good or much 
better specs. i haven't looked much at the low end myself cause i've 
wanting higher end features in my devices. the one device in what i 
consider the low end would be the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND. it has 8MB flash 
and 32MB ram with gigabit ethernet ports and a 400Mhz processor. it can 
currently be found on newegg for about $55.

on the higher end, there are a variety of routers based off of the 
atheros ar7161 series that are nice, some of which i've used myself. 
Netgear WNDR3700 (not v3), WNDR37AV, and WNDR3800 are good ones. the 
Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H also works well. i believe there's one from d-link 
that fits in this category as well. these usually have a 680Mhz 
processor with gigabit ethernet, dual band wireless, 16-32MB of flash, 
32-128MB of ram, and a usb port or two. these usually fit in the 
$80-$120 range.

then there are a lot of devices that aren't supported by third party 
firmwares that have wide varieties of features. there are a variety of 
newer broadcom based routers that are interesting. as far as i know, all 
of the new draft-802.11ac routers are broadcom based, such as the 
Netgear R6200 and R6300. there is also the new western digital (yes the 
hard drive company) routers that run ubicom chips including 1 with 7 
gigabit ports. it might be possible to get the third party firmwares on 
these with enough time and prodding of the manufacturers for source code.

thats just the tip of the iceberg. there are tons of good options out 
there and i could probably go on for a lot longer. hope that gives you a 
good start if you are looking for a new device.

mike