How to read router reviews and recommend links

Hi, I'm seeking advice on how to read router reviews. Basically I want to gen up on options that will provide the strongest signal around my house but comparing relative merits in this regard seems to have bypassed all the reviewers that I've tried so far. I do have an extender to provide a signal to the part of the house furthest from my router and that works fine but in another pars where my gen 1 Airport Express gave a strong signal my new Technicolor only gives a medium signal level. I get a stronger signal from my neighbours older Plusnet router (also a technicolor). I don't want to spend good money on something that will provide little benefit over what I have now neither do I want any more extenders around the house.

Any recommendations for respected/informative review sites would be welcome - particularly those that use language a non-geek can understand. Of course recommendations for modem/routers suitable for the UK market would be welcome too - but I'd still like to improve my knowledge of the market before purchase - just to be clear, signal strength is more important then speed.

Yes it can be confusing. I just looked thru 4 "Best Routers of 2017" articles...and none of them seemed to agree on 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. This probably tells me that among the "best" routers...there probably isn't a lot of difference. If there was a clear-cut "best router"...I think that there would be more agreement.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Yes it can be confusing. I just looked thru 4 "Best Routers of 2017" articles...and none of them seemed to agree on 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. This probably tells me that among the "best" routers...there probably isn't a lot of difference. If there was a clear-cut "best router"...I think that there would be more agreement.

- Nick

Click to expand...

My issue is that they dont really quantify anything - just list the specs. If they do go further they concentrate on speed.

If it helps. Here could be some ways to narrow things down a bit:

- Unless cost is no problem...you could narrow things down by price (nothing above a pre-determined max price).
- If WiFi performance is the most important feature...you could cross off the list the routers that have lots of ethernet ports (don't need more than the basic # of these if WiFi it most important).
- Could cross off dual band routers if you really don't need dual bands.

A place to start.

- Nick

Here's another thought. Depending on your needs...you could narrow things down by wifi protocol.

- Right now most routers come with WiFi protocol "ac". The "latest & greatest" WiFi protocol is "ad" (which is good for fast speeds at short distances). So you could get a router with "ac" & "ad" (there aren't a lot of these).
- There are two more upcoming WiFi protocol's "af" and "ah". Each of these has it's specific strengths & weakness's. But don't know exactly when these will be released (could possibily be up to 2 years)...also dont know if they will make it into consumer level routers.

* Nick