Is there a significant difference in wireless routers?

For home use – not office use – the $15.99 router at WalMart is just as good and effecgtive as the $250 one at the computer store.

Nowadays, all you need (home use) is 802.11 b, g, and n support. They all come with basic security support and they all are fairly easy to set up.

The only time to go more expensive is if you do serious game playing.

An Amazon search of “wireless router best” in electronics department sorted by “highest customer reviews” turns up this page. The equally trustworthy (I hope lol) CNet has a “best 5 wireless routers” page here.

I’d say at a minimum you want it to support 802.11bgn, both 2.4 and 5 GHz (gigahertz) bands. I think the trade-off with 5ghz is higher bandwidth for shorter range. Many microwave ovens, meanwhile, work at the older 2.4ghz causing “meal time perturbations of the noise floor”ref. – just when you want to reheat pizza during a long download session! Not to mention cordless phones & other stuff sharing that crowded band.

Before you buy a wireless router, verify its firmware can be updated at dd-wrt. I have two Linksys routers (different models); One can be updated and the other cannot.

= @city_data_forum the original poster by his own admission is unlikely to do his own ddwrt hacking. he describes himself as a newbie. so why add requirement s that he will not understand and never use?

Yes, there is. In that, I have to disagree with @elbanditoroso unless your needs are almost basic enough to be met by two tin cans and a piece of string, and you don’t mind if that string snaps next week.

Your cheaper routers may not have 802.11n support, but that won’t matter to most people since even 802.11g is far faster than your internet connection; speed isn’t really the issue. However, your better routers have better signal quality, which leads to more reliable reception and longer range. As I live in a brick building, that is pretty important to me if I want to use my wifi when I am out on the porch.

For your purposes, pretty much and name brand router will work. Basically, so long as it is made by Netgear, Linksys, or D-link, it should be more than good enough. The reason I disagreed with @elbanditoroso is because of my distrust of Brand X stuff. Fortunately, a little shopping around can find you something decent for fairly cheap. For instance, Amazon has my router for $40; full-featured enough for me without being so complex that you need a BS in CompSci to configure, and not too pricey either.

I found that some routers had better range than others, which matters if you have a big house or more than one floor.

802.11n has better range by its nature, so I would go with that. Probably any 802.11n will be good.

Amazon says it is out of stock of Jerv’s RangeMax N150, but Newegg has it re-certified (AKA returns they cannot sell as new) for $24.99.

For electronics without moving parts, I think used/refurbished/re-certified items are just fine.

Are you sure you need to buy one? If you access the Internet via cable (e.g., Comcast) or DSL (e.g., AT&T), you are given a router as part of the package. I, too, had thought I needed a wireless router in order to connect to the Internet wirelessly with my laptop. Turned out, the wireless router supplied by Comcast supports all 3 standards (B, G and N) and is made by Netgear, one of the brand names mentioned by @jerv. All you need is a wireless card for your laptop if it doesn’t have one. Laptops nowadays come with these already built in. The router, I should mention, works great. I can take my laptop even out to my yard and it works.

I should add that once I connected my printer to the router (supplied by Comcast), I can print wirelessly, too, from anywhere in my house, and even from out in the yard.

@2davidc8 Not all ISPs do that though. Maybe it’s because I signed up a long time ago, but my DSL modem is only a modem. In fact, they tried to send me a new all-in-one when I moved, but the new one was b/g-only, so I stuck with the old one and my (more configurable and more user-friendly) Netgear. The all-in-one modem/router thing is fairly recent and not universal. Still, it is good to check.

As for a laptop needing a wireless card, I have seen many pretty old laptops that already have internal ones. Assuming that the OP has a laptop more recent than a 486, that is probably not an issue.