ASUS RT-N65R Dual-Band Wireless-N750 Gigabit Router

Pros: -Sharp looking -True dual-band capability -Affordable price after rebate -Gigabit LAN -Plays nice with other Asus networking devices -Reasonable wireless range for internal antennas -USB 3.0 (not used at the time of this review) -AWESOME Web GUI, many options for even the average IT guy or power user at home.

Cons: -Wobbly stand when other patch cords are plugged in, almost needs to be laid down flat. -90 day warranty on refurb units, scares me a little but so far so good. -Does not come with a patch cord.

Overall Review: Refurbished anything usually scares me away from buying it but after the rebate the price point was just sweet enough of a deal to buy as an Access Point and 4-port switch. My main router, an Asus RT-AC66R, is the brains of my home network. I have a multi-media area/living room in a different part of the house roughly ~60 linear feet away and on a different floor than the RT-AC66R so I used this RT-N65R as a switch and access point for this media heavy corner of the house. A single cat5e cable runs from the main router to this RT-N65R. If you use this RT-N65R as a switch, DO NOT PLUG ANYTHING INTO THE WAN PORT. That port is only for your Comcast/Charter/Time Warner/FIOS...ect modem connecting to to the web. That means of the 4 ports available, use one coming from your other router. The other 3 ports I have plugged into the PS3, HTPC and A/V receiver's LAN port (even though the A/V receiver is also wireless I try to hardwire everything I can). Setting this RT-N65R took about an hour of my time, and roughly 8 hours of idle time to work the bugs out of the system talking between the RT-AC66R and this router. Again, I'm using this RT-N65R as an Access Point and 4-port switch. Upon unboxing, I had to find a patch cord as this unit did not come with one, and I plugged my Dell laptop directly into one of the 4 ports on this RT-N65R. I disabled wireless on the laptop and talked with the router directly via patch cord, by browsing to the stock 192.168.1.1 which most routers are defaulted to. I went into the Asus Web GUI, set a static IP address within my network's IP range. Upon rebooting, I logged back into it using the new IP address and began changing the settings to suit my network. The ability to change the mode to AP mode instead of Router mode, is in the administrator system settings. I made sure to write down the MAC address of the router and went back into the RT-AC66R's main page to tell it that I wanted to use the RT-N65R as an AP, and added it's MAC address to the RT-AC66R list. After having both router's configuration screens open side by side for an hour making changes one at a time, everything was set as I wanted. Note: For about 2 hours my network was on the fritz while the two routers figured each other out. I started at the source and worked down the line...I powered down all network devices first, and powered up the RT-AC66R first (main router). Once it rebooted, I then powered on the RT-N65R. After a few speed tests, all was back to normal and I'm flying with awesome wireless coverage throughout the house, ping times within my intranet are <3ms, wired and wireless devices are receiving the full 50/25 of FIOS I pay for, WOL features all seem to be working and I have 300Mb/sec throughput on both 2.4 and 5ghz bands anywhere in the house. The RT-AC66R and RT-N65R work brilliantly together. In my humble opinion, this is a better buy than the EA-N66 Asus AP, which I also own. Purchase the RT-N65 instead of the

Pros: *Great connectivity *Amazing speeds *Beautiful asthetics *Fantastic User Interface - even if you use the Asus software My roommate was moving out and taking his router with him (Netgear N300), so I got my own. I noticed an increase of speeds to my PC by roughly 5-10mbps (note: faster router does not always mean faster internet speeds), and movies from netflix to the xbox no longer had buffering issues. Much stronger signal as well - but not an issue for a two bedroom apartment.

Cons: The biggest con I noticed is the device was starting to drop connection with the service provider, but only with a hard drive installed on the USB ports. Updated the firmware - no fix. So I think this is just accepted as a spotty feature by the public for the model. Have not tried a custom firmware but that could be a work-around. Also not wall mountable - but the reception is fine for me so it's not a big deal. No ethernet cable or instructions or CD on my refurb, but really not a problem for an IT guy. However If you are new to networking you may not want to pick up the refurbished model.

Overall Review: So basically what this router does well is exactly what it should do well with - connect my devices with a solid and fast connection. In that respect I have no issues, and saw a nice increase in speed compared to my old basic unit. That being said I really, really wanted to play around more with network storage - just put in a 32gb USB 3.0 flash drive for some major files and movies - but I determined that it was dropping the connection then to the modem/ISP. My guess would be heat related as to why - but that is just a guess, the little sucker does get pretty hot.

Pros: Fast good range guest network USB ports (using only 2.0 devices though)

Cons: Can't use USB 3.0 devices, but 2.0 works great

Overall Review: This little router is awesome and a hidden jewel. ASUS did not appriciate that USB 3.0 devices can interfere with 2.4 Ghz if not proporly shielded. Several buyers had major 2.4 Ghz issues when they hooked up USB 3.0 devices. The RT-N65U got a lot of bad ratings for this. Because of all the bad ratings, this baby became ASUS's Edsel. As long as you only use USB 2.0 devices, it works wonderfully and I have an ASUS RT-56U. This has better range than the 56U and guest networks that the 56U lacks. At $19.95 after rebate, they are giving this this away. I'm running a Canon printer and a USB 2.0 SD card as my network drive (SAMBA). This this works for me as well as my RT-56U and has the guest networks I needed the 56U to have.

Pros: Works right out of box. Plug in via ethernet and opening browser immediately takes you to 192.168.1.1 to begin setup. Got this on sale with a MIR and the price cannot be beaten for a dual band N router.

Cons: More of a nitpick that majority of people wouldnt notice. The router is setup on my computer desk and when sending/receiving data, there's a very quiet high pitched switching sound comparable to the sound you hear from HDD activity. If you have any sort of background noise, even light ambient stuff, you cannot hear it.

Overall Review: Got this router primarily because my old linksys had reached the end of it's life and I'm waiting for AC to come down in price. Considering my internet speeds are nowhere near gigabit yet and I don't do much network file transfer, 300+450MBps is just fine.

Pros: Cheap.

Cons: 5 GHz does not work. All devices that allow auto switching between 2.4 and 5 GHz always have unstable connection. Older devices that use 2.4 GHz only have no problem. So I changed settings of all my devices to connect using only 2.4 GHz and then the connectivity issues disappeared. Still, if the product says it supports dual band then I expect both to work concurrently. I bought mine about 40 days ago. Connectivity issues was there from day 1 but figured out about faulty 5GHz issue only recently.

Pros: This router is very fast, works great right out of the box, even the usb is great ,hooky up a jump drive and everyone else can use it

Cons: none

Pros: fast, nice

Cons: usb 3.0 is bad for 2.4 wifi

Pros: When working it was fine.

Cons: After about 6 weeks my unit would only boot rarely and if it did boot it would lock up within about 30 minutes. RMA'd the unit and was just told it could not be fixed. They offered me an AC52U as a replacement. What an insult. Offer me a unit that only has 10/100 ports and USB 2.0. I declined the offer, so we will see where it goes from here, but I think I am done with ASUS after this experience.