With so many wireless router options available how do you know which one will best suit your needs? We recommend starting your search with these two models:
Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 and the Asus rt-ac66u.
We looked at four categories to bring you the facts for each wireless router, along with our overall product recommendation. The categories we analyzed are: speed, hardware, security and great features.
Speed
The Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 is an 802.11 ac dual band Gigabit wireless router. It features a Wi-Fi speed of 600 + 1300 mbps.
The Asus rt-ac66u is also an 802.11 dual band Gigabit wireless router. The Wi-Fi speed, however, is slightly less than the Netgear Nighthawk ac1900. The Wi-Fi speed is up to 450 Mbps + 1300 Mbps.
Hardware
The Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 and the Asus rt-ac66u both feature five Ethernet ports. There are four LAN ports and one WAN ports.
While both models have two USB ports, the speed of the USB ports differ. The Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 has one 3.0 USB port and one 2.0 USB port. The Asus rt-ac66u, however, has both USB ports set at 2.0.
Both the Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 and the Asus rt-ac66u have three external antennas. The Netgear Nighthawk ac1900’s antennas are fixed while the Asus rt-ac66u’s antennas are detachable.
Security
The Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 has quite the lineup for security features. This includes double firewall protection, Wi-Fi protected access through WPA, WPA2 and WEP. As an added bonus, it also has Denial-of-service (DoS) attack prevention.
The Asus rt-ac66u has slightly lower levels of security than the Netgear Nighthawk ac1900. It has a single firewall through SPI intrusion detection and DoS attack prevention.
Great Features
Aside from the security, speed and hardware, some of the main selling points happen in the additional great features that the wireless router model offers.
The Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 boasts these great features:
- Prioritized bandwidth
- NETGEAR genie
- Beamforming
- QoS
- Airtime fairness
- Automatic backup software for both Mac and PC
- Guest network access
- Sharing options
- DNLA
- ReadyCLOUD USB
- ReadySHARE USB
- ReadySHARE Vault
- ReadySHARE Printer
- iTunes compatible
- Time Machine
- Push ‘N’ Connect easy installation
- Parental controls
The Asus rt-ac66u features these great options:
- AiRader
- ASUSWRT dashboard
- AiCloud
- Quick installation
- NVIDIA GameStream ready
Overall Product Recommendation
While both of these models are fantastic wireless router options for your home, the overall product recommendation goes to the Netgear Nighthawk ac1900.
The Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 goes the extra step on added security with the double firewall and protected Wi-Fi access. You can never be too secure!
In addition to increased security, the speed is also increased with the Netgear Nighthawk ac1900. To compliment the additional speed, this model has great features like priorities bandwidth and airtime fairness to control the distribution of bandwidth to multiple devices.
And just for fun, the Netgear Nighthawk ac1900’s great sharing features make it easy to connect with others without having to be at a computer.
Other Wifi Router Comparisons
- The 5 Best Routers on the Market in 2016
- Tp-link tl-wr841n vs. Tp-link tl-wr740n: Which Tp-link router best suits your needs?
- Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 vs. Asus rt-ac68u: Which ac1900 wireless router is best?
- Netgear Nighthawk ac1900 vs. Asus rt-ac66u: Which wireless router will power your home?
- Netgear n750 vs. n600: So what’s the difference?
- Netgear n600 vs. n750: What are the differences?
- D-link ac3200 vs. Asus rt-ac3200: Battle of the ac3200’s
- Tp-link tl-wr842nd vs. Tp-link tl-wr841nd: So what’s the difference between the two?
- Netgear Nighthawk x6 ac3200 vs. Linksys wrt1900ac: Two great home-use wireless routers
- Cisco rv016 vs. rv042: Which Cisco wireless router is for you?
- Tp-link tl-wr841 vs. Netgear wnr614: Taking wireless routers to the next level
- Netgear nighthawk ac1900 vs. ac2350: Which Netgear Nighthawk model is best?
- Netgear ac1750 vs. Linksys ac2400: Two great wireless router options for mobile devices and gaming
- Netgear AC1750 vs. AC1900: Which Netgear router will take you to the ends of the Internet and back?
- Netgear N750 vs. Linksys EA3500: Dual band WiFi routers worth looking at