- Joined
- Feb 28, 2011
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- 3,580
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Today I switched over to a Netgear Nighthawk X6 tri-band wireless router and I just about crapped my pants how much faster my wi-fi is. I am mostly wireless in the house and since we cut cable, we stream most of our TV through Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Sling TV, Tivo, and Vudu, so wireless speed is essential.
I have an Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Firestick, Networked Oppo Blu-ray DVD player, Networked Samsung TV, and numerous handheld devices to include two iPads. I was paying for 50+ mbps download speed, but in speed tests I was generally getting a third that over wi-fi which was how we mostly used our internet. Sure, I had a good router before, but our house is also pretty big too and I needed a range extender. However, this one is simply leaps and bounds above the rest.
The caveat here is that my wife is a physician radiologist who needs to have a high-powered computer workstation at home to draw images, so their IT people usually give a router 'preference' to use and oversee things. Read: which routers are easiest for them to manage and troubleshoot.
So I finally said screw it and told them I was getting something better that would serve my needs, and man was that the best $280 I spent. I also paid for the BestBuy Black Tie service agreement ($30 I think). I don't usually do service agreements, but an IT person who used to work at BestBuy recommended it one time. BestBuy has no way of testing a router that fails, so if you simply go in and tell them (before the two year service is up) that your router is failing and dropping service, they will give you a brand new (upgraded) model of the one you bought or give you store credit for the amount you originally paid. Keep that receipt.
A year ago I did this when my router started acting up and sure enough it worked. They gave me a $180 store credit to go buy a new router.
So I feel sort of like an idiot in that I lived with and paid a schmuck-ass cable company good coin for a service that my router couldn't deliver to me -- within my own house. Now I got things right, and I have my BestBuy insurance to keep it that way for the next four years.
Time to surf porn. Oh wait, I guess I need to watch Dinosaur Train with my 2-year-old instead
k.
I have an Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Firestick, Networked Oppo Blu-ray DVD player, Networked Samsung TV, and numerous handheld devices to include two iPads. I was paying for 50+ mbps download speed, but in speed tests I was generally getting a third that over wi-fi which was how we mostly used our internet. Sure, I had a good router before, but our house is also pretty big too and I needed a range extender. However, this one is simply leaps and bounds above the rest.
The caveat here is that my wife is a physician radiologist who needs to have a high-powered computer workstation at home to draw images, so their IT people usually give a router 'preference' to use and oversee things. Read: which routers are easiest for them to manage and troubleshoot.
So I finally said screw it and told them I was getting something better that would serve my needs, and man was that the best $280 I spent. I also paid for the BestBuy Black Tie service agreement ($30 I think). I don't usually do service agreements, but an IT person who used to work at BestBuy recommended it one time. BestBuy has no way of testing a router that fails, so if you simply go in and tell them (before the two year service is up) that your router is failing and dropping service, they will give you a brand new (upgraded) model of the one you bought or give you store credit for the amount you originally paid. Keep that receipt.
A year ago I did this when my router started acting up and sure enough it worked. They gave me a $180 store credit to go buy a new router.
So I feel sort of like an idiot in that I lived with and paid a schmuck-ass cable company good coin for a service that my router couldn't deliver to me -- within my own house. Now I got things right, and I have my BestBuy insurance to keep it that way for the next four years.
Time to surf porn. Oh wait, I guess I need to watch Dinosaur Train with my 2-year-old instead
k.
