Review on Linksys EA6200 AC900 Wi-Fi Wireless Dual-Band+ Router with Smart Wi-Fi App & Remote Network Control by Sam Kriegshauser

UPDATE (08/01/2016): Please read the full overview of my thoughts at the moment as well as a few details on disconnects (from my side, at least). My assessment will not apply to everyone, and my personal experience with this router so far is likely to be slightly different than yours. I rate it 5 out of 5 because it meets all the requirements for my own use case, but I have NOT tested all of the features as they fall outside of those requirements. I will update this review again if the situation changes. INITIAL REVIEW: Reviews for this router seem to be pretty mixed, so I was a little apprehensive, but since it retailed for $40 I figured I had nothing to lose. I should mention my use case for this router. I needed it for a townhouse already served by multiple routers and access points and bought it to fix the dead zone that the old WRT54G used to serve. After it was submitted I installed the February 2015 DD-WRT build on it and so far it's working pretty well. I should note that DD-WRT is not officially supported on this router, but some ASUS RT-AC56U builds of DD-WRT will work due to the fact that the two routers have similar internals. Do some homework before trying or you risk ruining your router. I haven't done any speed tests yet and don't intend to, because there aren't (yet) any special requirements. In fact, I'm not sure where the complaints about the range of this router are coming from. Of course there is nothing surprising in the range, but it is not bad either. The range of my device not only far exceeds that of the original WRT54G, but also easily penetrates the thick floor and walls of the building. It's actually overkill for it to work. Maybe there are quality control issues and I have a good machine, but I tend to think range complaints are grossly exaggerated. I should also mention that I put it on the table, which might help a bit. I will update this review if the situation changes. UPDATE 1 (2015-09-19): Didn't notice before, but it gets terribly hot compared to the WRT54G. I'm not sure if this is a DD-WRT issue or if the router naturally heats up, but based on other reviews and since it's much faster than the WRT54G, I'm willing to assume it's the latter. It's a little worrying, but I don't see any drop in performance, so the rating stays the same. I also had internet connection issues intermittently, maybe every 5-10 minutes. I was actually ready to deduct a few stars for this, but I did a little research first and after setting up the wireless channels and firewall settings it seems to be behaving normally now. In any case, connection problems could be completely independent of the router. I will update this review when the connection goes down again. USB printing is not working for me. As I don't have stock firmware this is not surprising and I won't change the rating for it. This router's range is also a bit uneven, as some people have pointed out. It seems that the signal from the front of the router is better than the sides. UPDATE 2 (2015-10-06): The connection still drops intermittently, but not enough to be really problematic. The 4 star rating remains and I think I can change the settings to fix this issue. UPDATE 3 (2015-11-25): Upon further evaluation, it turned out that it was indeed the WiFi driver on my computer that was dropping the connection. Thing might be better than I thought. However, I'm still not ready to upgrade it to 5*. UPDATE 4 (2016-01-08): I can almost confirm that the disconnect is the result of my wifi driver. For that price I'll bump it up to 5*. Please note that this rating change reflects how the router fits my personal use case and may not apply to you! It fulfills all the requirements I had for it - a DD-WRT router with 802.11ac support, cheap, stable and with reasonable range. However, I still don't know how a router works without DD-WRT, and I still don't know how well the USB port works (I've never needed it). Now that I know what's causing problems on my end, I can fix them.