I’ve posted about my Linksys E4200 router that has committed a quick and flawless death, however, here is the new monster that is powering my internetz now. It’s a stealthy looking high end router from ASUS, model RT-AC87U. It’s an AC standard router with one of the most powerful hardware you can find anywhere. Main processor is an ARM Cortex A9 dual core running at 1,2GHz, assisted with several additional co-processors to provide absolutely amazing throughput (I’m not going to write about that since others have done it already). All I can say is that range is even better than with Linksys E4200 and range is what’s slightly more important for my conditions over just brutal throughput, though I don’t mind it. It also comes with 2x USB ports, one is 2.0 (in the back) and another 3.0 (front face). All ports (LAN and USB) are well spaced so you’ll never have any problems even with the most bulky connectors. Router has 4 antennas that look really nice for a change and they aren’t really annoying or ugly. Oh and it comes with LED button that allows you to turn off all front LED lights if they happen to bother you at night. How cool is that!
And the main reason I love it so much is because it’s probably the first router that actually and seriously doesn’t have a shitty firmware. In the past, it was mandatory to use 3rd party firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato/TomatoRAF in order to get it to a decent stability and functionality level, but ASUS has outdone themselves in this regard. The firmware is incredibly stable, looks freaking amazing and polished so it is really easy to use and packs some really awesome features and functions. And even comes with auto update check. So you don’t have to dig up on your own whether you have the latest version or not. Router does that by itself (just checks, it doesn’t auto install it, you still have to confirm it by yourself).
One of many features that I love and is adaptive QoS. I’ve never seen it be so easy to use and actually so powerful. You just have to drag different categories above or below to re-organize their priority. For example, I value gaming and video playback with high priority so I dragged them higher. Like this…
This way I can download stuff and still get decent ping in games or play games and someone else watching videos without any problems. It’s really QoS that can be managed by anyone. Granted, the manual mode is not as powerful (and takes really long to switch mode, since it has to reboot router for that) as the one found in TomatoRAF, mostly because it completely lacks Layer7 filtering which can be really useful for stuff where you don’t want to define exact ports, but you want a broad packet sorting. I really miss that with ASUS and I really hope they’ll add it. And QoS packet sorting pie chart graphs from TomatoRAF. While Adaptive QoS works great, it’s still not perfect and with Layer7 filtering, pie chart graphs and detailed analysis of connection I was able to control QoS to such an extent where I could run loads of stuff altogether and I’d not get any lag anywhere. I could literally run P2P, watch Youtube, browse the web and play games on the same network and not cripple any of it. Sure total bandwidth is shared, there is no way coming around that, other than buying faster connection, but I could work fully with what I had. If ASUS can copy that segment of TomatoRAF and incorporate it into their firmware, it would be a total perfection. But still, TomatoRAF author is working on support for ASUS RT-AC87U, so even if ASUS won’t add all this, you’ll still have an option in the future if QoS will be of higher importance than other ASUS exclusive goodies. Speaking of which…
ASUS also provides router level anti-phishing and anti-malware protection with collaboration with Trend Micro, a world well known security solutions provider…
It’s certainly a really nice addition to protect your home network with extra layer that works for any device connected to it and until it blocks something, you don’t even know it’s there. Or the USB Application section which features many goodies from setting up your own FTP server, using 3G/4G modem and turn router into a wireless wireless access point. No, that wasn’t a typo, you can use an USB modem and the router and you can create your own wireless access point anywhere you can take the router with you. Or network a printer, DLNA streaming, Apple’s Time Machine and other goodies like Download Master. ASUS’s unique utility that gives you ability to plug USB drive or USB HDD to your router and download stuff through Bittorrent, eMule or HTTP without the need for your computer to be online. It’s very basic tool, but can come really handy sometimes. I mean, router is consuming WAY less power than computers do, so you can download stuff and save power at the same time.
When you finish downloading stuff, you can directly share the content further within your local network using DLNA or ASUS AiCloud. ASUS even goes so far to provide you your own personalized DDNS address. It has ASUS domain in it, but hell, it’s FREE. So, you can easily access your HDD mounted on router from anywhere in the world as well. And why I love all of it so much is that everything is so easy to use. No fiddling with hard to understand features, everything is driven through well made GUI.
I admit it, while this router is among the most expensive routers in existence at around 250€, the price can be quite easily justified. It is a sleek looking device that is packed with features and is still very easy to use. It’s almost a Mercedes of routers if I think about it. All about luxury, premium feel and performance. That’s how this router feels even though you can’t really take it for a road trip. Well, actually, with an inverter (or exact car power adapter) and 3G/4G modem you can turn your car into a mobile wireless hotspot lol 😀 So you can take it for a road trip as well 😀
If you feel 250€ is simply too much for a router, there are cheaper alternatives like RT-N66 or RT-N68 that operate on N standard and are slightly less powerful hardware wise, but they feature many extra goodies that are found on RT-AC87. It was just one of those impulsive purchases yet again, where I simply shelled out as much money as needed and at the end of the day, I can easily and safely say it was a good purchase with no regrets what so ever. If you want an excellent router, look no further. ASUS RT-AC87U is the absolute answer.
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