ASUS AC3100 WiFi Router (RT-AC3100) - Dual Band Wireless Internet Router, Trend Micro Lifetime AiProtection, AiMesh Compatible, Parental Control, MU-MIMO

This router is one of the best routers that I have ever used. I came from an Asus RT-N56U router which worked great for a number of years in my apartment and then into my house. when I moved into the house, the coverage did not cover my entire house so I bought a second one for the other side which helped. After a while of inconsistent speeds I decided to switch routers. I decided to go with this router, the RT-AC88U.For starters, this router has excellent range. We have about a 2,500 sq.ft. house with a normal sized front and back yard. After initially setting the router up, I decided to go to every room of the house as well around the outside with my phone and see when the bars started to drop off. I can stand on every inch of my property including the basement and have just about a full signal strength with this router. I can still receive signal at my neighbors house (typical suburbia style houses). I was able to download music off of my hard drives on to my phones from the street out front of the house. I am impressed with the signal strength and the constancy that this thing has.File transfer speeds and connection speeds are no longer a problem now that I have this router. I have not experienced a slow day or any inconsistent connectivity speeds. We stream music, movies, TV shows, play games online, download music and movies, and use a VPN to work from home. There are 2 people in our house that both use the internet constantly and this router does not flinch. I no longer have to worry about slowing down the network when downloading things or streaming the game while someone is working from home. I am impressed by the consistent speed that this has over my previous routers that I have used.We have a 300Mbps download speed with a 20Mbps upload speed and we constantly get those speeds even during what would be considered peak usage hours in our area. We also had to update our modem as well but that is not a part of this review.The features on this router are similar to the features of the RT-N56U when logging into it. I feel that the GUI is easier to use and it feels smoother than in previous models (it could just be me). I am using a different DNS than what my ISP provides and limit my network to only use a certain IP range within a subnet and this router allows you to do that easily. I have not gone through every little thing on the router because it has been working so well but I do plan on going through and trying different options out in the coming months and plan on updating later on.The router does run a little warm to the touch but it is understandable with how powerful this thing is. In total, we have 3 smart TVs, 4 laptops, 3 cell phones. 2 desktops, 3 game consoles, 2 Amazon Echos, 1 Nest thermostat, 1 Roku, and 1 NAS all connected to this one router either wirelessly or wired (through an unmanaged switch on some) and this has outperformed any load that is put on it so far. This may be a bit overkill for some homes but is easily one of the best routers around if there are multiple people in the household that utilize a lot of bandwidth during a time when many people are trying to use the network. I certainly hope this router lasts quite a few years as I am totally happy with it and would recommend it if you are interested in tinkering with your network and/or have a normally heavy use on your network. So far, this is an excellent router and I hope to have an updated review a few months from now after more use and stress has been put on it.

So far so good. I just installed this router yesterday. I had been running an Asus RT-N66U "Darknight" 802.11n router ASUS RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router. Absolutely rock solid router. I had no complaints about it other than the (for my environment) weak 5GHz performance. Enter the RT-AC88U.Presumably if you're looking at this router you already have an inkling as to the features, so I won't bore you with yet another feature set review. I will, however, share the results of my before and after measurements throughout my house. I live in an 89 year old, 2500 square foot home. There isn't a single sheet of drywall to be found on the first and second floors. I partially finished the basement myself, so there's sheetrock there. Buy everywhere else it's lath and plaster, which is very difficult for WiFi to penetrate. I'm fortunate that the builders didn't use the metal screen that my old home had, as that may as well be a Faraday cage.The router (both old an new) is located dead center in my house, inside a wall on the first floor. Consequently, it is essentially in a lath and plaster box. But at least it's central. And out of sight. The old router, the RT-N66U, did an admirable job of piping a signal throughout the house on the 2.4 GHz band, but not so much on the 5GHz. Here are my test results.Using the Android app WiFi analyzer, the RT-N66U had a worst case connection of -60db in my master bedroom, and a best case of -45db in my living room. Using the Speedtest app, my download speeds ranged from 19-62 Mbps, depending on location. Switching over to the 5GHz band, WiFi analyzer showed -70db in the MB, and -45db in the LR. Download speeds ranged between a low of about 12Mbps, and a high of 95Mbps. Obviously the 5GHz band is faster but has bigger issues with penetration.Now on to the RT-AC88U...On the 2.4GHz band, I measured a connection of -50db in my master bedroom, and -40 in my living room. That's a 5-10db improvement throughout the house (I measured everywhere, just not boring you with too many details). My top download speed remained roughly the same, about 65Mbps. But the slowest was around 45Mbps. That's almost 4 times faster at the outer reaches. Not too shabby. But the real increases came in the 5GHz band. Master bedroom measured at -60db, and the living room came in at -50db. Again, a 5-10db increase throughout the whole house. How about speeds? HOLY MOLY! No matter where I went in my house, I measured roughly 130Mbps downloads! That is EXACTLY the same speed I connect via ethernet. Unbelievable!OK, I'll settle down. But I'm pretty flabbergasted at the increase. I expected much better 5GHz performance, but not THAT much. And I really wasn't expecting much of a signal boost on 2.4GHz, because there isn't really supposed to be any. But there it is. Oh, by the way, nobody else was home when I did those tests, so there was no possibility of interference. That said, the whole family is here now and the kid is playing Ark, and my DL speeds remain roughly the same. Just saying.I haven't had the opportunity to do any further testing, although I intend to. I see somebody tested the USB 3.0 transfer speeds and saw a performance boost when disabling the "Wireless - Professional-Reducing USB 3.0 interference". I intend to check that out myself, but I also intend to check the 2.4GHz performance when it's both enabled and disabled. USB 3.0 is known to cause interference on the 2.4 GHz band, so if you rely on that band, I suspect you may want to just settle for the slower USB 3.0 transfer speeds. But like I said, I intend to measure it soon, and I'll add my findings.I also should mention that I am not running 100% stock firmware. I run (on both old and new) a modified version of the Asus firmware called Merlin. It's basically the same as stock with a few minor tweaks and additions. It's very stable and the author frequently fixes bugs that Asus hasn't gotten around to yet. Additionally, Asus has implemented some of Merlins tweaks in to their own firmware, which is a heck of an endorsement. Highly recommend it. Just search for Asus Merlin. Lots of information on SmallNetBuilders,as well.Like I said, I just bought this the other day, so it doesn't have a track record with me yet. It seems a couple of people had issues right out of the box, and maybe some had issues after some time had passed. I'll certainly update the review if anything significant happens. Although I'm currently feeling pretty confident (knock on wood). So in the meantime...Official seal of approval applied.