Linksys WRT1200AC Dual-Band and Wi-Fi Wireless Router with Gigabit and USB 3.0 Ports and eSATA

Very fast, handles 23 wireless devices with ease, easy to setup, and has enough range to cover a 1300sqrft house and most of the street.I bought this to replace a D-Link DIR-810L router, which was dropping wifi connections and slowed to a crawl. My 30Mbps internet dropped down to .2Mbps, and no amount of resetting/rebooting/re-flashing firmware would fix the problem. I even replaced my modem to make sure that it was not just a crappy Xfinity Modem doing this to me. After reading several positive reviews of this product, and already being a fan of Linksys from past experience, I ordered this lovely router on friday.I learned that amazon apparently delivers on sundays in my city, as my shiny new WRT1200AC was on my doorstep before noon on sunday. Seeing as how my internet had been borderline unusable for almost a week, to the point where I had to order this over my LTE, you can understand why that made my day.The router was shipped in a standard amazon box, with about 20 of those giant bubble wrap things covering every angle of the router packaging. So it's no surprise that the router box had no dents or scratches, in fact it looks like it was taken directly from the factory. The plastic wrap didn't have so much as a fingerprint on it.The setup was probably the easiest of any router I have every used. Just screw on the included antennas, reboot your modem, plug the router into the modem with the included ethernet cable, and plug in the power cord for the router. That's the only physical setup needed, then you just join the network that the router comes preset with, and you are already online. I changed my SSID and password simply for security (and so I wouldn't have to type a new password into 23 different devices). From the time I opened the box and started plugging cables in, to the time I had customized my own network settings and could browse the web was 27 minutes flat.I have six computers (two Macs, four PC's), five iPhones, three Xbox 360's, three Apple TV's, two iPad's, two iPod's, a Blu-ray player, and an Xbox One all running through wifi. Not one device has dropped connection, and I can game stream from my Xbox One to my MacBook Pro (running windows 10 through parallels) on the "Very High" quality setting with no noticeable lag. (across my house and in my garage) I can do LAN file transfers between my computers at 103MBps over wifi. (Megabytes, not megabits) System link with three Xbox 360's playing Halo and Call of Duty work flawlessly. (even while using four wireless controllers per console)The Linksys WRT1200AC handles 23 devices connected wirelessly with ease, I have no problems with anything now. The D-Link router had issues with multiple Xbox consoles running, and obviously keeping a solid connection to the internet.The design is also a plus, while still being a running joke in the family, as it looks like a baby spaceship to most of us.The only thing I can complain about is that it seems like the USB ports for hosting hard drive as a NAS do not work with enclosures. I tried plugging in an old hard drive attached to a SATA to USB enclosure just to see if the feature worked, and my router locked up until I unplugged it and rebooted the router. However, plugging in a portable Western Digital USB3 hard drive worked perfectly. So it may just be some driver incompatibility issue with my enclosure.Running since sunday morning with 23 devices continuously connected to it, it hasn't dropped once and is still cool to the touch.Make sure you have enough space for where you are putting this router though, it's much bigger than it looks. The Linksys WRT1200AC takes up the same size as an Xfinity Modem/Router combo on it's side.Overall, a fantastic router with a great design and extremely long range. I am once again able to take full advantage of my internet speeds and use every device in my house at once.

This review is for those looking to use OpenWRT instead of the Linksys Firmware.STOCK FIRMWARE:My only Linksys firmware comments are: 802.11ac works great with 500Mbit real world throughput, the default password is "admin", and you do not need to sign up for "Linksys Smart Wi-Fi": Below the login box, there's a tiny link that says "Local router login". Use that instead of the Smart Wi-Fi login.BACKGROUND:If you want a performant 802.11ac OpenWRT router, your choices are limited.You can get an Atheros MIPS based product, but the CPU performance is years out of date. The Broadcom options won't work with OpenWRT. You could go full x86. Or finally, there are some new ARM options with non-Broadcom chipsets, like this WRT1200AC with its Marvell chipset.OPENWRT:I installed OpenWRT Chaos Calmer 15.05rc3 (mvebu-armada-385-linksys-caiman) with no problems. Both 2.4ghz and 5ghz work great.PERFORMANCE:This device gives my entire home great connectivity, 5ghz 802.11ac has 400Mbit+ real world performance, down to 300Mbit at 25 feet. My 802.11n experience is 50MBit in 2.4ghz, 130-180MBit in 5ghz, real world performance.Sending 30Mbit of SQM QOS WAN->LAN uses 3% CPU. Contrast this to 50% on a device like the Archer C7.Using OpenVPN, 30Mbit traffic takes only 20% of the CPU. This traffic rate is not even achievable on a lower class device like the Archer C7.The WRT1200AC seems to draw about 7 watts of power. Using the USB 3.0 interface, I was able to pull about 700Mbit from an external disk.This device may "only" have a 2x2 802.11ac radio, but real world performance seemed to match the 3x3 radio in the Archer C7 (client was a MacBook Pro with 3x3 radio)BUILD QUALITY:The WRT1200AC is very well built with quality materials and has a solid feel. It has a heatsink on the SoC and a large area of copper under the wireless chips.BAD:The included ethernet cable is not twisted pair, it is flat.The included power supply seems strangely cheap. I suspect the power supply will fail long before the router does.OVERALL:A mighty impressive router, almost the dream: dual core ARM with 512MB RAM, dual wifi bands, many gigabit ports, USB 3.0, SATA, and it can run OpenWRT. You'll love it!