Hello! I recently moved into a new shared house, that is, 8 or 9 people living in one place. I'm needing to buy a wireless router for the house to share, but I have no experience with routers. I don't need something super heavy duty. All I need is to be able to access the net, would like some nice DL speeds. I'm sure theres others that may do some light gaming or something. Anyways, what should I look for in a router?

Thats one of the one's I was checking out as I was trying to learn a bit of info from google.  Next question, is there enough bang for the buck with the product you posted? I did a little looking around at office depot, estbuy, and several other places, and found that some of the N models sold for around $80. Are these models just crap I should skip over? or look into it?

I heard they finally standardized the N spec, for a long time it was draft-n.    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190&cm_re=linksys_router-_-33-124-190-_-Product

 

This is the one that I have, absolutely love it.  Easy to use.  Its pretty much plug and play.  I had to do very little to get it setup.  Probably just want to setup a password so people cant "steal" your internet.

 

There's also a way to give priority to any of the wired ports, so if you had a gaming computer you would want to set that up so anyone else on the network won't cause you lag.  I think you can do that for a specific wireless computer as well.  The model above, same as what Hagar posted, has a lot of great reviews.  I researched some before buying it for my house, no regrets, wouldn't ever buy anything different even if it failed tomorrow.

Edited by Ice Man - June 04 2010 at 3:14am

Yea Gadge, make sure you lock it down... and change the Admin name and password!  The default Admin name frequently  is "admin" and the default password is "password".  No sh*t.  Change them!  Amazing how many home routers out there are wide open because of this.  Also, the most secure encryption protocol allows you to use an expression, something like up to 64 characters.  Pick something complicated... then it used 128 bit encryption and you are locked down.  A lot of people use their phone number - not a good idea.

My neighbor across the street had his network wide open.  I finally printed out on his printer a letter from me suggesting he finally do something about it.  I told him he had x number of photos in directory xyz to show that I was in his network.  A minute later he was knocking on my door!

I love that priority to a particular port for gaming Ice mentioned.  That might make me upgrade right there!

Yeah, I wouldn't invest a dime in that guys knowledge.  Linksys is owned by Cisco.  People will experience problems with all sorts of equipment regardless of who manufactured it.  You could by 3 different routers and not have a problem with either, or have a problem with all three.  Its a chance you take when purchasing electronics. 

good advice guys, and yea, 99% of worstbuy or any big box store guys know very little.