Newer Routers ≠ Better Routers

I’ve had a bunch of online shopping sprees lately. One of these is a new router (well, new to me, the TP-Link Archer A9 has been around for a while now) and my experience in researching routers went longer than expected.

I’ll probably do a longer write-up / review for this, but for the most part, a newer router isn’t necessarily the better or best option.

It’s not just a matter of pricing or value either. Sometimes, an older model might be more equipped for better performance but with fewer protocol support or newer, fancy features. And sometimes, it’s not worth it to go for the newer, fancy features if half or most of your devices don’t even support the fancy stuff yet.

Maybe it’s great for future-proofing, but sometimes, future-proofing for an overpriced router that operates at an average capacity isn’t worth it compared to one that’s focused for today’s needs with better capacity that manages to be cheaper because it doesn’t have the latest bells and whistles yet.

So yeah, my word of advice: do your research, compare and contrast. Look for benchmarks and performance, especially when multiple devices are concerned and bandwidth-hungry apps are involved.

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