Share your recommendations for wireless N routers / access points

[smalltownguy]

Anyone have any recommendations for Wireless N access points? We have 2 laptops in the house that get regular use -- both have wireless N capability, though we've not upgraded our wireless access point yet.

I'm currently using a Linksys WRT-54G flashed with DD-WRT. Can anyone share any recommendations for my upgrade? Do I need to go dual band? What do I need?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

What are you trying to gain that ddwrt isn't already providing? Im just curious what sort of activities are making G not enough.

[smalltownguy]

So migrating from G to N won't give me any noticeable change in speed?

[Hoopz]

So migrating from G to N won't give me any noticeable change in speed?

It will give you a boost.  My speeds about doubled when downloading certain items when I moved from G to N.  I think cotmm68030's question was about what you are doing that you need more speed for. 

[smalltownguy]

Uploading / downloading pictures, running a feed reader, streaming Netflix movies, and your basic web browsing/email/ebay/craigslist stuff.

[drventure]

N definitely makes a difference. I'm running a DLINK DIR-825 and it works quite will with a variety of different wireless clients (TIVO, a laptop, an old 802.11 b adapter, a netgear G adapter, and a offbrand "@home" g adapter I have in my cab, and an N adapter).

I wanted to try ddwrt but the linksys I was planning on using got fried. Can't see buying another now.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I'm still a little fuzzy how it could improve browsing speeds and the like when I doubt anyone here has an internet connection faster than 54 megabits. I understand that's a theoretical max, and in practice it will be lower than that, but if your internet connection is just 20 megabits or something, that's still half of what G can provide.

[lilshawn]

agreed, internet speed is only a fraction of what even wireless "g" can provide. unless your transferring huge files (IE, whole video files not just streaming video) wirelessly between computers, you will not notice any performance gain.

your internet: 20 megabits per second (if your lucky)

your wireless "g" speed: 54 megabits per second... you can do the math.

[Ond]

The gain in speed from G to N is not so much for the Internet as for your LAN activities.  I got a real improvement for things like streaming media from my Media Server, file transfer etc to my laptop.  Some of those things will work OK using G but for bandwidth heavy activities AND portability, N is the way to go.

I like to watch DVD quality  files rather than higly compressed AVIs over my network from my NAS.  My G wireless router couldn't cope with this, video would stutter and break up, the upgrade to N fixed this nicely.

I use a Linksys Wireless-N Gigabit Router in combo with a Linksys Gigabit switch for the house LAN.

If a mix of wireless devices (N & G mixed mode) are connecting to your N router, the slowest device will set the speed for all wireless devices i.e. your N device's throughput will be degraded.