The 802.11ac WiFi standard has been around for almost two years, but it hasn’t been imperative to upgrade yet since a lot of gadgets can’t take advantage of 1.3 Gbps speed of the newest WiFi standard. However, as you buy new gadgets, whether it’s a new phone or a beast of a PC, you’ll likely get something that can make use of the new WiFi standard.
Most 802.11ac routers are more than $150, but Amazon has a well-reviewed WiFi box for $110, $70 off its standard price. The Buffalo Air Station Extreme can push through 1.9Gbps of data (1300Mbps on the 5GHz band or 600Mbps on the 2.5GHz band) and has a 1GHz processor built in to handle plenty of users and advanced router shenanigans (like VPNs and encryption).
The Buffalo router also has all the requisite ports, including four ethernet-out lines and two USB ports for setting up wireless printers or networked storage. While it’s not as pretty as Google’s new router, it does have a few nice hardware touches like a physical on-off switch to restart the router when something goes wrong and an eject button that lets you unplug drives without having to log into your router’s management software.
Speaking of management software, Buffalo seems to do a good job making it easy to set up. It even has touch-friendly setup, so if you ditched you PCs for an iPad Pro (or maybe just an iPad right now) you can still set up your new router.
The Buffalo Air Station Extreme is $110 from Amazon right now, which is the lowest it’s ever been. If your router’s getting old and you’re thinking about upgrading, or you just want to take advantage of that 802.11ac antenna on your iPhone 6s, this is a great option at a pretty good price.
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