ASUS AC2600 WiFi Router (Blue Cave)

Pros: +Consistent data processing and movement in the network +Takes up HALF the space of most normal routers and no more falling antennas!! +Great Aesthetics +Awesome ASUS GUI +Easy setup for the beginner +Advanced settings for pros +Much more powerful signal than the ASUS AC2400 +Cool and adjustable LED lighting For those of you that have issues with routers dying, I suggest you buy a laptop cooling pad and place the router on one of those. Heat buildup due to lack of airflow is the number one enemy of electronics. I purchased this Router from another place, but I wanted to spread my great experience about this router to everyone else because it has no reviews. ASUS you should really do more with the NEWEGGSPERT program and work on your customer service RMA process for customers. My AC2400 was about 2.5 years old and there have been a lot of advances with routers since then. I was having lots of issues with that router being able to give me consistent and high data flows on my network and I had a feeling it was either starting to fail or it was a limitation of the chips in the router. So, I took a chance and bought this router and it really is a great bargain!! You are getting a 3-core Intel processor that seems to really be able to handle the workloads. The 3rd core is supposed to be dedicated to VoIP use. Please note that The ASUS ROG 5400 Has a 4-core Intel, but all other ASUS routers use the Broadcom chips. This is Intel’s attempt to get into the market, and from what I can see they have done a really good job. ASUS routers hands down have THE BEST GUI and ease of use over ANY other router I have ever used. As a Neweggspert I have tested a lot of routers! The mouse over help is a good quick reference, but many of the people who put poor reviews simply do not know what they are doing. Immediately upon changing over to this router, I notice a 15dbm gain in power! Which equates to over 10x the signal strength. Remember though we are talking a wireless signal that is prone to interference and we are in the milliwatt range. Real world performance for this router placed in a central location in my basement game me great coverage throughout my 1500 square foot house. Currently, this router does NOT include ASUS AiMesh networking, but it will be included in a future update. During network saturation testing, I was able to fully use my 65 Gb/s from the internet (2xUHD Netflix) and MAX out my plex server to every device I own plus another 3 local computer streams. It handled everything perfectly, with zero issues. My plex server can put out about 7 converted streams and I only saturated the 5ghz wireless about 50%. That is AWESOME! I was able to set my Plex server to High quality instead of speed and now my wireless video is as good as my wired video, I was never able to do that on my ASUS 2400. Video load times were minimal and kept under 5 seconds, even ff worked perfectly!!Computer to computer and internet downloads were able to max out with rock solid consistency. Cons: Cons -Power dongle is a 90 Deg angle on router connection and can turn off the power if you move the router. -Currently does not support ASUS AI Mesh networking -No manual included in the box, just quick setup -ASUS and the whole computer industry need to seriously work on customer service in this internet age, especially RMA service. You should all look at Motorola, their service system is EXEMPLARY! That is really about all there is for the cons. Other Thoughts: ASUS GREAT job on this router, it looks great and works even better and it is at the right price! We need more of these types of routers! I hate all the routers with more than 4 antennas and really the ONLY advantage to antennas is to be able to move them around for a bit more precise control of directing the signal, but that is the ONLY benefit to them, there is very little to GAIN by having them!! This router is perfect for the normal sized home, and once AI Mesh is incorporated into it then it will be the perfect base station for the extenders. For the price, it is really a great deal, most other routers are more expensive and have terrible GUI’s, plus many other brands of routers will disable your network with a loss of internet! ASUS keeps on cruising! UPDATE on AI MESH: FINALLY ASUS got off their behinds and released the promised AI mesh update for the Blue Cave, after I sent them an inquiry about it. I still have not used the Alexa or IFTTT functions yet, as I have been far too busy to set all that up on my smart devices, but once I do I will do a second update. A little background first, I am starting a home business and I needed good internet to my garages, Honestly I was considering a Ubiquity setup, but for now it was cost prohibitive. I decided to get a second Blue Cave since the AI mesh came out for it. I decided to completely redo my network backbone with Cat6 shielded cables. This is the most important part if you live in RF saturated spaces like Apartments or near a lot of RF like Cell phone towers, or even power stations. I think many of the reviewers truly do not understand how wireless works, and expect miracles all the time. I did have some early bios problems with the Blue cave with dropping wifi, but it was ASUS wide bios because I had it with other routers as well. Those issue seem to have been completely cleared up for me. I do have one complaint to ASUS about their Blue Cave set up. You need a bypass link to go straight to the firmware flash, whether it be USB or internet. Because your initial router setup is a big pain in the behind to get through, please fix. As I said I ran a brand new Cat6 shielded backbone which brings me to this point, ASUS you need to start using shielded connectors in the back of your routers! because we are so saturated with RF in some areas that some people with have to use shielded cables. This is what actually makes the Cable companies transmission superior to most others. Which brings me to this. My initial review was for one Blue Cave. Now I can tell you about the best way to have SUPERIOR performance. 1) An ac2600 should be enough for the average consumer, and remember this the 2600 is just for the wireless. I highly recommend that you get a couple of 1GB switches and use those and hardwire any PC's and HD and UHD televisions to your 1GB connections to the Blue Cave. Especially, if you want the best looking picture or if you do a lot of online gaming. Wireless is fine for you tablets and phones obviously, just keep you wireless for those kinds of devices. 2) Update your second devices Firmware while having it plugged into computer only. 3) Hard-wire the back-bone from router to router I recommend to do it with Cat6 for the future, that way you do not lose valuable bandwidth for the router to talk to one another. You will do this by connecting the second Asus AI mesh router to the internet connection. I have 2 Blue caves, and even though they don't have quite the range I would like them to have they are about what you expect from a home router. And surely better than having 8 antenni flopping and falling all over the place. I have only had one issue during the early bios of the WiFi dropping occasionally, but that issue is gone. Asus has done a number of security updates and because of their excellent trend micro included I can see all probes and attacks that have been thwarted. This is the primary reason I chose to stick with ASUS is the superb firmware and GUI. It is can be overwhelming to a beginner at times, but you will be thankful for it, if you have used other routers as I have. ASUS was not targeted for many of the recent security attacks. I do know there has been a lot of probing going on to find vulnerabilities. Having the Trend micro really helps! Sorry I got side tracked, AI mesh performance is really good, the routers now put your phones and tablets in the 2.4ghz band and higher bandwidth items in the 5ghz. I can now travel from one end of my property to the other, (1/4 a city block) and have full coverage. Since, all of my building have Steel siding it limits my range quite a bit. The only issue you need to understand with handing off is that it will be transparent most of the time. I however use Skype and Wechat a ton and you will get a small time (usually no more than 10 second) where it will have an "unstable connection" but it will regain the connection but will not drop the call, most of the time. But for everything else other than live voice or video chat, you should not notice any transition. Overall, I am very happy with ASUS hardware, it is very reliable compared to other brands. I do think ASUS needs to step back as a company and look at their Software division and their Customer service division and improve them a lot more, especially if they want to stay on top of the market. Many other brands are catching up to them. You really need to provide the best customer service if you want to be number one, in the future. BTW almost all the computer and the home network companies customer service stinks. They all cna improve dramatically. Feel free to ask me any questions and please rate up this review.