Which Router and NAS Brands Are Best? PCMag Readers Weigh In

To survive in the age of technology, you need an internet service provider that delivers a fast, reliable connection to your home, but that’s not enough. You also need a home networking router to share that internet connection with all the PCs, smartphones, game consoles, and other devices in your home. And in some cases, you want a network attached storage (NAS) device to provide a central place for backups as well as serving up photos, videos, music and other files to your devices. In many cases, you can access these files from anywhere and share them with others across the internet.

If you’re dissatisfied with your home network, don’t fret. Our readers tell the truth: there are excellent solutions available.

Routers 2019

When choosing a new router, you first need to decide which type to get. Many ISPs offer a Wi-Fi router built into the broadband modem they rent to you. That’s certainly convenient, but most of our readers aren’t in love with what their ISP has to offer.

On a 10-point scale (from 0 for extremely dissatisfied to 10 for extremely satisfied), the all-in-one broadband modems/Wi-Fi routers provided by ISPs rated only 7.4 for overall satisfaction, far behind whole-home systems (8.8) and standalone routers (8.6).

Consider purchasing a cable modem and selecting an appropriate router to go with it. If your home is small enough, it may provide all the coverage you need, though a gaming router might be necessary for gamers who need adequate bandwidth to score the winning goal or save the world. If you find your home has dead spots, where you can’t get a reliable connection, a multi-node whole home mesh Wi-Fi system may be the best solution.

For years our readers have told us that Asus is the router brand to choose if you need a standalone router. The award this year continues a string of victories that go back to 2012 when it was getting started in this arena. (For purposes of our survey analysis, standalone routers include gaming and all-in-one routers.)

A common sentiment among Asus customers was that their routers “just work.” One survey respondent expounded on that theme, “As someone once said, the best surprise is no surprise and this router has had no surprises and does what it is supposed to do.”

Asus’ standalone routers received an overall satisfaction rating of 9.1 this year, up from an 8.9 in 2018. In fact, all of Asus’ router satisfaction ratings improved from last year’s award-winning results. Satisfaction with setup went from an already excellent 9.0 to 9.3 while satisfaction with reliability improved from 9.0 to 9.2. Asus’ Likelihood to Recommend rating also ticked up a bit from 8.9 to 9.0.

If you crave a whole-home mesh Wi-Fi system, Google is the best choice, according to our readers. The search/advertising giant nabs our Readers’ Choice Award for mesh systems, as it did last year. Like Asus, all of Google’s ratings improved in 2019. The company received a 9.2 for overall satisfaction, up from 9.0 last year. Google’s 2018 ratings for satisfaction with reliability (9.3) and likelihood to recommend (9.2) were already stellar, but this year those rated 9.4 and 9.3, respectively. In addition, not a single Google respondent told us their router needed repairs in the last 12 months.

Many of the comments we received about Google’s Wifi system praised its ease of use. This one summed it up: “This is so simple to set up. Very intuitive. It even [told] me when one of the nodes needed to be moved closer to another node for best coverage. This is soooooo much easier than the router/extender setup. Mesh is the way to go.”

WINNERS: ROUTERS and MESH WI-FI SYSTEMS

Standalone Routers: Asus
This is the eighth consecutive year Asus has won our Readers’ Choice Award for its…