ASUS RT-AC87U

Perfect for our family – This asus router has been reliable and great for our family use. It has a good range and I can control the wifi people in the family use so we can limit the children on what they stream. Show details

Best router I've ever owned – Picked one up on eBay which was some kind of grey import (at a *significantly* lower price than available from most AU stores, but along with an international travel adapter it works just fine. It's great having the ability to be able to install custom firmware on it, such as Asuswrt-merlin. It's highly configurable for those who like to tinker… Read more

with things, I've even got a full Debian OS (ARM) running off a USB stick, which runs a whole bunch of services. As long as the router is on, all of those services are available. I would recommend this to anyone looking to buy a decent router, that hopefully will last me many years to come.

Has big coverage – When i used provided routher it had bed coverage and very slow, with using NAS, since i use this item there is no dley, no slow, no problems. At this time, this is expensive you should buy some other asus router, I really asus brand and router, I recommend you this and other asus router  Show details

Amazing Strength, Punches The Signal Through Brick Walls Like Superman – My home is 5 bedroom double brick construction with a double story granny flat built of besser block on the rear boundary. My current modem would extend wi-fi coverage to most of the house only and not all with a lot of strength. My aim was to get good strength wi-fi to every part of the property. To put in cable to all rooms would have been a… Read more

nightmare and cost thousands. My decision was to get the Asus Router and I'm so glad I did, it gets wi-fi to every inch of the property and with good strength. I live on a T junction in Lockleys and I can walk to the next street corner down the 3 streets and I can still be on the net, I'm amazed. The only thing I don't like about the router is if an aerial gets bumped in the direction of tightening, then to make it stand up means you need to continue to turn in the direction of tightening, so I only hope this is not twisting wires inside the router. Other than that I'm very pleased and impressed with my purchase, 3 year Warranty too.

Security Piece of Mind. Great for Parental Control – To start with i needed an updated router as the old D-Link was just not giving me the speeds on NBN. To admit it was already 6 years old but it worked better than the cheap junk that was supplied "free" with the NBN hookup. I always over research when money is to be spent and the product reviews and forums rate highly to hear the real feedback not… Read more

what the manufactures want you to hear.

To start with i was looking at the cheaper brother "ASUS RT-AC68U" but found this to be substantially older model. Don't get me wrong the AC87U is not a new model either but it's affordable for its features.

My boys game regularly and a bit too much as far as i am concerned but they like myself wanted good reliable speed and no drop outs if too many devices tried to connect.

The setup was relatively easy but i did cheat and use Youtube to help and make life easy. Once it was set up and running then the fun began. It is so easy to monitor usage (which i have never had the option to in the past). Speeds were great for all of us at the same time and i could see every device listed.

The biggest plus for me as a parent of a teenage boy is i now have "parental control". The option which is now set, that turns off the connection of certain devices at any time of the day or night. Playstation being used too much. Easy. Kids still on the laptop at 11pm, fixed. Now devises are stopped from operating online at what are considered reasonable times during the school week and then more lenient on weekends. The only issue this has so far is me having to log on and change settings for long weekends. A small price to pay. There is also the option to see what devices are viewing which as my boys are older teenagers, i don't think i want to go down that track. This would be great for younger families for this sort of control without being invasive and physically checking the history of a computer, which we all know most kids will wipe if they don't want mum and dad to see what they have been looking at.

The 4 antenna's give this unit so much more coverage. Areas in the house and even down to the games room which never had WiFi now have movie streaming speeds to keep the whole family happy.

At this stage i have no negatives that i have come up against with this router.

Easy to setup, good wifi signals but not great – I already have a router so only replaced my netgear wifi extender with this router. Setup is easy once I plugged cable directly into my computer, this is unclear in instructions. Wifi signals are good for both bands but speeds are not as good as my old Apple time capsule. Still having occasional dropouts but far less common than the junked netgear.

Good for all network environments – In summary, as I would like to start with the conclusion first before proceeding to the whys and why nots'. I myself would have given this 5 stars if it hadn't been the annoying and I must say stupid set up. The manual was pointless and with my highly developed I.T. skills, I had to go onto a Youtube channel for Asus and look up the information. … Read more ·  1

The Whys

When you first get it, especially if you have a router/modem set up and especially with my connection to Optus cable which uses a Netgear CG3000 with 4x gigabit ports plus dual band WIFI. Most of my current devices with the exception of one uses WIFI, and especially since I bought last year an Asus PCE-AC68 which was red in colour and had 3x omni-directional antennas magnetic mounted with an attached cable from the external port of the card.

This card using my CG3000 connection WIFI failed on numerous times; some times it worked and other times it just drops; despite being less than 5 metres away from the CG3000 router/modem itself. What's more, the speeds on the dual band WIFI connection was about 15 Megabits per second (Mbps) and an upload speed of 0.5 Mbps.

The newer AC68 with AC network configuration that operates normally on a 5 Ghz speed, was supposed to be backwards compatible to 2.4 Ghz with dual band speeds. Unfortunately, whether using the operating system which was Windows 7 Home Premium or the accompanied Asus network utility program especially with WPS feature, it just keeps dropping.

I bought this router, the Asus RT-AC87U, even though there was the newer model as well as a few other competitors out there. I wanted something that had a large range without overspending or getting confused with a lot of the features that most of the these sorts of routers have.

Since, 90% or more of the time, the average user, is not going to fully utilise all of a router's capabilities especially with the features. Only within an office environment or with tech savvy individual that has particular requirements then by all means this sort of router is catered for them as it is with all of the competition variations.

This router had very good reviews for range, but have picked up on a few issues with firmware and also connection issues as opposed to the newer released model. I didn't fathom the idea of spending more just to be reassured, but instead, I chose a mid-range and something that's not too old and not too new along with some credibility.

The Why Nots

Any one in Australia that is using Broadband Cable, NOT ADSL or ADSL2+ and especially can't really compare it with NBN as its not rolled out every where. Getting back on topic, most people who connect to the major telecommunication providers will give you a device which you either get free of charge or pay through your nose to as an additional fee to be able to peruse the Internet. These devices at best will only support dual band WIFI, if you use an RJ45 Cat 5 for 100 Megabit or RJ45 Cat 6 for Gigabit cabling used in-conjunction with your router's Ethernet ports which will be identified as either megabit (10/100) or gigabit (100/1000).

Hardwired RJ45 attachments will always be better than Wireless WIFI and if you're one of those people, then this device may not be for you. However this device has a few features that your router/modem might not have, well, not just this device but also the competitors within the same field.

For example:

- network protection with a better firewall and software embedded

- network monitoring of traffic per device (pc, laptop, tablet, smart devices)

- can also see what those devices are viewing (websites) - Good for parents to see what their kids are up to

- can control networking performance

- can connect additional devices to the router via USB

For me, I'm into the WIFI now and have set a majority of my devices to use with WIFI. Ever since buying this, other than the configuration issues. Best to put it into bullet points:

- increased network performance by 50% - 15 Mbps | 0.5 Mbps (Before), 28.5 Mbps | 1.2 Mbps (After)

Tested on many devices (desktop pc, notebook/laptop, smart phone using Speed Test Ookla and Oz Speed

- have not experienced a single drop out

- performance is consistent

Overall again, I am extremely happy.

Outstanding performance – Satisfied with the strong wifi range, easy setup, and speed stability. Highly recommended for heavy Internet user. For less price, could go with rt-ac68u, which is another great router. Most of asks router is great anyway.

Exceptionally good – I previously had a dual band Linksys wireless router but the 2.4 GHz band failed. I did some online research and ended up buying the Asus RT-AC87U Dual Band wireless router. The performance of this router is exceptional in comparison to my previous Linksys WRT 1900AC router. The signal strength is 50% greater than the Linksys and I am seeing… Read more

upload speeds double that of the Linksys. Download speed is around 30% greater.

It was very easy to set up and has a multitude of security features. Yes, it wasn't cheap $318 from MWave Australia) but I need speed and reliability so that the extra money seems worth it for me as I run a small business from my home as does my wife so we give the router a bit of a workout.

Anyhow, I would rate this product as 9.5 out of 10.