[atmosphericM]

My Airport Extreme is damn good. Range? I can connect and use mine from my condo's parking lot.. over 50 yards away and through multiple walls (old ones too, with lead paint), including the exterior brick one.

I'll be sad if the guy here is correct in saying that Apple no longer will make routers.

Personally, I've never had problems with any routers except that some do seem to go bad with age for whatever reason (I've had a few Netgears seem to get bad as they got older).

I looked into a few ~$200 options when I bought my $200 Apple Airport Extreme about 3 years ago. This has been the best router I've ever had, period. Excellent range, can support tons of devices with no issues, SUPER easy to install and setup (assuming you're on the Apple "ecosystem"), and it looks leaps-and-bounds nicer on my entertainment center than some space-ship-looking ish with 5 antennas coming out of it. Really though, why do they make the nice routers look so ridiculous these days? I guess they assume all computer nerds are into sci-fi?

I have a feeling that the $200 routers are just a lot better than the sub-$100 ones. Go figure.

Anyway, whatever you do, I suggest placing the router closest to what matters most to you (signal wise) and just hard-wiring there. Wireless is still no-where near as good (or secure) as a physical connection. That should also reduce the number of signals you need your antennae to communicate with, ideally allowing your router's beam-forming function to work better. I have my router in my living room so that my Apple TV, PS4, receiver, etc. can all be tied in with a cat-5 cable. That means that all I'm really doing wirelessly is surfing the 'net which doesn't require as much connection reliability or throughput as gaming, streaming, etc.