Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review focuses on the R10000 rather than the SR10000. The difference is that one is a router, one operates as a repeater. Internally, I believe both to be essentially the same hardware. I have installed hundreds of routers for my satellite customers over the years, and am always looking for the best product I can find. Until just recently, I had settled on the Buffalo brand of router, as they are reliable, inexpensive, and very powerful when compared to off-the-shelf boxes from local retailers. By way of standards, the typical wifi router operates at about 32 milliwatts. The Buffalo runs at around 70+ milliwatts (depending on who you believe - some people say 250 milliwatts). And then the Amped appears on the market, supposedly running dual 600 milliwatt radios. This was too good to resist!!! I've tried everything under the sun. 2000 milliwatt amplifiers, 1000 milliwatt amplifiers, numerous types of dual-radio wifi repeaters, and every external antenna type known to man. My test environment has the client 200 feet away inside a metal camper trailer. I put the equipment to be tested upstairs in our 3-story house, inside a room with exterior siding and a window that faces the wrong way. This is a VERY difficult shot to say the least, but then add in a row of trees and you have to wonder how a signal makes it to the trailer at all. Rather than actual signal numbers, I'll just use Window's bars for this review. Since the focus is on wifi distance, I won't deal with CPU speed, available memory, or certain firmware features. Here are the results, you need to be sitting down!!! All routers were tested at exactly the same spot, using out of the box equipment. Linksys, Vikosmo, D-Link and Netgear: 1-2 bars, variable. Speeds usually 1-28 Mbps. Buffalo Hi-Power series: 2-3 bars, variable. Speeds sometimes 54 Mbps. Amped R10000: 5 bars, solid. Speeds nearly always 54 Mbps. There isn't any discussion here! The Amped product wins, hands down. For the purposes of the test, I disabled the "N" capability, making the Amped router act more like the other routers tested. Under ideal conditions, the Amped router could run under the "N" standard and still deliver a whopping signal. From our main floor, there is a Buffalo hi-power router directly below the floor. On the 3rd story, there is the Amped. Sitting in the living room, less than 10 feet away from the Buffalo, the signal from the Amped on the 3rd floor is equal!!! In the trailer, 200 feet away, the downstairs Buffalo is sometimes visible but never usable, the outside repeater in the garage is often visible, sometimes usable. The Amped is ALWAYS solid and eliminated the need for a 200 foot underground run of ethernet cable. I'm an old professional, and have operated commercial broadcast TV stations. I'm also FCC licensed to service radar systems, and I'm a ham operator as well. So when I read a warning to "Connect the antennas BEFORE you power up the router" I instinctively know that the device is probably going to perform to spec. A warning like that tells me that the device might actually destroy itself if the proper antennas aren't connected. Believe it or not, this is a GOOD sign! I've had the Amped router running under a stress test for 2 weeks now, and it is still calm, cool and collected. It runs slightly warm, but not hot, and it hasn't glitched or self rebooted. I used to use a repeater in our garage, to service my wifi (in my pocket) email as well as provide weather updates to my airplane. After trying the Amped router, the repeater has been retired - it is redundant now! I love this thing!!! Dave.