Top 4 budget home Wifi router

In today's digitised world, a reliable internet connection is the backbone of a seamless online experience. One of the most crucial elements to achieving a smooth online experience is a good home router. Whether it be for streaming your favourite shows, gaming or work, a good router is essential to deliver optimal performance at a price that doesn't require breaking the bank.

In this feature, we explore the top four best budget home routers that strike the perfect balance between affordability and functionality.

Tenda AC23

Featuring dual bands, the Tenda AC23 comes with an astonishing seven antennas, four of which are for 5 GHz connectivity, while the remaining three are for 2.4 GHz. This leads to a 5G connectivity of 1,723 Mbps, which is the highest 5G speed offered by any home router in this list. 

At 2.4G, the router is able to deliver a moderate 300 Mbps speed, although some users have reported they experienced extremely slow speed with 2.4G connectivity, besides poor range. 
 
The router features three LAN ports and one WAN port, each supporting a read and write speed of 1,000 Mbps. It can also deliver an MU-MIMO output, ensuring that every device gets an equal share of internet no matter the receiver, although the maximum number of users is best limited to 15. 

Price: Tk3,650
Shop: Ryans Computer

TP Link Archer C6 V4

The TP Link Archer C6 has been a popular choice as a home router in Bangladesh for quite some time now. Although the previous version had range-related connectivity issues, the V4 promises to solve them all. It's a dual-band router but comes with only five antennas, two each for 5G, delivering a speed of 867 Mbps and a decent 2.4ghz speed of 400mbps. 

It supports mesh connectivity and comes with the MU-MIMO output, thus making it a good choice for users with a lot of devices. It allows the connection of a maximum of 20 wireless devices, up to four users on LAN and one WAN port, all supporting up to 1,000 Mbps read/write speed. However, users still complain that the range can be further improved as bandwidth seems to drop significantly at distances even 20 feet away from the router.  

Price: Tk3,500
Shop: Star Tech

CUDY WR1300

The Cudy WR1300 is yet another dual-band four antenna router, featuring a 5G speed of 867 Mbps and a 2.4G speed of 300 Mbps. Thanks to its Mediatek MT7621 CPU, the router enhances dual-core processing, although at limited speeds of up to 880 Mbps. This still makes it a decent option for multitasking. 

It also comes with four LAN ports and one WAN port with speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps and MU-MIMO. It also supports mesh connectivity, although only with other CUDY routers. What sets this one apart is its price, which is much lower than the rest and the maximum total connectivity support of up to 50 users. 

Price: Tk3,000
Shop: Skyland Computer BD

Totolink A3002RU

The Totolink A3002RU is also a four-antenna router, with 867 Mbps 5G speed and 300 Mbps 2.4G speed. It also comes with MU-MIMO technology to improve its range and connectivity. It comes with four LAN ports and one WAN port as well, each with speeds of 1,000 Mbps - a standard for routers in this price range. 

Although this comes with a single-core CPU, thus limiting its multitasking capability, it edges other routers out in this list in terms of its 1,000 Mbps read/write speed. 

What sets this router apart is its unique USB 2.0 port which can be used to connect to FTP servers, Samba service and DLNA service. Thus, this router can also be used to connect to portable hard drives or pen drives to turn into a portable home data server.

Price: Tk3,300
Shop: Star Tech