what router is suitable for me?

Question

i have 1Mb broadband, and one laptop which is wireless ready, also an old desktop computer with network card (not wireless). i also want to be able to connect one more laptop which i might buy in future.

will the router allow me to connect the computer to each other, or just provide internet to the computer?
around what sort of price range can i get the hardware for?
any preferd brands?

thanks to evryone answering my question :)

Answer 1

Nowadays, wireless routers should come with about 4 ports for LAN, so you can share the connection between your wired computers (your desktop) and your wireless computers (your laptops and some other desktops).

Note that for LAN, your WIRED computers can handle it themselves, but the wireless ones are hard to set. You may need a wireless access point (AP)

For just sharing the internet connection, though, a wireless router connecting to your already-have modem or gateway is sufficient.

Pretty much any major brand routers will work for you. However, note the following thing:

1) It MUST have 802.11g. 802.11b is obsolete.
2) You should not shove out more bucks for 802.11n, since it is not really standardized yet.
3) MIMO is worth a try.
4) Make sure its wireless security encryption is supported on your wireless laptop as well. (WEP, WPA, etc.)

Unless you have a huge house, a >$50 router from BestBuy, Circuit City, Fry's is enough.

If you want a cheaper one, I have an Airlink101 MIMO router from Fry's for $30 when it's on sale. It is pretty good, but it has issues with encryptions other than WEP.

Read the following sources if you have more questions.

Answer 2

Any router will suit your needs and just about all of them are going to be 802.11b/g. g is superior in that it provides greater range and greater bandwidth (but you will never use that much anyway). That being said, you'll be able to add as many computers as you want (usually four wired) and as many wireless as you want (see footnote)*

*The more computers you have attached to a basic router, the speed of the network will slow down. Say you have four wired computers and four wireless computers connected to it, your connection speeds will be extremely slow if all the computers are online at the same time (meaning on and doing something online). That being said, the most I reccomend having connected to that connection would be two wired and perhaps two wireless. The point is, the fewer computers online at the same time, the better.

Well, for the router you can expect to pay between $15 and $75 but I would spend no more than that. As far as brand, I reccomend either Netgear or D-Link. I haven't had much luck with Linksys routers (I had three and all were bad right out of the box and all three went back, never again). Now, if you want the one desktop to become wireless you can either get a USB adapter or a PCI wireless card, expect to pay $20 to $50 for that. I'm not saying more expensive is better, sometimes spending less for a reliable product is entirely possible. When it comes time to buy, I like, http://www.newegg.com/ be sure to check out the customer reviews of the products you are looking at.

Answer 3

I'm pretty sure routers only allow you to connect to the internet. For brand, gotta go with Linksys, its one of the best (if not the best) on the market. That router will run you about $70 (full price).

Answer 4

Any wireless router will pretty much provide the functionality that you need.

Avoid Linksys products.. they can be flakey.

D-Link products are ugly, but at least they work.

Answer 5

you will need to get wireless router, it will stil have 4 hard wire ports in it but will also let you use your laptop wirelessly, and yes you can network them together

rob

Answer 6

NETGEAR is the only router that I would suggest...