Wireless-N Router Reccomendations
 

I want to upgrade from the cruddy router the ISP gives me to a Wireless-N router and i have been looking around on newegg i look at the specs first and they look fine but i get to the reviews and everyone has problems with them and it discourages me and i just wait a week and look at some more.

So finally i will come here and ask you guys what you think a good router is in the Sub-$100USD area.
I would like if it had a USB port for shared storage but that isn't necessary.
Also does anybody have one of the new 5GHz routers I've read that their antennae drop constantly does that happen with you?

5ghz is a waste and not used much.

Asus rt-n16 will be much recommended

That is the point of using 5 GHz. It's less congested because everyone and their mother uses a 2.4 GHz router.
5 GHz also offers 40 Mhz channels resulting in higher throughput provided you have good signal strength. Though this will only matter if you are interested in LAN throughput.

Yes but not much hardware uses 5ghz yet

Keep in mind there aren't really any good 5ghz routers under $100 USD - so it honestly doesn't matter for the OP.

The RT-N16 is well within the OP's budget and has some of the best hardware on the market. The old firmware issues are pretty much non-existent now that Asus has moved on to Asus-WRT for their latest firmware. (their own rebrand of DD-WRT) Plus you still have the choice of custom firmware. If signal strength becomes an issue, you have the option of user replaceable antennae which are fairly inexpensive and will still keep you under budget.

Thanks for the suggestion i think in my area a 2.4 Ghz is ok but will a 2.4 wireless phone interfere?
And is the default firmware for the RT-N16 good?

A 2.4Ghz phone can interfere with your router, but there's ways to avoid it. Some phones will have the option of selecting their wireless channel, just set it to something that your router isn't using.

If you don't have that option, you can still change the channel settings on your router until you find something that works. If you're still out of luck you can always increase the power to the antennae via custom firmware - or just use a stronger antenna altogether.

As for the default firmware, the latest revisions are very good but the older versions are bad to the point of causing constant wireless dropouts. You won't be guaranteed a plug and play router, but flashing the firmware is relatively simple and Asus provides tools and instructions on how to do so. If you need to access highly advanced settings such as IP based bandwidth monitoring, you'll need a custom firmware.

What is your favorite firmware because that overclock the power for the antennae thing sound sweet!

I run dd-wrt on mine with no issues

I recently picked up the Cisco/Linksys EA2700. Doesn't seem that bad of a unit if you want something that's simple to setup and get going. It was only $69 on sale.

I never found the wireless on the RT-N16 to be very good. Sure, routing performance was fine, and the ability to run DD-WRT or Tomato was great, but if you are going to be mainly using wireless, I don't think I'd recommend it. My Netgear WNDR3700 has much better wireless performance. And it too can run DD-WRT, but no Tomato as it's Atheros based. I think it still stills for over $100 though.