Buffalo AirStation N300 Open Source DD-WRT Wireless Router (WHR-300HP2D)

This is a great choice for a low-end Wifi/router. I have re-flashed more than a few home routers to replace crappy stock firmware with DD-WRT. I was pleasantly surprised to find this one running DD-WRT right out of the box. My home Internet is Comcast/Xfinity with an Arris router. The Comcast gear is OK on the wired side, but dreadful on Wifi. I placed this Buffalo router on the wired side of the Comcast router, using a long Ethernet cable to position the Buffalo router at the best radio location in the house. Setting it up as Wifi N-only, 40 MHz bandwidth, I was able to achieve a speed test score of 86 mbps on Wifi. That's basically the same speed I get with a wired connection.Pro-tip: Resist the urge to crank up the Wifi transmit power on the setup menu. There is no fan, so cooling the radio chip depends on convection. Running it hot will shorten the life of the equipment. Make sure the router has adequate open space for ventilation.Pros: DD-WRT preinstalled, high performance on WifiCons: No USB port or external antenna

I bought this unit as an upgrade to the WHR-300HP, which I have owned since February 2014. It is set up as a client router bridge, and works flawlessly. Buying this unit seemed a no brainer, as it was listed as a newer model, so I figured it would configure like the previous model.....wrong! There is nothing in the setup menu that shows as "client router bridge," and no amount of menu options and restarting the unit would make it act as a DHCP forwarder, whereas the 300HP took right off when I told it to connect to 2 different wireless networks. Buffalo provides no documentation with this unit, and their website returns a big zero when you tell it this particular model number, and there is nothing on the Internet for it, as well. It's being returned to Amazon as nonfunctional in my book. What is a hoot is that the WHR-300HP I bought in February for about 58 dollars delivered is now around $135! Can't quite figure that one out, how older is more expensive than newer. Wish cars were that way!

I got this router because it came pre-installed with DD-WRT open source software. I have put DD-WRT on routers before, however, this time I got lazy and just bought one with it pre-installed. I need some special settings in a small network I run, and DD-WRT lets me do what I need to do. I was looking for a cheap temporary setup to do some network logging.I have found this specific router to be a little touchy. I had a hard time getting it to work on my network setup. (I have set up many types and brands of routers in this environment) I had to completely shut down everything several times to get it to connect. I found that in order to get it to connect correctly after a reset I have to disconnect everything except for the connection to the modem or it will not lock on to the internet. Once it has locked on I can then plug all of the connections back into the router.I also have had a difficult time logging in to the user interface. Once the router has been running for a few hours you cannot log in without resetting it. Once it is reset you can log right in and make changes.I have not ever experienced these problems with other routers with DD-WRT installed so there is something with this one specifically that is a little more touchy with my particular setup. I will eventually be moving it out of the environment it is in and will be putting it in a normal household setup. I will add comments about the usability once I move it to a more simple setup.Update 2-16-5015I began having a lot of trouble keeping devices connected to the router with the more advanced setup I was using in the network I was describing above. I thought it was because I had too many devices trying to connect and this little router could not handle it.I took the router to my house did a hard reset back to factory defaults and set it up on my very basic home network. All I changed from factory defaults was to add passwords for WiFi login. I could connect to the router but could not ever get web pages to load. I restarted my computer, modem etc. before trying to load any web pages. As soon as I hooked my old router back up everything worked fine.I am returning this router for a refund. I was really hoping it would be a good router since it had DD-WRT already installed.

this is a really good router.The DD-WRT firmware does everything I want it to do. It allows me to securely OpenVPN into my home network, I can track usage and I found out we use 20 to 30 Gigs per day of internet. I can do traffic shaping if I need to, and I have blocked ads at the firewall via scripting. It is fast and stable and takes all I have thrown at it so far with ease.There is a lot of documentation online for dealing with DD-WRT and that helps a lot. Just research what this firmware is capable of with a device that has this much memory. For this price point it is a steal for what you get. This is nearly as useful as a UTM appliance costing hundreds or thousands more.If it had a USB port for file sharing it would need 6 stars but for this value it easily earns 5.