ZyXEL X550NH 802.11n High-Gain Wireless Gigabit Router

I was recently asked to recommend a wireless router to a family member and, after directing her to this router, I was shocked to see that it hasn't been more favorably rated. I have owned the X550NH for over a year and believe it to be the best wireless router I have ever owned. I have previously owned 3 Netgear wireless routers, 2 Linksys, and a Belkin. This is by far the most reliable of the bunch - all of the others underperformed or continually required a reboot. It was easy to set-up and, over the year since I've owned it, have only had to restart it once - and for anyone who has ever owned a wireless router, that's pretty good. At any given time, my X550NH has 2 cell phones, 2 laptops, a desktop, a Wii and 2 printers connected to it without any problems whatsoever. If you are looking for a wireless router that provides consistent speed, performance and excellent range, in my opinion you can't go wrong with the X550NH.

I have had the Zyxel X550NH router for almost a year now, and it has been a very solid product. My previous wireless N router from Linksys kept locking up about once a week. I have had 100% uptime with the Zyxel and am very happy with it. Setup is relatively easy for a novice, and has plenty of features for the technical savvy user. I would highly recommend this router to anyone, it is worth the price to have a reliable wireless router when compared to the cheaper brands.

The high gain antennae bundled with the X550NH model increases the signal strength, so I now have much better coverage in my house than I had with my previous Linksys router. It still includes the standard antennae of the X550N model in case you want to use them.

Update (November 2011): I purchased an Apple iPad, and my network connectivity kept dropping randomly, many times while streaming data. I contacted the ZyXEL and after several months they finally agreed the X550N routers have...Read more

I recently purchased the X550NH router from Amazon because of the following additional features:
- 802.11 n (v2.0)
- 4+1 Gigabit LAN (4 LAN + 1 WAN)
- External antenna
- VPN tunneling

I have 3Com Office Connect router that I was planning to replace with this X550NH.

Benefits:
- Good functions (IPTV full support, VPN Server, Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi with full N support)
- Nice the external high gain antenna
- Good uptime (like Cisco & 3Com only)

Shortcomings:
- No updated firmware available
- Admin GUI for VPN settings is much better with the devices, like f.e. 3Com.
- No PPTP server support for VPN tunneling (IPSec only)