Setting up a wireless network is easy. Getting coverage into every nook and cranny of your home can be difficult. We've assembled a few routers that can help you extend your Wi-Fi into those hard-to-reach areas. All of these products achieve their range enhancements with the help of proprietary technologies, and in order to fully reap their benefits, all of the gear that makes up your network will need to be equipped with matching technology. In short, you'll get better performance if you use the same brand of gear for all the devices on your network.

The Belkin and Linksys routers each use Airgo's MIMO chipset, which offers all-around better performance than the Atheros-based channel-bonding solution used in the Netgear and D-Link routers. MIMO is also a better choice if you intend to use the router in an environment with equipment from multiple manufacturers. The downside to both MIMO and channel bonding is that neither solution is based on an 802.11 standard, which means that their performance benefits probably won't work with future 802.11n gear due out next year.