Networking and Wi-Fi

The Buffalo AirStation AC1300 / N900 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router WZR-D1800H offers great value by adding support for 802.11ac on top of a high-end N900 router without increasing the price. However, the router doesn't have enough appeal for those who just need a simple, low-budget wireless home networking.

Despite the added features, the Amped Wireless High Power Wireless-N 600mW Gigabit Dual Band Router R20000G doesn't impress as much as the previous model, and hence fails to justify its higher price tag.

Business travelers will find the Verizon Jetpack MiFi 4620L an excellent companion thanks to its fast connection, nice set of features, and long-lasting battery. Its expensive and limited data plans, however, might steer casual users away.

The D-Link DIR-605L Cloud Router makes a great solution for those who just need a simple wireless network to share the Internet access among devices. Its cloud-based management feature also proves to be a helpful and practical bonus.

The Advance N900 DB Wireless Dual-Band N+ Router is one of the best Belkin routers in a long time. Compared with others on the market, it's also a decent choice if you need a fast and robust home network.

Though not perfect, the Asus RT-N66U Dark Knight Double 450Mbps N Router would make an excellent network gateway for home and small-office environments.

The Samsung Optical Smart Hub SE-208BW makes a great digital hub for mobile devices, especially on the go. At home, it's rather limited and potentially confusing and hard to use.

The Pogoplug Series 4 is a cleverly simple device for getting files and media from your hard drive, USB drive, or SD card online and making them shareable with smartphones, tablets, and PCs. While many may find it redundant with cloud storage services, the Series 4 is easily the best version of the Pogoplug to date.

The Amped Wireless High Power Wireless-N 600mW Gigabit Router R10000G would be a good choice for those who need exceptional Wi-Fi coverage.

The D-Link DIR-827 is a very good true dual-band router that needs a firmware upgrade so it can live up to its potential.

The EnGenius ESR300H High Power 300Mbps Wireless N Router is cheap, and you get what you pay for.

The Linksys E4200 v2 makes a great upgrade to the original version and an excellent investment for those who need a fast, feature-rich, advanced, yet easy-to-use router for the home or even a small business.

The unique-looking and compact D-Link Amplifi Whole Home Router 1000 (DIR-645) makes a very good investment for homes that need a fast wired network and good Wi-Fi signal coverage.

The DiskStation DS712+ is one of the best dual-bay NAS servers on the market, for both home and office environments. It's also one of the few that offer storage scalability for those who want to start small and add more capacity later.

The Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ v2 makes a decent NAS server for homes and small offices that need lots of storage space.

The Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ v2 makes a decent NAS server for homes and small offices that need lots of storage space.

The Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ v2 makes a decent NAS server for homes and small offices that need lots of storage space.

Well-designed and reliable, the T-Mobile Sonic 4G Mobile HotSpot makes a very good travel companion.

The LaCie 5big Network 2 is appealing mostly to home users, especially sci-fi movie fans or fashion designers. Advanced and savvy users might be turned off by its lack of features and comparatively low performance.

The LaCie 5big Network 2 is appealing mostly to home users, especially sci-fi movie fans or fashion designers. Advanced and savvy users might be turned off by its lack of features and comparatively low performance.

The LaCie 5big Network 2 is appealing mostly to home users, especially sci-fi movie fans or fashion designers. Advanced and savvy users might be turned off by its lack of features and comparatively low performance.

The LaCie 5big Network 2 is appealing mostly to home users, especially sci-fi movie fans or fashion designers. Advanced and savvy users might be turned off by its lack of features and comparatively low performance.

The Netgear WNDR3800 N600 Wireless Dual-Band Gigabit Router makes an excellent router for any home.

The Netgear WNDR4500 N900 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router makes a very good investment for those who want to get the most out of a wireless network, especially when they have clients that support the 5GHz band.

Underpowered but supereasy to use and affordable, the Linksys E1200 makes a good entry-level Wireless-N router for home users.