wireless router advice

I just bought a laptop and I need to get hooked up with wireless in my house, trouble is I have no idea where to start. What should I be looking for? I'm not looking for anything too high end, but I don't want a piece of crap either that's going to give me a weak signal that cuts out all the time.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hey Matty, I suggest a Linksys router ( http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1127782957298&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper ) I have two of them, pretty easy to setup, good quality, and not too expensive.

Linksys seems to make some really good stuff, it's all I use for my networking right now and really holds up great. At my apartment semester before last I had a Belkin router that was awful, maybe it was the router, maybe it's Belkin, I don't know. However, I'd stay away from those.

Edit: Also consider browsing around techbargains.com and cheap.typepad.com/ if you plan on buying online. They list lots of deals, and you can probable get SOMETHING if you find something for a place that sells em!

Edit #2: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=cat01024&type=category&categoryRep=cat01000
Bestbuy has both the regular and the speedbooster on sale for 20 bucks off.

I second Linksys...I bought one for my folks (recently replaced it with a Wireless G router), and I have one as well, and have never had any problems whatsoever.

Not to hijack, but I'm having issues with my sister's computer at my folks house. I just recently reformatted the hard drive (WinXP, but no Service Packs as of yet), and got a USB G wireless adapter. For some reason, I cannot keep a connection with the router. I had it set up before in the same location, and it was running just fine.

I have tried everything, reinstalled the adapter, different settings on the router (my folks are wired to the router, so they are on fine, and the modem works perfectly as well), etc. And no matter what, I'll get a connection for 30 seconds and then it craps out.

I third Linksys. I've set up a couple of dozen over the past year and each one works (mostly) flawlessly with any system.

thanks guys

Does the transfer rate make a big difference?

Just depends, but in most cases ethernet is ethernet even though I would opt for a G-series router.

thanks again guys, I think I'm gonna pick this one up at lunch

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=5250774&type=product&id=1051384663529

I got this one, and it works fine:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=5507043&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat25300050001&id=1051826245223

But mostly because it was on sale for under $30 (this was a while ago). All things being equal, I would have bought the Linksys. My parents have the Linksys, and haven't had problems.

fourth on the linksys, its the standard... anything beyond G isn't going to be noticeable unless you transfer a LOT of big files between computers (for broadband internet b is fine even). If you can get something with extended range for the sasme price, i'd consider that.

for the guy with problems: some phones and all microwaves share the same frequency (in case it cuts out when those are being used). Though from what you describe it sounds like you should try two things. A) buy an antenna to amp up the signal (bestbuy sells a pair for linksys routers for 40$... you can do a lot better online, but if the bestbuy stuff doesn't help, its a lot easier to take it back). and B) in the router config try changing the channel (its probably on 6, try 1 or 11.. all routers default to 6, so other people's newly installed networks could be the reason why its cutting out now. switching to a non-default channel can help that. even though there's 11 channels in the config, only 1, 6, and 11 are completely seperate from each other's signals).

I also had a belkin (cause it was 5$) and it was TERRIBLE. I turned on 128 WEP encryption and the router died. just refused to work at all in any way and i couldn't re-flash the bios or reset it in any way.