Access Point recommendation

leasty

My old ASUS DSL-N55U that I use purely as an access point has finally packed in. I'm looking for a recommendation for either a dedicated AP or a router that has an AP mode. All my high data consumers (Sky Q, desktop, NAS...) are cabled at gigabit so the AP is mostly used for three mobile phones, a tablet and a Chromecast. I have a 70Mb VDSL internet with an ASUS DSL-AC68U as a modem/router.

What I'm looking for needs to be compact and hopefully unobtrusive as it sits in the corner of the lounge, dual band, at least two gigabit ports (so I can hard-wire one device if needed) and strong coverage. No need for any parental controls as we are all adults (well in age anyway). No gaming involved either.

Recommendations please !

psychopomp1

Why not replace your DSL-N55U with your existing DSL-AC68U (pretty much all routers allow Access Point mode) and then replace the latter with something like the TP Link W9970? You'd be killing 2 birds with one stone: the DSL-AC68U has a very poor vdsl chipset (Mediatek) which is often unstable and/or gives you poor sync rates yet has decent spec wifi radios, so perfect for using it in Access Point mode & far better than the DSL-N55U for wifi (which is only 802.11n wifi). The TP Link W9970 costs only £30-£40 & uses a newi-sh Broadcom DSL chipset & will almost certainly give you better sync rate though the wifi on it isn't the best (probably irrelevant though if you're not using the wifi on the DSL-AC68U currently).

Otherwise if you would prefer to keep the DSL-AC68U in its current function then go for something like the Asus RT-AC86U or Netgear R7800 to use as an access point. The latter was discounted to £130 by Amazon recently, down from the usual £170 or so.

leasty

Thanks. The AC68 has been quite stable for me (so far!) and I run wifi on that upstairs, with the old N55U providing the downstairs wifi . Not that big a house, but coverage was poor in the lounge downstairs. I like the idea of a new modem/router and reusing the AC68.