Before buying a router, you must first understand the school network and see if it is possible or necessary to install a router. You can quickly locate your situation according to the picture below.

Mainly because portable Wi-Fi has too many disadvantages.

1, don't worry about the intranet bandwidth. The bandwidth of dormitory external network is small,

The bandwidth allocated by the school to students is very small.

Some campus broadband may exceed 200Mb,

Therefore, a large intranet bandwidth is basically meaningless (unless dormitories often transfer large files to each other or have NAS).

2. Don't worry about signal coverage.

The bedroom area is small, a router can cover it, and the built-in integrated power amplifier is enough.

There is no need for an external independent power amplifier chip (PA is used to improve the signal transmission power and LNA is used to enhance the receiving sensitivity, which is generally integrated in FEM).

After all, this thing is not cheap, use a few more,

The total cost of the router will go up. The grid function is also unnecessary, so the bigger the place, the greater the grid interference.

3, simple and easy to use. You can't force all roommates to understand more complicated router settings. The simpler the better.

4, cost-effective. Most freshmen use their parents' money,

Moreover, the cost of starting school is also high, so try to choose brands and styles with high cost performance.

Considering that the improvement of Wi-Fi 6 compared with Wi-Fi 5 is mainly in three aspects: transmission rate, transmission range and terminal energy saving,

It doesn't make sense for dormitory use scenarios, so I mainly recommend Wi-Fi 5 routers.

Low price, even if you graduate, it doesn't hurt to deal with it at a low price.

It is also acceptable for roommates with poor family circumstances. But if all the equipment in your dormitory supports WiFi6, you can also buy a WiFi6 router and enjoy the complete MU-MIMO (explained below).

5. Relatively stable. In view of the above principles, the lower-priced router brand or model is naturally not as stable as the more expensive router due to hardware/firmware reasons, so try to choose a relatively stable router.