Buffalo Technology AirStation WHR-HP-G54 Wireless Cable/DSL Smart Router

Excellent

Strengths: Very fast, compact, came with wall mounting bracket. Supports OpenWRT and DD-WRT Linux firmwares, which really open up the capabilities of this router. Fantastic wireless range.

Weakness: Really the only issue I have with this router is that the link/activity lights for the wired ports are on the back instead of the front. Not sure why they did this, but whatever. It works perfectly.

This is absolutely the best value I have ever seen in a residential router. If you're not afraid of tinkering with this beast and using TFTP, give OpenWRT or DD-WRT firmware a try, they make the WHR-HP-G54 a hundred times more useful.

By Threevolve; - Sep 18, 2007

Good product

Strengths: Great router,signal strength is amazing , steady speed

Weakness: Varies slightly at times , majority of times it is steady

I installed this router using a wireless dsl connection . The setup was simple , the dhcp function was great .I installed an outdoor antenna and I was able to connect my neighbours,some as 4 houses away,on my network . I noticed that the router does not drop off or reset on it's own ,like the DI 624, also the streaming of video over the network was improved significantly . This product is very...
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I installed this router using a wireless dsl connection . The setup was simple , the dhcp function was great .I installed an outdoor antenna and I was able to connect my neighbours,some as 4 houses away,on my network . I noticed that the router does not drop off or reset on it's own ,like the DI 624, also the streaming of video over the network was improved significantly .
This product is very good and I would buy again soon

By Jason; - Jun 7, 2006

Buffalo Airstation Rocks!

Strengths: Easy to setup. Signal strength is better than Linksys.

Weakness: Manual is not very useful. Don't know how to set MTU value

I purchased this unit to replace my old Linksys Wireless Access point with 4 port switch. The linksys was hard to configure and it stopped working one day after some problem with my DSL line. My computer could not talk to the DSL model through the WAN port on the wireless AP. I spend a few days trying to fix it but finally got fed up and went out to purchase the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 unit. The...
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I purchased this unit to replace my old Linksys Wireless Access point with 4 port switch. The linksys was hard to configure and it stopped working one day after some problem with my DSL line. My computer could not talk to the DSL model through the WAN port on the wireless AP. I spend a few days trying to fix it but finally got fed up and went out to purchase the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 unit.
The buffalo one rocks! I spent only 10 minutes which includes the wait time for the modem and AP power-up and the whole unit is running. Now both my wired and wireless clients work flawlessly.

By wchong - Jan 11, 2006

Best Router ever

Strengths: Distance, Speed, Looks, Flexibility

This is the only router that let's me connect from the other side of my house. I have tried all other brands but I lost my connection once I got too far away. Not only that but the speed was amazing. This is a very attractive piece that also allows you to add extra antennas. MIMO products didn't have that option for me. I returned several MIMO products that didn't work.

By hsamson - Oct 31, 2005

A Diamond In The Rough

Strengths: Hardware appears stable; 16MB of on-board RAM and 4MB of flashable memory make this unit very attractive to anyone (newbie to enthusiast)

Weakness: Buffalo's firmware is mediocre at best - consider re-flashing the unit upon purchase (see comments below).

I've now re-written this review (before submitting it) several times, and each time it's been a battle to hold the line between product review and college-level technical lecture. So I hope you will bear with me and I promise I'll make it worth your while to read "more than just ten words." . What makes Buffalo's WHR-HP-G54 hardware itself so attractive is that it comes with more RAM than pretty...
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I've now re-written this review (before submitting it) several times, and each time it's been a battle to hold the line between product review and college-level technical lecture. So I hope you will bear with me and I promise I'll make it worth your while to read "more than just ten words."
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What makes Buffalo's WHR-HP-G54 hardware itself so attractive is that it comes with more RAM than pretty much all the units you see on the shelf at your local retailer (it comes with 16MB, the rest typically come with 8MB), and it also has 4MB of flashable memory storage, whereas most of the rest come with only 2MB. And in the age of commoditization and mainstreaming mass-production of wireless routers (and their overall declining product quality) a relative minority player such as Buffalo has to differentiate itself based on hardware features, stability, etc.
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Now, why did I title this review "A Diamond In The Rough"? Simple: this router is a wonderful product -- perhaps the best router I've ever owned, and I've owned several different brands -- but Buffalo's firmware (think of it as the operating system which makes this device function) is simply dreadful. So dreadful, in fact, that I almost thought I had a physically defective product. Yeah, it was *that* bad. However...
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I never intended to leave Buffalo's own supplied firmware on the unit; it only happened to be coincidence that it was that bad. So, what exactly was it that I did, and how has the unit behaved since? Well...
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Without going into the history of it, the open-source community (think: GNU/Linux) has been writing replacement firmware for wireless devices now for several years, both out of frustration with the quality of the various manufacturers' offerings, as well as a desire to add in more capabilities. There are several such projects going on, the two largest being DD-WRT and OpenWRT. I flashed this unit with DD-WRT's firmware, and this thing became absolutely rock-solid. It makes administration of my home network a snap, gives me access to the latest and greatest wireless security protocols, and it's constantly being reviewed and improved not by just a few employees of some company somewhere, but by many, many folks all over the world.
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While I would recommend this product without hesitation to most folks (obviously some people will need specialized features that this unit doesn't offer), what I would highly suggest you do before buying this wireless router or any other -- EVEN IF YOU DON'T INTEND TO FLASH THE FIRMWARE -- is to go to DD-WRT's product table:
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www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/in...
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and read through what the various specs (RAM, etc.) are. This is the single best possible way for you to know what it is you CAN get, and what it is you ARE getting for your money. Who knows, you may find features you didn't know existed that might make your life better, like a built-in web server, or support for an external USB hard drive, and so forth.

By mikethec - Oct 8, 2007