All routers are NOT created equally

Our prepaid bandwidth ran out for the third time in a month. Internet costs in Malaysia were running $150/month to feed our streaming addiction. The sad thing is that we were grateful for it.

Our rig at that time was a SIM card inserted into a USB dongle which plugged into a portable WiFi router.

It was a mess, but it satisfied our family-of-five's business needs and downloading urges well. The speed was surprisingly sufficient but we used up the bandwidth limits very quickly.

When we exceeded our prepaid limit we'd have to hop on our motorbike and go to the mall up to our gigabyte limit in person. The workers at the cell phone kiosk used our first names and gladly gave us our next fix for $50.

It's all part of the adventure of staying connected as digital nomads in foreign countries, but it sure beat going without Internet or having service so slow that it teased us enough to think we could get something done. In reality we just swore at our computers for countless hours.

Now that we're settled into a longer-term rental, it's nice to have a stable Internet connection. Yet we've come to realize that not all WiFi routers are created equal.

With a teenage gamer in the house, two budding Minecraft architects, and parents who bring home the bacon from the Internet, our needs are extensive for a single connection.

That is why we jumped at the opportunity to try NETGEAR's Nighthawk AC1900 for free in exchange for the review you're reading right now.

You may think because we call ourselves digital nomads that we must be tech savvy. You'd be wrong. Our 16-year-old has become the house techie by default because he has the most patience to read instructions and watch multiple YouTube tutorials if needed.

After a quick reading of the instructions our son had the NETGEAR up and running in fifteen minutes.

The NETGEAR router's three beefy antennas boosted the reach of the WiFi all the way to the end of our driveway (about 50 meters).

Although our telephone internet service provider is inconsistent, our kids are reporting a much more stable connection during video game play than before.

They already liked the NETGEAR device better because it looked so much cooler than our old one, but now they are thrilled that it seems to work better too.

I honestly never even knew there was much difference or that a router can do all that the Nighthawk can do.  The Netgear Nighthawk can:

• Prioritize internet video streaming
• Prioritize video game play
• Share a USB drive to the entire network
• Use a free Ready Share vault back up
• Share a USB printer
• Use an iTunes Server 
• Set up a secure VPN service
• Customize a personal FTP server
• Use the Netgear Genie app
• Set up parental controls
• Connect my smart phone to the home wifi by scanning a code
• Access my router and change settings remotely
• Make a printer AirPrint from my phone
• Quickly send files from computer or smartphone to other devices in the network
• Receive help and support from the Netgear team

Now I ask you, does your home router do all that and then some?  I repeat, not all routers are created equally and the Netgear nighthawk proves that!