Which router to choose for a home network with 5 devices at 2.4GHz 150Mbit?. Does the number of antennas matter in this case?

Question

WiFi

Hello. At home there are 5 devices with WiFi:
- 2 laptops 802.11n 2.4GHz 150Mbps;
- 1 laptop 802.11n 2.4GHz 72Mbps (due to the features of the built-in antenna, it does not connect at a higher speed);
- 2 smartphones manufactured in 2013, it is not clear whether they can work with 5Ghz. Both connect to a 2.4GHz network at 135Mbps.
I am looking for a replacement for the D'link dir300nru B5 router, I became very sad to work with WiFi when a laptop appeared with a "cut off" antenna (the one that connects to the network only at 72Mbps).
Tell me, please, which router to choose in order to work comfortably with the network and the Internet? Does the maximum speed supported by the router (150/300/450 Mbps) matter in this case? How important is the number of antennas on the router (1/2/3) in such a situation?
Thank you!

Answer 1

Let me tell you how I resolved the issue.
I ended up buying an Asus RT-N66U with three antennas.
Due to the very thick walls of a brick-monolithic house, and the high load on frequencies from neighboring wireless routers (the house is relatively new, all the neighbors are more or less young and with the Internet), I had to buy two directional antennas in addition to the router, each of which " looks” into the desired room of the apartment (there are three rooms, the thickness of the walls is almost a meter, all the walls are load-bearing), and one omnidirectional.
I sketched a diagram for clarity ( full version here ):
At the same time, a curious nuance turned out: despite the presence of three antennas, only one of the three actually worked on the Asus router in 2.4 GHz RT-N66U mode! Checked with the program insidesider. I got on the forums and accidentally found out that all three antennas work only on firmware version 3.0.0.4.271, and later versions of the firmware do not provide this (most likely all three antennas in later firmware versions still work, only, as It seems to me that two of them are used for 5 GHz, while the operation of all three antennas in 2.4 GHz mode is supported by version 3.0.0.4.271).
To be honest, if it weren’t for the information about this firmware, which works with all three antennas in 2.4 GHz mode, buying a new router with three antennas would be replacing sewing with soap - before that, there was also a router with one 2.4 GHz antenna, so that’s all for me - got lucky with that. Now, with three antennas, the router works just fine. Once I had to reboot it due to the fact that I noticed that on this version of the firmware, after several days of work in torrents, the speed drops, but that was all the time once, and has not happened again yet.
By the way, I don’t use the 5GHz network, so I don’t know exactly how this router works with this firmware version in 5 GHz mode - whether the remaining two of the three antennas remain in 2.4 GHz mode with this option or only one antenna remains. for example, for 2.4GHz, and the other two go under 5 GHz.

Answer 2

Read the article habrahabr.ru/post/149447
There, several nuances are described