The power of Jack Ma and China haha. First time buying from Taobao without knowing how to read mandarin. Decent experience so far. Even the third party forwarder so cepat.

What did you buy ?

I changed my router from the first day I registered with UniFi

ASUS RT-N16 <-- 1st 3rd party router I've ever bought
ASUS RT-AC68U
ASUS RT-AC88U
ASUS RT-AC86U
ASUS GT-AC5300 (soon when it arrives )

And some crappy TP-Links & D-Links in between
TP-Link TL-WR1043ND
TP-Link TL-WDR4300
TP-Link Archer C5
TP-Link Archer C7
TP-Link Archer C9 <-- Final TP-Link I've ever bought before I give up on TP-Link because of their crappy hardware & crappy firmware. Some of the models are so bad even OpenWRT couldn't save it
D-Link DIR-615
D-Link DIR-850L

This post has been edited by sHawTY: Nov 12 2018, 08:33 PM

Asus AC-86U one unit. I start small first. Later buy more haha

ASUS RT-N16 one of the best N router ever created

Yup. Bought in 2009 And ASUS only stopped supporting RT-N16 on April 2017
Whereas TP-Link immediately stopped supporting their routers as soon as they created new revision of the router

Which is the best ASUS router you used among all till date ?

All of them is good. Although the RT-AC88U is a bit tacky, but not as bad as the TP-Link routers

Currently the RT-AC86U is my favourite, hopefully the GT-AC5300 will be my new favorite
Although the lack of Merlin for it is going to be a bit of a downer

This post has been edited by sHawTY: Nov 12 2018, 10:44 PM

Anyone want to buy ac86u @rmb799 + shipping fee?

Currently the item is in my to pay list and still got one hour to make payment before they auto cancel.

Please PM me ..TQVM

Sorry, decide not to proceed due to the hassle.

The unit is not from asus official store and I just realise its ship by sea instead of air.

should be ok if not urgent

sounds great u using air shipment

fast also

Wow, this is real fast. Mind to share which seller you bought from and how much? Direct shipping or 3rd party forwarder? And how much is the shipping fee? Which local courier you choose to deliver your router to you?


I couldn't recall the router model during my Unifi 5MB. The same router serve me from 5MB > 10MB > 30MB > 50MB. Only learn to get a new free router from TM when I upgraded to RYE 100. All the while didn't realise user can request for it...


Wow bro, you use one router at a time or few? Should I worry about TP Link USB Adapter? Cause I just buy 1 T9UH from shopee for my 5 years old laptop to gain max speed from my Unifi Turbo speed~


Actually what are the useful extra features that Merlin firmware has as compare to stock Asus one? I just know there is temperature reading in Merlin~

I upgraded a lot
I don't know about their USB Wireless Adaptors but their PCI-Express Wireless Adaptors is acceptable
Merlin extra features:
https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/features

Ever since switching from streamyx to unifi, I don't remember I bought any router by myself before. This GT-AC5300 could be my 1st router for unifi after so many years...

Btw, did you buy a cooling fan for your GT-AC5300?

I bought from the official Asus Tmall using third party forwarder (ECTbuy). The shipping fee I paid was RMB42 (RM25) not sure if it is expensive or not. Maybe some folks here can share their shipping cost.

I chose Poslaju as the local courier to deliver. Some folks here suggested GDEX but too late for me to change it haha.

If your forwarder only charge you RMB 42 for RT-AC86U (which weight around 1.8kg), then it is kinda cheap.

My forwarder quoted me for the same router, RMB 44 (22 per kg for sensitive item) + RMB 40 (sensitive item fee for 1st 5kg).

Maybe yours doesn't include the sensitive fee, if that is the case, better hope your router will go through kastam smoothly.

But their delivery speed really amazing...

Yeah I didn’t know this item is considered sensitive. I got excited just simply selected one to have it shipped fast haha.

Will know soon if sangkut at customs and Sirim a not. If yes then I pay tax and Sirim approval what to do. I done it before a bit more hassle but it is ok given a lot of cost saved buying from China.

My gut feel is it is only 1 item usually won’t get inspected. Customs will check those more than one item based on my long purchasing history from Aliexpress