Huawei HG523a not very good?

Juzza12

Just received this today as a replacement for a router that was about 3 years old. Trying to find info as the wireless signal is poor and couldn't find much except for for the fact that chinese wholesale sites sell this for as little as $17 a piece.

I'm in the next room to the router and although the list of connection shows the signal strength as excellent it really isn't at times. At one point speed tests showed I was getting 12mbps but later on pages weren't loading.

So, how poor is this router?

Is this one going to be much of an improvement over it? http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/tp-link-td-w8951nd-wireless-adsl2-modem-router-10991896-pdt.html