What kinda pulls me back on the DIR is that IMO it's overpriced for the hardware it packs. My guess is that Mediatek SOC and radios are much cheaper for the manufacturer to buy compared to the well established Broadcom and Qualcomm hardware, so that should reflect a much better price, which is not the case on the DIR. They only have 128 MB of RAM and a considerably worse processor than other routers on that price range. Recently I saw the DIR 880l going on sale on Amazon for under 70 dollars, it retails pretty cheap since it's an older model. What do you think about it? The hardware is pretty good for that price point. Another option I'm considering is getting an AC68u from T-Mobile (not the Asus branded model) for 80 dollars. Which one would you pick?
Another option I'm considering is getting a ac1900 or ac2600 range extender from tp link but these also use Mediatek radios unfortunately and seems like all range extenders in the market are using Mediatek hardware anyway. I would use them with a wired backhaul, but Idk how throughput would be like with those since there aren't many technical reviews about those things.
Our test client is Qualcomm-based. It's not uncommon for there to be interoperability problems between BRCM and Qualcomm.
If you're looking for cheap, but good, you might also look at the
D-Link DIR-882 we just reviewed. It's based on Mediatek 4x4 platform. There might also be some interoperability factors at play,
but it did pretty well in 5 GHz down.
The
DIR-878 is even cheaper and it's basically the same router, without the USB ports. D-Link confirmed to me that although they market it as AC1900 (3x3), it fully supports AC2600 (4x4).
Our test client is Qualcomm-based. It's not uncommon for there to be interoperability problems between BRCM and Qualcomm.
If you're looking for cheap, but good, you might also look at the
D-Link DIR-882 we just reviewed. It's based on Mediatek 4x4 platform. There might also be some interoperability factors at play,
but it did pretty well in 5 GHz down.
The
DIR-878 is even cheaper and it's basically the same router, without the USB ports. D-Link confirmed to me that although they market it as AC1900 (3x3), it fully supports AC2600 (4x4).
I ended up at this post I was also considering the TP-Link Archer AC2300 or Archer 2600 - they are a bit cheaper than the dir-882, and probably suitable for my needs. The Archer AC2300 seems to have better internals, but it's the real world results that I'm concerned with. I was looking at the SNB dir-882 review, and was then looking at the product website on the D-link (Canada) website - it looks like there is a different version of it here in Canada?
D-Link Canada: http://ca.dlink.com/products/connect/dir-882-ac2600-high-power-wi-fi-gigabit-router/
- Shows a dual core 1.4 ghz processor
- No details on RAM / flash
D-Link USA: http://us.dlink.com/products/connect/ac2600-mu-mimo-wi-fi-router/
- It does not state what kind of processor it has on this website (simply states it is dual core), but the SNB review states it has a Mediatek MT7621A dual core SoC @ 880 MHz CPU
- The SNB review shows 128 of RAM / 128 of flash
- It appears the D-Link (USA) site calls this router the AC2600
EXO (Canadian site makes not mention of EXO)
To confirm, the unit tested on the SNB review is slightly different than what D-Link Canada has posted? If that's true, how do you think this would impact performance?
I've narrowed down my choices to the following (prices are in Canadian dollars and include tax):
D-Link dir-882 (same version listed on the D-Link Canada website) - $186.29
TP-Link Archer 2300 - $155.24
TP-Link Archer 2600 (TP-Link certified refurbished) - $115.00
I have about 12-16 connected devices at any one time in my household (most of them low volume, but this list of connected gadgets seems to be growing monthly!) - not a lot of gaming, but 2 Apple TV's (chance of 2 of them streaming HD content at once along with a Spotify stream), Hue Hub, smartphones, iPads, laptops, watches, etc. I currently pay for a VPN service - I'd be great to ditch it and route traffic through my home router, but I'm not yet informed enough to know what the security concerns/differences are from connecting to a TP service vs connecting via router at home. I'd like to have 1 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0 hard drive connected - considered a NAS, but I'm basically concerned with backups and occasional remote access (most media content is streamed from the "cloud" these days and I store a lot of files on a third-party cloud service). I'm shocked that my current 6 year old wireless N based router has been able to handle the traffic thus far, but it has recently started overheating, and requires daily resets - time for an upgrade.
I'm cheap, so spending less is better, but I'll probably end up going with the D-Link dir-882. Any info/suggestions would be appreciated.
Great site, BTW. Very useful - nothing else like it on the internet (most other websites that review networking devices are subjective and the testing is not very scientific)!