TP-LinkAC1200 Reliable Dual Band WiFi Router (Archer C50)

This was mostly an emergency purchase -- as I guess so many other routers are. However, this is the first emergency router purchase I've made where I didn't regret it at all. First and foremost: that pricetag is beyond amazing for what it offers. Most that do this much are roughly double this price. Second, it does seem to be fairly able to hold a good strong signal provided that your network adapter is good. If I had to find a nitpick, the use of only two antennas does mean that it's mostly only good for devices that are pretty close to parallel to its placement, but then having more antennas only helps if you can actually angle them to add more planes (and depending on how load is divided it may not really help anyway.) Unfortunately it's hard to test its maximum speed claims because most network adapters are USB and USB 2.0 is of course limited to a theoretical 480Mbps (and in real life a sustained transfer is less than that.) It's surprisingly hard to get PCI-E (or even PCI) adapters that aren't just horrible and they also cost quite a lot more. So the theoretical > 800Mbps this offers won't even apply to a lot of its customers. I can say that a WiFi to Ethernet transfer is quite fast though and online games seem to hold stable without any problems (I definitely saw the difference with a lower quality setup versus something better in gaming. A too high error rate causes all sorts of lag and problems.)The firmware is fairly advanced. I see a few more advanced features like VPN support missing in this versus a very rare few more advanced systems (but I do see support for two dynamic DNS services,) but overall I'm very impressed with its capabilities. They don't go as overboard as many do these days in bloat in their design, keeping it more minimal and simple (but not ugly by any means.) If I'm nitpicking I would say that it's kind of sad that there is no properly working third party support (DD-WRT, Open Tomato, etc etc) for this particular model, but this is, unfortunately, not the router's fault nor any fault in the manufacturer's designs. (It comes down to the fact that the chipsets are locked behind such proprietary designs that actually supporting them without paying for some very expensive NDAs that then won't let you distribute open source software anyway pretty much ensures that third parties must reverse engineer -- and since the chipsets change frequently even among the same companies there are just too many to reverse engineer them all.) Maybe someday though? But I wouldn't count on it. And that's why it's so very important that the built-in software can do all but the most advanced of things. It even supports IPv6 control (not only can it use IPv6 and has some useful options for it, but it lets you turn it off. For whatever reason I seem to be having a host of problems lately with all my Linux devices trying to use it and I guess my ISP doesn't support it or something causing everything to just time out until I disable it. Now I can just turn it off on the router. My last router would not do this so I had to manually disable it on each such device.)Simply put, it does what it does much better than it should for its pricerange. There aren't many that will at all compete at this pricerange. You can do more if you go to higher priceranges, but not by much (as I said, adding more antennas doesn't necessarily help -- it depends on a number of factors -- and higher speeds only help at all if the hardware connecting can even use them and few devices will benefit from more.)

Pros:Price at 39.99 it just can't be beat!Decent Range - Tested at my house for ultimate delivery to a friends place which has far thicker walls and farther to go. Provided signal where the stock TimeWarner Arris unit could not. And easily provided all the bandwidth they were paying for. 30MB/s Down / 20MB/s Up.USB Network Storage port on the back works quickly and easily. With Windows 10, you can see the files on the flash drive with no problems at all.Simply click on your network in File Explorer and it will show up. It's slow to load files but works reliably!Easy Setup: Probably the most important thing is the setup. Super super easy. No disc to install apps, no complicated configuration instructions... basically you plug it in, power it up, follow the instructions for setup by going to the browser 192.168.0.1 and roll!Cons:Like most modern routers it can put out some heat from the bottom. So be sure to mount it accordingly.Runs off a single core processor so I was a little concerned about performance for a large family or a home with numerous devices.Testing: So, I was curious to see what kind of performance I'd get from compared to my beloved Buffalo AirStation Extreme AC1950 router. Two years ago the Buffalo was a 200 dollars monster sporting a dual core 1Ghz processor. Range was fantastic with its 3 high gain antennas. So to see the TP-Link speeds rival and sometimes beat my Buffalo around the house... impressive!So, I took 3 mobile devices (as thats what most people are on these days) and simply ran speed test from the most dense corner of my home on both 2.4 & 5.0 Ghz networks. The resulting numbers below are Download, Upload and signal strength.Buffalo 5Ghz @ 40ft w/ 5 Walls DownstairsNexus 6P - 52.61 / 7.97 -79HTC One M7 - 23.74 / 8.09 -75Acer Iconia One Tablet - 33.34 / 7.48 -80TP-Link Archer C50 5Ghz @ 40ft w/ 5 Walls DownstairsNexus 6P - 56.87 / 8.04 - 78HTC One M7 - 23.70 / 6.85 -75Acer Iconia One Tablet - 28.98 / 8.23 - 79Buffalo 2.4Ghz @ 40ft w/ 5 Walls DownstairsNexus 6P - 40.12 / 7.83 - 65HTC One M7 - 16.22 / 7.95 - 72Acer Iconia One Tablet - 5.95 / 7.34 - 65TP-Link Archer C50 2.4Ghz @ 40ft w/ 5 Walls Downstairs6P - 26.38 / 7.86 - 65M7 - 19.43 / 5.96 - 62Acer - 50.88 / 7.54 - 55So after seeing these scores I was really impressed. Signal strength in my 1600sq ft house was fine everywhere. So to see if there was any slowdowns when numerous devices started streaming. I fired up all 3 devices and threw in my MacBook Air to all access different videos on YouTube and to stream at 1080p. There wasn't a single hiccup between them! WOW!! Now, I can image that wouldn't be hard for most modern routers, but at 40 bucks I was expecting some compromises. Honestly... there are none. Oh..and on top of that.. i streamed music from my USB drive over the network from the router..while all 4 streams were running.... no problems at all. THIS ROUTER IS THE REAL DEAL!!Now, again.. I can't claim it to be a great Gaming Router or a great upgrade for a growing family. Parents, 2 kids.. and say 10+ devices in the house and all vying for internet access. It could struggle, or it could do just fine. But for now... with absolute confidence I can say that for modest network needs and you are on a budget / need an upgrade or replacement. You can't go wrong. This router is great.

I have bought 3 of these. I am not tech-saavy, and it is easy to connect. I have one at my primary home, and one at our country home. At the home in the country, we have satellite WIFI, and no cable subscription, and I run two internet TV's off of the 5G network, and use the 4G for WIFI. I have had my home router for nearly 3 years, with no issues. I bought a 2nd for our country home in December 2018, and it went on the fritz in April. Just wouldn't transmit a signal. Powered up fine, but lost connectivity. I called TP_link, and they have been great, and are shipping me out a new one under warranty so I will have it as a back-up, since I went ahead and bought a new one. Like I said, I am no techie, but they work fine for me, are easy to install, and you can't beat the price or customer service.