Archer D5

Having suffered almost 2 years of internet horrors, with poor speeds and disconnection problems with my own ISP routers they supplied and have swapped out many times. I decided to buy an aftermarket router to see if it would help. This router solved my disconnection problems literally overnight, and I gained some 2-3Mbps speed increase on download speeds. Easy to install, and configure to my TalkTalk internet. Having both the standard 2.4GHz and faster 5GHz wireless connections, meant I could move some of my wireless devices on to different channels freeing up space on others. I would recommend if you want to change to default SSID names, that you add 5 or 5GHz to the higher speed one, to differentiate between them, plus a change in password for the 5GHz too, simply added 5 to the end of the password is all it needs. I was surprised to discover my Microsoft 950 phone, Amazon Kindle HDX and Amazon Fire Stick all had 5GHz reception built in. Since installation which took around 25 minutes tops. We have had a stable connection, higher speeds, less peak period slowing, no buffering on Netflix or internet radio. Well worth the money

It's pretty good going so far, bought it to replace the default SKY hub (SR102) The router does have an auto setup mode for sky... but it doesn't work. It's made more awkward as sky have taken the approach of hiding as much info on using a third party router as possible, and sadly after much searching I couldn't find the details I wanted so I had to find them by hacking about. So for anyone who wants this to replace their sky router, here's what you need to do. 1: Get your sky username and password while the sky box is still plugged in. There are plenty of guides on how to do this online 2: Follow the quick-setup options for sky and select PPPoA as the connection type. 3: After auto setup finishes, go to network, and edit the connection 4: Change authentication type to CHAP 5: Go to DSL settings 6: Set DSL modulation to whatever your DSL is (most likely ADSL+) 7: Set Annex type to A/L (it doesn't really make much differnece which it is for me, but A/L seems to be about right for my connection level) 8: Select DHCP server 9: Set DHCP server to enabled 10: Set your DNS server and secondary server to whichever DNS you prefer (google dns or openDNS are best imo) That's all the setting I had to change to make it work. The big stopper for me was the ADSL type, when it was set to auto I couldn't connect to anything, the rest is really just fluff but it can help a bit. So yeah not so much a review as tech support, but hoping this'll help people out a bit. As far as an actual review, it's a router. It connects to the internet and I can connect to the wireless. There have been a few hiccups in getting things set up, but that's skys fault more than the router so I can't really fault them on that. I have noticed the router seems a bit warm, but that's about the only downside. Plenty of settings there for setting up guest ethernet, connecting usb devices, it's got a lot of features, many of which I still have yet to explore. Anyway, hope this helps.

Mixed experience. The D5 router works well and has certainly boosted the speed and signal strength on main computer. However, it stopped the powerline adapter/extender (also TP-link) from working in another room, where I really wanted the extra signal (for a TV) and where it worked perfectly with old router. After some time on telephone, and emails with (very accessible and helpful) TP-Link helpdesk, doing various tests and upgrading firmware etc., their engineers conceded that the D5 was causing interference on the mains electricity, making the plugs in the powerline room inaccessible. There's no solution to this - other than using the powerline in another room, with a very long cable! (I eventually got a very weak and interrupted signal on the powerline adapter where I wanted it, if I put the D5 on an extension lead.) I presume that the extra power used by the larger dual band router is the issue here, so it would probably apply to all similar routers. Interested to know if anyone else has experienced the same issue.

Pleased with this so far. Bought to replace an old router which was brought out of retirement when my Virgin-provided one went kaput. The old one was falling over when trying to stream iPlayer, leading to massive frustration in our house when watching Strictly! :) Can't get cable where we live, so this seemed like a good plan. So far so good. Still the odd stutter, but I think that's the line - this piece of kit is excellent and easy to set up.

Bought this as an upgrade to my previous 300mbps 802.11n TP-link modem router. Very stable and improved connection between devices on my home network, especially on the 5ghz band. Not the most friendly software interface but quite configurable if you know what you're doing.

Got fed up with BT's HH3 causing streaming services to constantly freeze, and suspected this was due to DNS settings but you are locked out of changing these on the HH3. Unfortunately there is also no way of changing the DNS settings on my Sony Blu-Ray player if using wi-fi to connect so decided to get a new modem/router instead. Went for the Archer D5 because even though we only have one possible ac client device (new smart phone) I read an interesting article on the SmallNetBuilder site about how ac routers did appear to improve n performance, if/when we ever get FTTC installed one of the ports acts as a fibre WAN input, it is dual band, and it would let me set OpenDNS to be the primary and secondary DNS servers. Initial setup was very easy, and although I noted down the connection parameters before disconnecting the HH3, TP-LINK's basic setup wizard did fill in the correct connection details for BT anyway. Then updated the firmware, again really easy. Then started going through the more advanced configuration options, so set up OpenDNS, and configured the wi-fi settings. Initially I left the 2.4GHz channel and bandwidth at the Auto settings and checked the signal strength on the Blu-ray player, but interesting this dropped off from around 80% with the HH3 to about 55% and assume this was because it was using 40MHz to connect. Tried Auto channel with 40MHz as a check and it improved slightly to about 60%. Most likely due to the distance from the router to the Blu-ray player plus going through a thin wall, so quick check using inSSIDer and switched to Channel 6 and 20MHz and got signal strength back up to between 70% and 75%. Main test was to check Netflix and Amazon Instant streaming, both of which have worked consistently so far. Have to say I am still a bit surprised that the HH3 had a slightly stronger signal (at least going by what my Blu-ray player reports, how accurate that is who knows) than the D5, and hence probably a slightly better 2.4GHz range. But that's of little use if streaming services keep freezing. The other benefit has been that the other devices (2 phones and a tab) are connected to the 5GHz band to try and keep the 2.4GHz band clear. Are there better, more expensive pieces of kit out there - probably? But overall, it's a good router for our needs at a good price, has solved our streaming issues, plus gives us a bit of future proofing for FTTC if it ever arrives.

A great replacement for an old BT Hub Bought this on prime delivery perfect as always and this router was simple to set up and I had it running in 15 minutes from opening the box! It gives good speeds and very good range Very happy!

Looks great and it was all fantastic. At first. The setup interface is ridiculously complex and could do with a UI expert, but that I can live with. What I can't live with is random wifi drop-offs. The lights on the router show that wifi is fine but every device suddenly shows the wifi signal bouncing up and down and nothing will connect to the router at all. T The only way to fix this was to restart the router. This was happening every day or so, even with a firmware update, so it's going straight back. Having seen a few other reports of this around the internet, there's clearly a fault somewhere and I won't be risking it with TP-Link again.