TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 Dual Band Wireless AC Gigabit Router, 2.4GHz 450Mbps+5Ghz 1300Mbps, 2 USB Port, IPv6, Guest Network
- 1.75Gbps total available bandwith, which includes 450Mbps at 2.4GHz and 1300Mbps at 5GHz
- Supports 802.11ac – The next generation of Wi-Fi, and be connected to extra devices
- Dual USB Ports to share files & media, and printer locally with networked devices or remotely via FTP server
- Privacy with Guest Network Access provides secure Wi-Fi access for guests sharing your home or office network
- IP-based Bandwidth Control makes it easier for you to manage the bandwidth of individual devices connected to the router
- Easy one-touch WPA wireless security encryption with the WPS button
- Easy Setup Assistant with multi-language support provides a quick & hassle free installation process
- TP-LINK Live 24/7 Technical Support
TP-LINK Technologies Archer C7 Wireless Router – IEEE 802.11ac ArcherC7 Routers & Gateways – Wireless
List Price: $ 139.99
Price: [wpramaprice asin=”B00BUSDVBQ”]
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Best Router for the Price,
My network connection is 6000/768Kbps ADSL through DSLExtreme and live in a house which has lot size of ~20K sq-ft. Our household has upwards of ~15 types of wireless devices including 5 laptops, 3 game machines, 4 tablets, iPod touch, Nintendo DS’, and a few other hand held gaming devices – average of 5 or 6 connected to the router simultaneously. In ~March 2013, after my kids got rid of some old games that would only work with WEP security, I changed the security settings of my old NETGEAR WNR854T 802.11n router from WEP to WPA2. Note: WEP security only supports up to 54mbps (802.11a/b), whereas WPA/WPA2 support the higher n-standard speeds (300mpbs+) and strong AES/TKIP encryption. This single change increased wireless throughput by >20% (verified using speedtest.net). Note: in 2006 the WNR854T was one of the 1st 802.11n standard gigabit routers that supports single band up to 300mbps @ 2.4ghz. However, after changing the security settings, my old WNR854T router would lock-up or lock-out a device (many times per day) requiring the router to be rebooted. After several frustrating months of trying different router settings, mac-address/IP tethering, different router locations, different phone-line filters, etc., I threw in the towel and started looking for a different router. I found the latest standard ac1750 appealing because of the acclaimed speed and range – both of which I wanted anyway. Over the course of about 3-4 months I tried 4 different 802.11ac compliant routers. What I found is described below. Hopefully, it will save others a lot of time.
The Pros of the Archer C7: 1) Very fast, 2) Excellent range, 3) Three external antennas, 4) Good built-in web user interface with good help and explanation of terminology corresponding to the displayed menu that stays displayed to the right in each menu, 5) Sleek smart design, 6) Good price @ $150, 7) Good information on how to improve wireless performance on their website. Cons of the Archer C7: 1) there is no logout button of the browser interface – the browser must be closed completely including all tabs otherwise the last admin session remains active – not as secure as just having a logout button to click, 2) A lot of bright blinking blue leds on the front that I covered up with a strip of black electrical tape.
These are the 802.11ac1750 dual band (2.4 & 5.0 GHz) routers I tried: 1) TRENDnet TEW-812DRU, 2) TP-LINK Archer C7, 3) NETGEAR R6300V2. I also tried the 802.11ac1200 Amped Wireless RTA15. All of them supported Guest Networks on both bands, and easy setup of multiple wireless Access Points (effectively range extenders by means of adding other routers wirelessly to the primary router that connects to the DSL modem). The NETGEAR had excellent range and very easy setup, but surprisingly had similar problems as the old WNR854T I was trying to replace – locked-up several times right after being setup and required rebooting (cycling power). See my review of the TRENDnet TEW-812DRU at Amazon.com. The Amped Wireless RTA15 had a good setup / user interface, but my experience showed that it did not provide quite as complete the range that the Archer C7 did. The Archer C7 was priced at almost $40 less than the others. You can download the user manuals for each router from the respective company’s website. At the TP-LINK website, under the Support drop-down you can find the link labeled TP-LINK emulators. By selecting the Archer C7 you can get a firsthand experience of the setup / user interface running and play with it. I liked the help / user’s guide that is displayed to the right of the settings. The TRENDnet user interface was almost identical to the Archer C7’s. The Amped Wireless RTA15 user interface was good as it provides pictures and explanation of each setting. The NETGEAR R6300V2 built-in web user interface provides many excellent features including a network topography, signal strength, other networks nearby, and potential interference, etc. – checkout the user’s manual from their site as it is all explained. However, I didn’t like that the help is on the bottom and keeps auto-hiding when you click off of it – I want to read it while also looking at the menu.
I liked both the TP-LINK Archer C7 and Amped Wireless RTA15 because both have external antennas, thus providing the ability to add higher gain antennas if it becomes necessary. Further, (a YouTube video turned me on to this) – with external antennas one can slip a metal kitchen whisk over the antenna to improve the wireless signal – I tried this using one whisk on the middle antenna on the Archer C7 and sure enough the radius of my wireless network range increased by ~70 feet.
Amped Wireless also rates an “excellent” for their learn and tutorial links (bottom of their website), and they have a super nice free app for Android and PC in their WI-FI Analytics Tool – helps identify signal strength, other wireless radios in the area, channel overlaps…
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|A Solid Wireless Router,
The TP-Link Archer C7 is an AC1750 class router with gigabit ports and dual band Wi-Fi that supports up to 450mbps on wireless-N and 1300mbps on wireless-AC. Here’s my take on it:
The box and connectors:
As far as consumer routers go, this is a pretty standard router that offers a couple of nice extras that generally are not found on most routers. On the back panel, the Archer C7 has four gigabit Ethernet ports, and the accompanying WAN port is also gigabit making it suitable for use with the newer class of modems. It also houses a pair of USB 2.0 ports for attaching NAS devices and/or setting up a print server directly off the router without a host computer. The router also supports IPv4 and IPv6 protocols making it a bit future proof (I use this term loosely – as we all know, standards have a way of changing overnight). The unit also uses a standard AC adapter/wall wart combination for power. The connectors for the 5gHz connectors are also located on the rear of the box, as is the WPS reset button.
Last but not least, this router has a dedicated wireless on/off switch in the back AND a power on/off button – seeing as most routers do not have these – this is very cool. These two switches allow the user to disable wireless, and/or perform a cold reboot of the router independently – without having to unplug it from the AC jack (to say nothing of this reducing greatly the risk of the box getting fried by constantly plugging and unplugging this jack). Kudos to TP-Link for this.
On the front panel it’s a pretty typical modern display for a router (with the cutesy icon shaped LED indicators of course). From left to right, you get: a power on indicator, a sun shaped icon displaying the overall status of the router, two separate on/off/active indicators for each wireless band, four indicators for the Ethernet ports, internet activity/active light, and a WPS indicator light. It would have been cool had the Ethernet lights had different colors to indicate 10/100/1000Base-T connections, but this is probably just me wishing to see more information at-a-glance.
The router has a very shiny black finish – which looks fantastic, but you better keep a microfiber cloth handy if you expect it to always look that way – the surface is a big-time fingerprint and dust magnet. You could almost say that one of the Archer C7’s sub functions is to tell you how polluted the air in your house is.
Setup:
Setting up this router is fairly easy to do when it comes to instant gratification. Generally the quick setup (which can be done either through the web interface or included mini-CD) allows one to quickly set up all the rudimentary stuff to get up and running quickly. This will only address the most basic settings, such as setting up the wireless network’s SSID’s, channels, and security keys. This method of setup is probably the best method for novices.
Tweaking this router to your personal tastes and preferences takes a good bit more patience – they are only available from the web interface – and the interface itself, while fairly well laid out is a bit cumbersome to say the least, and requires a lot of clicks to get to certain aspects of the router’s configuration parameters. Changes made that require reboots also take a bit longer than the average router. The bottom line is, while this router can be fully configured, it’s just not a very fast process – put aside a good block of time to do the modifications you want to do to the router.
The first thing I personally would recommend doing before you start diving into the heavier tweaking is to upgrade the firmware. This device will not retain any settings that were modified once the firmware is upgraded, so it can result in a lot of lost time and effort if you don’t do this beforehand. Also it is very important to upgrade to the latest version of the firmware as several critical issues in the original firmware have been fixed.
I am happy to report that once configured to my liking, the Archer C7 has been rock solid – it retains its settings and hasn’t required a single reboot and/or dropped connections anywhere. This makes the time ones puts into customizing very well worth the effort.
Security settings are pretty standard for a consumer router. You get the hardware NAT firewall along with the SPI firewall. You also get DoS protection with assignable flood filters. There is VPN tunnel management and also ALG filters for the NAT firewall. Local and remote management of the router is also fully programmable to make accessibility to the web based interface as tight or as loose as you want.
Other setup features involve the USB ports, as you can set them up for an FTP server, shared storage, print server and also a media server for the entire network. There are also a slew of other features, such as port triggering, setting up a DMZ or…
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