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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2015
Don't buy this or any other old fashioned single router unless you live in a small open apartment or condo. Mesh is the future and in just a few years we'll all be laughing at the struggles of home wi-fi that we endured until mesh routers broke into our homes in 2016. Life is great. Innovation is glorious.
As I happily bury this ugly shiny and over-sized D-Link router, I feel I must try to say a few kind words about the 18 months we spent together.
In my never ending journey to make my home wi-fi reliable, I came to yjr DIR-890l router 18 months ago from high-end Asus routers which had their own problems with bad firmware and > monthly firmware updates. Until I switched to the amazing Amplifi HD mesh router, I had kept the Asus routers in the family room and master bed room as wireless media bridges so my TV, Blu-ray, media players etc could have a wired connection for improved reliability and performance. I no longer need any of that with my mesh wi-fi network. But the setup did prove to be reliable with the DIR-890l.
Kind of opposite of the Asus routers, D-Link's problem was very weak and limited firmware which they only updated about once per year. And ultimately the router could not cover my 3,000 ft two story home. My IP cameras would occasionally lose signal etc and there were dead zones in places. DD-WRT firmware never ran well enough to use on the D-Link either. Slow and buggy in my multiple tests.
Also this router forever had problems with one of the 5Ghz channels. I tried to balance my gazillion devices on both 5 Ghz channels but one of them always had some issues that resulted in disconnects and bad performance.
So I bid this router and all other old-style non-mesh routers an happy goodbye. I hope we never meet again.
Original review from a year+ ago deleted since times have changed. Don't buy this router or any of it's competitors. You can do much better with any of the new top mesh routers available these days. Once you go mesh you will never go back.
18-month update. I recently forever retired this ugly DIR-890l thing with some joy after getting my mesh Amplifi HD router 3 piece set. The hype is 110% true, mesh routers blow away these archaic and ugly hunks of plastic in every way that matters. My family's eight external IP wireless surveillance cameras and 30+ other wi-fi devices have never been so happy or responsive since I moved to a mesh network.
Don't buy this or any other old fashioned single router unless you live in a small open apartment or condo. Mesh is the future and in just a few years we'll all be laughing at the struggles of home wi-fi that we endured until mesh routers broke into our homes in 2016. Life is great. Innovation is glorious.
As I happily bury this ugly shiny and over-sized D-Link router, I feel I must try to say a few kind words about the 18 months we spent together.
In my never ending journey to make my home wi-fi reliable, I came to yjr DIR-890l router 18 months ago from high-end Asus routers which had their own problems with bad firmware and > monthly firmware updates. Until I switched to the amazing Amplifi HD mesh router, I had kept the Asus routers in the family room and master bed room as wireless media bridges so my TV, Blu-ray, media players etc could have a wired connection for improved reliability and performance. I no longer need any of that with my mesh wi-fi network. But the setup did prove to be reliable with the DIR-890l.
Kind of opposite of the Asus routers, D-Link's problem was very weak and limited firmware which they only updated about once per year. And ultimately the router could not cover my 3,000 ft two story home. My IP cameras would occasionally lose signal etc and there were dead zones in places. DD-WRT firmware never ran well enough to use on the D-Link either. Slow and buggy in my multiple tests.
Also this router forever had problems with one of the 5Ghz channels. I tried to balance my gazillion devices on both 5 Ghz channels but one of them always had some issues that resulted in disconnects and bad performance.
So I bid this router and all other old-style non-mesh routers an happy goodbye. I hope we never meet again.
Original review from a year+ ago deleted since times have changed. Don't buy this router or any of it's competitors. You can do much better with any of the new top mesh routers available these days. Once you go mesh you will never go back.
Don't buy this or any other old fashioned single router unless you live in a small open apartment or condo. Mesh is the future and in just a few years we'll all be laughing at the struggles of home wi-fi that we endured until mesh routers broke into our homes in 2016. Life is great. Innovation is glorious.
As I happily bury this ugly shiny and over-sized D-Link router, I feel I must try to say a few kind words about the 18 months we spent together.
In my never ending journey to make my home wi-fi reliable, I came to yjr DIR-890l router 18 months ago from high-end Asus routers which had their own problems with bad firmware and > monthly firmware updates. Until I switched to the amazing Amplifi HD mesh router, I had kept the Asus routers in the family room and master bed room as wireless media bridges so my TV, Blu-ray, media players etc could have a wired connection for improved reliability and performance. I no longer need any of that with my mesh wi-fi network. But the setup did prove to be reliable with the DIR-890l.
Kind of opposite of the Asus routers, D-Link's problem was very weak and limited firmware which they only updated about once per year. And ultimately the router could not cover my 3,000 ft two story home. My IP cameras would occasionally lose signal etc and there were dead zones in places. DD-WRT firmware never ran well enough to use on the D-Link either. Slow and buggy in my multiple tests.
Also this router forever had problems with one of the 5Ghz channels. I tried to balance my gazillion devices on both 5 Ghz channels but one of them always had some issues that resulted in disconnects and bad performance.
So I bid this router and all other old-style non-mesh routers an happy goodbye. I hope we never meet again.
Original review from a year+ ago deleted since times have changed. Don't buy this router or any of it's competitors. You can do much better with any of the new top mesh routers available these days. Once you go mesh you will never go back.
This router is now obsolete, get a mesh router package
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2015
18-month update. I recently forever retired this ugly DIR-890l thing with some joy after getting my mesh Amplifi HD router 3 piece set. The hype is 110% true, mesh routers blow away these archaic and ugly hunks of plastic in every way that matters. My family's eight external IP wireless surveillance cameras and 30+ other wi-fi devices have never been so happy or responsive since I moved to a mesh network.Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2015
Don't buy this or any other old fashioned single router unless you live in a small open apartment or condo. Mesh is the future and in just a few years we'll all be laughing at the struggles of home wi-fi that we endured until mesh routers broke into our homes in 2016. Life is great. Innovation is glorious.
As I happily bury this ugly shiny and over-sized D-Link router, I feel I must try to say a few kind words about the 18 months we spent together.
In my never ending journey to make my home wi-fi reliable, I came to yjr DIR-890l router 18 months ago from high-end Asus routers which had their own problems with bad firmware and > monthly firmware updates. Until I switched to the amazing Amplifi HD mesh router, I had kept the Asus routers in the family room and master bed room as wireless media bridges so my TV, Blu-ray, media players etc could have a wired connection for improved reliability and performance. I no longer need any of that with my mesh wi-fi network. But the setup did prove to be reliable with the DIR-890l.
Kind of opposite of the Asus routers, D-Link's problem was very weak and limited firmware which they only updated about once per year. And ultimately the router could not cover my 3,000 ft two story home. My IP cameras would occasionally lose signal etc and there were dead zones in places. DD-WRT firmware never ran well enough to use on the D-Link either. Slow and buggy in my multiple tests.
Also this router forever had problems with one of the 5Ghz channels. I tried to balance my gazillion devices on both 5 Ghz channels but one of them always had some issues that resulted in disconnects and bad performance.
So I bid this router and all other old-style non-mesh routers an happy goodbye. I hope we never meet again.
Original review from a year+ ago deleted since times have changed. Don't buy this router or any of it's competitors. You can do much better with any of the new top mesh routers available these days. Once you go mesh you will never go back.
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