DIR-850L from D-Link is a perfect canned solution for anyone who does not know much about routers and network attached storage (NAS). This router's setup wizards make initial setup super easy for people with little or no background in networking.
The router has dual Wi-Fi radios which operates in 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ bands independently & effectively boasting theoretical speeds up-to 1200Mbps!! Granted to get the maximum benefits of this router you will need to have 802.11ac based network interface cards on the client machines. I could not test 802.11ac as I do not own those NICs yet. Thankfully, this router was seen fully backward compatible with older 802.11b, g or n Wi-Fi networks and clients with those NICs
In my tests with this router for past couple of days I must agree that this router is super easy to setup and will work just fine for most users who are not tech savvy. But for some advanced users who wants to do fine tune their Wi-Fi network to co-exist with other Wi-Fi networks in their house might find the router's GUI menu little too restrictive.
The 'SMB' share feature by attaching your own HDD to the USB 2.0 port works just fine. It auto-mounts NTFS formatted file-system based USB external HDD and shares that to the network with ease. No user intervention needed. In order to access this 'public' share one can merely view the SMB share by typing \\192.168.0.1\ in windows explorer.
I attempted couple of Windows PC and Android tablets and accessed the router attached USB HDD share on the Wired-LAN network simultaneously with Wi-Fi LAN networks and did not find any issues. The Read/Write performance is adequate enough to stream HD 720p video content to most tablets and PCs. It is not blazing fast SMB performance but good enough to get the job done.
PROs
CONs
For me it was a bit of a disappointment as I found that I could not tweak it further to fit the needs of my environment. I have several other routers in the house which run in the 2.4 GHz bands and few in the 5 GHz bands and I do a lot of tinkering and testing routers. This router did not have any advanced Wi-Fi configuration that I could find that would allow me to change the Wi-Fi channel in use. Granted it does it automatically for you. But not having the ability to turn off Wi-Fi interfaces from the router's local GUI stumped me. BTW, You can do it via the cloud - This beats me.
I wish D-Link improves the firmware by taking user feedback and implement certain other basic requirements, here is that short list...
- Allow router's GUI interface to Turn ON/OFF WI-Fi 2.4 GHz / 5.Ghz Radios on demand.
- Allow router's GUI interface to set user defined Wi-Fi channels in the 2.4 & 5Ghz
- Allow user to setup automatic scheduling of Turning On/Off Wi-Fi Radios
- Allow user to reboot the router at preset intervals
Bottom-line:This is a perfect `canned solution' router for people who do not care or don't know about networking and works great right out of the box. It has good set of features in the offered price range and will remain future proof as 802.11ac matures.
The router has dual Wi-Fi radios which operates in 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ bands independently & effectively boasting theoretical speeds up-to 1200Mbps!! Granted to get the maximum benefits of this router you will need to have 802.11ac based network interface cards on the client machines. I could not test 802.11ac as I do not own those NICs yet. Thankfully, this router was seen fully backward compatible with older 802.11b, g or n Wi-Fi networks and clients with those NICs
In my tests with this router for past couple of days I must agree that this router is super easy to setup and will work just fine for most users who are not tech savvy. But for some advanced users who wants to do fine tune their Wi-Fi network to co-exist with other Wi-Fi networks in their house might find the router's GUI menu little too restrictive.
The 'SMB' share feature by attaching your own HDD to the USB 2.0 port works just fine. It auto-mounts NTFS formatted file-system based USB external HDD and shares that to the network with ease. No user intervention needed. In order to access this 'public' share one can merely view the SMB share by typing \\192.168.0.1\ in windows explorer.
I attempted couple of Windows PC and Android tablets and accessed the router attached USB HDD share on the Wired-LAN network simultaneously with Wi-Fi LAN networks and did not find any issues. The Read/Write performance is adequate enough to stream HD 720p video content to most tablets and PCs. It is not blazing fast SMB performance but good enough to get the job done.
PROs
- Speedy GUI interface with super easy setup method with context sensitive help
- Better than average 2.4 GHz range (@270Mbps) & about average 5 GHz coverage
- Website filters with ALLOW or Deny options to safeguard kids from visiting certain sites
- Sharing Videos & Photos on your home network is super easy
- Gigabit LAN wired interfaces for speedy local area network connections
CONs
- No indicator lights for LAN ports!
- Very limited tweaking is possible & auto log off from GUI is too quick.
- Cannot turn off Wi-Fi from the GUI (Needs a firmware fix for this)
- It does freeze once or twice a day and needs reboot
- Calling this a 'Cloud router' is marketing gimmick of some sorts
- Cannot use it as a thermos flask :-)
For me it was a bit of a disappointment as I found that I could not tweak it further to fit the needs of my environment. I have several other routers in the house which run in the 2.4 GHz bands and few in the 5 GHz bands and I do a lot of tinkering and testing routers. This router did not have any advanced Wi-Fi configuration that I could find that would allow me to change the Wi-Fi channel in use. Granted it does it automatically for you. But not having the ability to turn off Wi-Fi interfaces from the router's local GUI stumped me. BTW, You can do it via the cloud - This beats me.
I wish D-Link improves the firmware by taking user feedback and implement certain other basic requirements, here is that short list...
- Allow router's GUI interface to Turn ON/OFF WI-Fi 2.4 GHz / 5.Ghz Radios on demand.
- Allow router's GUI interface to set user defined Wi-Fi channels in the 2.4 & 5Ghz
- Allow user to setup automatic scheduling of Turning On/Off Wi-Fi Radios
- Allow user to reboot the router at preset intervals
Bottom-line:This is a perfect `canned solution' router for people who do not care or don't know about networking and works great right out of the box. It has good set of features in the offered price range and will remain future proof as 802.11ac matures.
You can buy this from Amazon by using the link below
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