TP-LINK Archer C5 Wireless Router 4 port switch GigE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Dual Band

Purchased based on rating of "Best router under $100". I am quite pleased, easy to configure right out of the box. Speed test indicates it is providing the speeds that I am paying for. Overall good deal.

I can sum up my experience with this wireless router in 5 words: "I left the Stone Age." Sort of. Our previous router was purchased in about 2007 and it worked pretty well. But as it is often said, you can't miss something you don't know about (Gigabit). I would never complain about the old router at this time if I didn't see the difference for myself. We have two desktop PCs and a laptop in our household. The laptop uses wireless to connect to the Internet while the desktops are connected via Ethernet ports. I had already known the fact that your Internet connection speed is reduced somewhat when you go through a router compared to a direct connection from a PC to the Cable Modem. "Good enough" was what I usually said. Until now, that is. Before installing and connecting to the Internet with the TP-LINK AC1200, the desktops "achieved" a download speed of about 35 Mbps and an upload speed of about 10 Mbps. The wireless-connected laptop was around 25 Mbps down. Not bad for our usual activities and I usually blamed my ISP for whatever bottlenecks occurred at times. After installing the TP-LINK AC1200, the difference was amazing! Each desktop received a download speed of about 88 Mbps and 12 Mbps up while the laptop increased its download speed to about 65 Mbps. Streaming video sites such as YouTube worked a lot better with nary a glitch. Okay -- what else is "new" in this deal for a household coming out of their self-imposed "Stone Age?" The 2 USB ports in the TP-LINK AC1200 for shared network files and media. Previously, my NAS (Network Addressed Storage) was a separate device that plugged into an Ethernet port on the old router and had its own power supply and 2 USB ports to plug portable external hard drives. Wires galore! This device was also from around 2004 or 2005 and only fully supported the FAT file system. You could read an NTFS drive but could not add files or delete files. The TP-LINK AC1200 fully supports both FAT and NTFS as well as giving you the ability to hook up a printer (which I have not tried at this time). You can also set up your own FTP server to access your files from elsewhere on the Internet. What I can tell you right now is that setting up the external hard drives to the TP-LINK AC1200 is very simple to do and works beautifully. While the TP-LINK AC1200 comes with a mini-resources 'Setup Wizard' CD for installing the system, I chose to use the Web browser-based installation method following the included directions in the Quick Installation Guide. It was all configured and up and running in about 15 minutes time or less. Quick tip: Always set up a new admin name and password rather than leaving the default "admin/admin" factory settings. Security is only as strong as your own willingness to make it such and leaving the defaults is just asking for trouble. This wireless router not only looks great, it works great and almost anyone could set it up without having to call on the help of a geek. I love this thing!