TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 Product Details
2.4GHz 300Mbps + 5GHz 300Mbps Simultaneous Data Transmission
Users can run day-to-day applications, such as e-mail and web browsing over the 2.4GHz band at 300Mbps while using bandwidth intensive or latency sensitive applications, such as streaming HD video or playing online games, over the clearer 5GHz band at 300Mbps, at the same time.
Versatile 2 x USB Ports
Using the TL-WDR3600’s two multi-functional USB 2.0 ports, users can share printers, files and media either throughout the network at home with several different computers or even away, using the device’s ftp server functions so that you never have to part with your files.
Blazing Fast Speeds
With one Gigabit WAN port and four Gigabit LAN ports, the TL-WDR3600 is able to support a robust and extremely fast wired network, ideal for latency-sensitive applications such as HD media and online gaming. With built-in gigabit Ethernet switch and a Hardware NAT function, the wireless router provides powerful data processing capabilities. Its NAT throughput between WAN and LAN can achieve up to 800Mbps allowing users to unleash the full potential of their networks and satisfy demands for future network upgrades.
What’s Included:
- TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 Wireless Router
- Ethernet Cable
- 2x External Antennas
- Power Supply Cable
- Online Installation Manual
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PhunkyDork –
Has good features but as a networking guy, I demand a couple things: high reliability, capable processing. I use the USB port to attach a NAS and it works well. It exceeds the capability of the Drobo Share network adapter and reduces spin-up time. Router dogs when downloading through accelerators (like GTA V updater) which spawn large numbers of TCP connections. I’ve also had to reset this device at least once a month when it would establish a link but refuse to pass packets. Some LAN ports may actually be dead but I only need 2 ports so perhaps this explains the link/no-pass. I had to return another device for the exact same issue and resigned to fall back to accepting that 2 of 4 LAN ports are failing.
Ozymandous –
I bought this approximately 5 months ago and when it works its great, the problem is when is starts randomly dropping both wireless and wired connections.Here’s the issue: The PC can connect to the router fine, but cannot access the internet. Normally this will randomly only affect one machine, with other devices, both wired and wireless able to connect and access the internet fine. The disconnects have happened in the middle of use so it’s not as if the device was asleep and lost a connection.Searching the Internet shows a lot of people with this issue, normally it only affects wireless, but it has happened to my hardwired desktop as well, with the machine still showing a solid connection but the router not allowing access even out to my cable modem (hence knowing its a problem that begins/ends at the router).Giving this a 2 star for the unexplained drops that require physically unplugging the power to reset the router, even a “soft boot” from the web admin page doesn’t fix, and sometimes the power unplug has to happen multiple times before the connection is stable again. Note: I am using the latest firmware from July 2015.
Saima S. –
Works perfectly!
Everly Pangilinan –
I bought this for the price and experience with TP link reliable routers. I also bought it because I have a tp link access point for better compatibility. My previous router got damaged from lightning. Works well except for a couple things: Media server and wifi signal strength. I’ve read DLNA doesn’t work well with this router so I’m a little disappointed. I live in a concrete house and I’ve noticed wifi signal dropping out in rooms that I didn’t have a problem before.I do like the usb printer server feature on this router.
Omayra Mansfield –
This product does what it says, wireless internet. Nothing fancy, but it works. It does not have the range as some of the more expensive routers do, but we purchased this router due to its price per function ratio. The online web based router page is easy to get to and the functions are easy to set up. I give it 4 stars because it should have a bit more range. Its wireless power drops off significantly before our much older router does. We purchased this router to run our computers off of and kept the older router for the pool (802.11b).
HelenL –
When it works, it is fine. Seems to have good speed and throughput. Then, for no reason, the wifi drops the connection and will not reconnect on either band. It will still connect to other devices on the network, though. Or sometimes no one can connect. We do a hard reboot and everything is ok maybe. This router is too flaky and we can’t stand it. As others here have said, if I could get my money back on this, I would.
LA –
Great features and for the most part is a decent router. Can’t always see the difference between the 2.4 and 5 SPID . . . and sometimes i see the 5.0 but not always, but that could be my computer too.Software has lots of setup controls.
Gary P. –
I haven’t had any issues with it whatsoever.
Kevin Guinn –
This is the best router that $50 can buy. It’s been working really well and my connection is solid. It’s very easy to manage and the mobile app is very useful in controlling it.
Janeth Gutierrez –
Been using this router for a few months now & it’s given me little to no issues. I love that you can create a guest wifi account and set time limits on it, works great as a child’s account to limit their internet usage.
Blendi –
Great Router. Easy to set up. More than doubled my speeds that I was getting from the router provided by my ISP.
gearmo –
This works great to extend my legacy home network in a new much larger house. Purchased because of other positive reviews at multiple sources. Found best price at Amazon.
Crispy –
I purchased this Oct 30 2014.I run two of these on separate wired networks (one is connected to a cable modem and the other is connected to a U-Verse modem/router) and have only been using them as a router and have the wireless disable. They been working great and since I’ve got them setup I have never needed to reset.
Drew S –
Not exactly sure what is wrong with my router but had several problems with the wireless from packet loss, signal strength and encryption configuration. Will try a different brand other than TP-LINK next time.
LanceQ –
My TP-LINK router is working great. This is the second TP-LINK product I have purchased and both are working very well.
Richard C. –
Wireless range could be better.
JR 888 –
Works well. I flashed dd-wrt to use as the firmware, and I’m using this as my router, and I have a netgear as an AP that is also running dd-wrt. No issues, and good speed and coverage with this combo.
CG03026 –
I have literally many, many routers. In this case I liked it so well, I own, four of them. I didn’t want 5GHz band, so that feature is of no value to me. I don’t need any USB ports. More features I don’t need.I like the physical On-Off push button switch, so pulling the plug is not the only way to turn it off, and the WPS setup button is nice. I wold buy this again.It works ESPECIALLY well with my Time Warner Road Runner account and my (owened) Arris Surfboard SB6183 modem, where other routers had various struggles.
Customer –
Easy to configure. Must higher throughput than my old Linksys WRT54g, so can actually handle my 75mb connection with Comcast.
Lee –
This is the perfect router for a small house with good internet speed.Of course your router won’t do you any good if you have a bad internet speed,but for our current set up, everyone in the house has perfect speeds and we haven’t had to reset it once yet!
Nkn –
Wireless randomly disconnects, mostly ok.
Capt.Dave –
Works much better than my 10 year old router. Did have some issues pairing with my wifi printer that was downstairs. Moved printer upstairsnear the router and it paired just fine. Not sure why there was an issue with printer. Laptops work just fine downstairs, 60 feet away through second floor which is cement slab.
CRSDER83 –
Awesome product
Ted M. –
Doing a fantastic job
M. Johnson –
A very basic router that will work very well for most people. It’s not very easy to setup as a access point or range extender sort of speak.
Kyle –
Update: After buying a new ASUS AC68U, I can now say the TL-WDR3600 is an awful router. The range, consistency, and speed is far beyond anything this TP-Link is capable of.Worked well the first few months, then the Wifi started to drop out. Now extremely slow and cannot connect more than 30 feet away. When I can get a connection (I can visibly see the router), I can on have the 2.4 or the 5ghz active. If I have both on, I can never get an internet connection, so its one or the other.
J. Bessenyei Jr. –
Set it and forget it? Not with this router. This device constantly needs to be reset to reestablish internet connect. Issues range from significantly decreased upload speeds, to connected but no speed at all, or flat out lose the connection entirely. Applied latest firmware but issue remains. I would not recommend this device … Unless you enjoy rebooting routers.
Anup Saha –
I bought this router about a month ago Second hand from a friend and I’m writing this review as I’m happy with what I purchased, even second hand, and given the original price offering.Though I bought the router Second hand, it was still relatively new, given my friend purchased it to upgrade a client’s network and wound up not needing it, after tossing out the box. So when I bought it from him for only $40, all it had was the factory plastic film over the top.But I’m here for more than to just boast about the deal I got.Very reliable router (for the most part) and it definitely pulls the full amount of bandwidth I pay for (300mB/s). This replaced my NETGEAR WNDR3400v3 router, and unlike the Netgear which is falsely advertised as N600, this is actuallyan N600 router to my delight. This router is the Crown Jewel, so to speak, of my router Cascade and for me, it gave amazing range and speed, even with little to no pick up from the router when at a far distance from it, I was still pulling upwards of 30mB/s which is, in my opinon, good when you’re only picking up a bar of signal. But for whatever reason, the range wasn’t reaching most parts of my house (where I live with my parents and sisters).I live in the basement, and I get great signal from my basement, despite the thicker cieling/floor. So it was a mystery to me why some parts of my house wasn’t getting decent signal, where my old Netgear reached perfectly fine. So I restored the Netgear onto my network and created a Cascade (If you’re curious about what a router cascade is, google it, simple concept but I won’t go into detail about it).So my set up was as followsModem>TP-LINK>Netgearwhere the Netgear gets service and DHCP from the TP-LINK.Then after a week, I found that the TP-LINK outright DROPPED the 2.4GHz network, as in, the 2.4GHz network stopped brodcasting entirely,and I would have to reboot the router to get it back, and that was important as I have a wifi bridge (another thing you can google) wirelessly linked to my 2.4GHz TP-LINK network.I updated to the most recent factory firmware and was still experiencing the problem.SO I flashed a 3rd party firmware called DD-WRT and it was perfectly fine.I never found the exact reason why the 2.4GHz network stopped Broadcasting, but it appears to have been fixed with the 3rd party software.But still, I won’t complain as the hardware itself does it’s job, and the STOCK firmware was just fine for the most part, and it appears that I’m only aongst the few who have experienced the dropped 2.4GHz network issue.Summary:GREAT router, and TP-Link’s Stock firmware does the job for the regular consumer.For more technologically minded customers like myself, you MIGHT get more bang for your buck with software like DD-WRT, or Tomato, as they both support this router and add great functionality.Why 4 stars out of 5? Because of the 2.4 GHz network issue, but still an all around great router, that is open source friendly.
Evan Canady –
I have had this router for 11 months. I have to reset it (unplug power and plug back in) multiple times per week – sometimes multiple times per day. It is very frustrating. I will be looking for a replacement soon.
James A. –
I had this router for about 9 months. It work great and then wifi would drop and look like it was still connected but you had no connection. Would have to reboot it all the time. I also have a verizon router and some time it would just lock up and drop connection. So i got Woods 50007 Indoor 24-Hour Digital Timer, Daily Settings, 2-Pack from Amazon and put on both routers and having them to reboot 2 times a day 6:00am & 12:00am when nobody is using them and it works fine for me. The router ha fast speeds.
JG –
Router arrived on time and in excellent condition. Works flawlessly and I’m really impressed with the features. Would buy from this company again. Thank you.
Gen –
I was working off a very old school Linksys router and was constantly dropping my signal. After asking a couple tech savvy friends, I was recommended to upgrade (albeit a few years too late) to this router and could not have been more pleased. I was able to set it up myself in very little time and I have still not had any issues with the connection or its connectivity to the modem (a problem I used to always have). I’m very happy with this router.
G Whitsitt –
This thing gives the best connection I’ve ever had with a wi-fi router, and the ability to connect a external drive is great.
Lisa –
This router was really easy to set up, has great range and was a good value.I’m happy with this purchase.
Customer –
didnt really help improve the wifi connection in my house. I live in a small ranch house it should have no problem reaching to me bed room 20 feet away… some days are better then others so its hard to say.
Bunotsumi –
Works pretty well. I occasionally can’t find the network, when I get in its range from outside of it, it’s very rare though.
teri anderson –
Works great!
Steve Underwood –
Arrived promptly and was easy to set up. I had my WIFI back in mere minutes after receiving the router.
Tony C –
I had this hardwired linked to a tplink gigabit switch on one port to add more ports in my living room. One would think two products from the same company would work together quite well. That was not the case at all. Instead of 110MB/s speeds from end to end I was seeing 8MB/s.I swapped this out with a Netgear and my problems disappeared. Keep in mind I was testing this with zero traffic. One gigabit port of this thing can’t service 8 gigabit ports on a switch at full speed. My test was one device on here reading/writing across 10 gigabit certified ethernet to another wired machine.Stock firmware is pretty bad and unstable. I had to reset it roughly every 48 hours to get wireless drops and degraded performance fixed. DD-WRT helped eliminate most of this issue, aside from a 5GHz band that for some reason none of my devices could connect to. My above issue with a hardwired connection persisted regardless of both manufacturer and DD-WRT versions used.I’m just sorry I wasted time fiddling with the setup and trying to get it to work. Before I knew it I couldn’t return it. Popped in that other router I mentioned and everything worked and has been working for over 4 months without a single need for a reset. If you’re not going to push this hard I suppose it’ll work, but I’d rather spend a bit extra and not have to deal with the issues.
texmln –
Finally, a stable router at a great price. This router supports a fairly large network both in terms of area and number of connections. It has been working flawlessly since I installed it several months ago, which is more than I can say for nearly every router I’ve ever owned. It’s pretty inexpensive on top of it. The user interface is good. I am particularly pleased that the access control denying service to specific MAC’s on a schedule actually works. I’ve never been able to get it to work on any other router. Definitely worth the price.
Spiker –
This is such an improvement over my other wireless-N router. I installed Gargoyle on the first day, and I am glad I did – it really made the QoS simple to use! I get great coverage in both bands (2.4Ghz & 5Ghz), and I couldn’t be happier. I have had this for just about a month now, and it has not lost connectivity once!
Customer –
Bought this router as a replacement for the one that had been running my parents’ WiFi. Great router for the cost, and a solid bump in terms of signal for them.
R. Guidry –
I’m liking it more and more each day. Hasn’t dropped any connections yet. Setup is different than the Netgears I’ve been using but with a little digging you’ll find out what you need to get the job done.
David –
nice for the pic and carrys a nice wave for all my wireless
Nate Clark –
Item arrived quickly and as described. Thank you.
cashonly –
It was iffy to begin with… kept dropping the signal. Then I read that if you turn off 5ghz, the 2.4ghz works well. So I did, and it’s pretty reliable, but sometimes the wifi signal still does drop out for a few seconds…. mainly with my Roku. And the range is not all that great. I have a large house and was hoping I could get good coverage, but it does so poorly with a room above it and to the right a bit, I had to get a booster.
Deanna J –
Works great, arrived fast, easy hook-up and customer service was great in helping me set up home network with a bridge. Would recommend to friends and family, quality product with a nice price. Does just as good as the higher priced models of the same thing!
Izzy –
I put DD-WRT on it and it runs well. TP-Link products seem to do a great job with gigabit over my house’s cat5 (not cat5e) wiring. I’ve had no issues with it.
Spoolin –
Difficult to put love it, only had it a short time, but I can say I like it. So far so good…
Walter T. Houston –
Easy to set up and works great
Aaron –
Through wired connection I get 100+mbps but with wireless from 10 feet away I get at most 18mbps. The range is not that great either, with it tapering off at about 25 feet.
ValueBuyer –
Good medium speed modem – Installs quickly and works as advertised. No news is good news. Good prices too
Davis R. Best –
I have found this to be a very unfriendly plug and play router. I am not doing anything fancy with the network and have had nothing but problems with this out of the box. I have always just ordered the Linksys router as I never needed much in the specialty of routers, plus I figure 1 year then toss them. I figured I would spend a bit more money and try and get a router that worked a bit better as we have several devices on the network. Here’s the issue with this router for the basic networking person:Poor signal strength. Compared to 3 other routers I’ve had in the same house, this one by far has the worse range. Nothing has changed since switching (no additional microwaves, items on the network, etc)After initially setting the router up with advanced settings, I was having problems with several devices dropping WiFi or quality would suffer. I used the setup wizard. It worked for about a day then started having the same issues. If I did a restart, it would work well for several hours then again, problems. I tried all sorts of things to try and sort this out. Finally, shutting off the 5gh all together, switch the 2.4 to a specific channel has helped. However…I loose the 5gh connection and there’s still some quality issues. Unlike the Linksys where the router all but fails, then requires a restart (time to buy a new one) this router will have 1/2 the devices working perfecting then a couple devices struggling until the restart.Complete WiFi failure of a cell phone. It is quite possible that my wife’s cell phones WiFi was having issues prior to getting this router however the WiFi will not work on her phone. It’s very odd it happened at the same time. WiFi is enable but the phone cannot successfully obtain credentials. Again maybe the phone.Conclusion: As you can see, I got this out of the box and if I trying to connect 6 devices on a high speed connection, should I really have to do hours of tinkering and forum reading? I think not. Highly recommended to move on to another router.
Podsixia –
Range and throughput are pathetic. If you need a router for an area larger than a single floor apartment, DO NOT BUY this router. Works great if you’re next to it, but if you move to a different level in your home, the connection/throughput are horrible. Our house is not large, but web pages load extremely slowly when we’re upstairs. I tweaked the channels, made sure the router was transmitting at high power on the 2.4Ghz band, and it didn’t help at all. This poor performance is confirmed by the rating a nearly identical model got on smallnetbuilders. It was nearly at the bottom of the performance list.The $10 8-year-old Belkin we were using before provided better signal and much higher throughput than this one.I give it two stars because for the price, it has great features, so I didn’t feel it deserved just one, however this router was an epic fail for me. I’m going to move up to the Archer C7 and hope TP-Link can redeem themselves.
Customer –
Works great and set up immediately.
MoDPi –
Great value
Philip Leow –
I read a review from thewirecutter.com claiming this was the best router for (most) people. I usually stick by the wirecutter since they write up such lengthy and long reviews. But this one was pretty disappointing. I lived in an apartment complex with a lot of other wifi signals around me (probably like 6-8 signals would pop up on my iPhone) and this router would barely be able to get from the living room to my room. We had a 3 bedroom apartment, so maybe the router would have to penetrate 1 wall, and 1 door to get to my room and it would barely give me a signal. I mean it would provide a signal, but it wasn’t strong. But the worst part? I used it for maybe 2 months and then it crapped out. I used it with a Motorola Surfboard Modem (which is still going strong) and that was still running fine so I knew it had to be the router that crapped out. I tried rebooting it and playing with the settings on the TP Link web manager but had no luck whats so ever. It kept not picking up an iP address or anything. I contacted TP link support through email but at that point we just wanted to buy another router from Target. Ended up getting a Netgear and that one has been better and more reliable (still not great, but at least it’s lasted longer than this one). Overall, it was a disappointing experience with this TP-Link router, and it COULD be good to use for a home, but I would say no go for apartment complexes. The router was pretty easy to set up and the web manager was pretty decent, but the longevity of the router is a big question mark. Purchase with Caution.
furmanty –
works great easy set up, very fast shipping
David –
I haven’t had any problems with it. I set it up and ran it a short while just to make sure the router worked right, then put dd-wrt on it. I have an ad blocker set up in dd-wrt that blocks ads in the router so they never get to our cell phones and tablets. We’re also on metered internet so I have all the software update sites (including Windows) blocked in dd-wrt except during our free time each day. So far the WDR3600 has been flawless in the over five months I’ve had it.
MarkyMark –
Holding up after 6 months of use. 5 GHz channel lacks range but most do. No problems so far. Easy to set up. Never requires a reboot like my previous 3 Linksys.
Icy –
I bought this on the recommendation of The Wirecutter, but I can’t say that I’m quite satisfied with it. Before one of the firmware updates, this router kept having a flaky and unreliable 2.4GHz signal. The 5GHz was mostly fine, but the 2.4GHz was pretty awful and it required us to reset our router every day. A firmware update somewhat fixed this, and it’s generally more reliable…But the range of the networks aren’t as great as they can be. There are a lot of 2.4GHz networks around because we do live in an area full of apartments, so it’s understandable that performance isn’t where it could be, but it’s pretty abysmal even when you factor that in. Both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks don’t reach the end of the apartment, so it’s a little disappointing. I’ve had to set up an old router for the end of the apartment instead.All in all, it’ll probably work decently, and maybe it’ll work a lot better depending on your situation. But this didn’t quite live up to the experience that I expected.
lola kalbrofsky –
It’s perfect fr what I needed
mb –
Good router, but they only came with Spanish instructions. This took longer for me to set up the router but I was able to use my small Spanish vocabulary and the help of Google Translate to set it up.
v3n3m –
Haven’t had ANY problems with it since day one.Very good price for the quality and stability.Budget friendly and Tech friendly
Richard Lindquist-jr –
Great no issues dual band easy web interface
aranjan99 –
Gave this as a gift to a friend who had an older router and kept dropping connection. Also purchansed a modem along with it. This definately provided us with one off the easiest install we have ever done. Second the speed we gained from this upgrade was tremendous. I highly recommend this product to everyone
SatelliteJ –
works!
Suibian –
Works well for over a year now. No problem what ever.
Customer –
Great product, easy to setup. Much better range than Comcast equipment.
Marcus Padilla –
It’s worked pretty well the last 9 months or so, until recently. Now the wi-fi drops at least once a day, and I have to manually reset the router for it to work again. Range is okay, not as good as a Netgear Nighthawk, but its not bad.
GingerK –
Wireless network continually dropped for no reason.
matchesmalone –
Working great so far with not connectivity issues after a 2 months of use. Would recommend, I get a solid signal in every corner of my 1200 sq ft apartment.
Mordacious Mortem –
great speed and range
Rob M. –
The TP-Link TL-WDR3600 has been top shelf without any problems whatsoever.
Jeff –
Stops responding almost everyday and has to be reset. No wired or wireless connection, light still blinking though.
Customer –
We needed a wireless router with external antennas, 1G ports, and a guest network. This has worked great at a better price point than the Linksys equivalent. Super easy to setup. Just follow the instructions provided.
Jill –
Doesn’t work in my living room but phone wi fi said great. Only fast if I am right next to it bummer
Kylee Disinger –
Range isn’t great we have a large house 3000 Sq feet and need and extender with this router. Speed is no better than with my $20 dlink.
K. Reams –
Direct connection speeds are great, however, WiFi signal seems very week and slow. I had a hard time staying connected to the 5ghz band with any device.
LS_W –
Needs to be reset more often than I would like and never could remote access the twin USB ports. I wanted FTP remote access, and wasted money on this model. Poor documentation in trying to set it up….
dragonmyfeet –
Connect all your computers by Ethernet cable or wireless. You can also plug in your printer and print from any computer, and/or have your own server or network back-up drive with the two USB ports! This router does everything I want and the price was right!
Michael McMullen –
Worst router I’ve ever had. Poor signal strength, constantly drops signal, altogether. Very disappointed.
Customer –
Great router. Highly recommend! Would buy again.
N. N. –
As a lot of the reviews have already stated the router worked great for 8+ plus months, now it will stop responding and has to be reset everyday. Save your money and buy something more reliable.
Rita Powell –
o.k.
Marc A. Ripley –
Good router but needs resetting once every three to four weeks.
DJM_Junior –
Better than the Comcast one for sure.
Austin –
I have to restart this router almost every day. Maybe I have a defective unit.
Customer –
Delivered on time. Covers the whole house. Great value for the money.
Mike P –
I love this router. For the price you pay you get a lot. It has the 2.4 and 5Ghz bands so you can run 2 separate networks at the same time. The default browser interface works well and is easy to follow. I stream my PC games to my Droid Turbo with my NVidia GPU using the “moonlight” app on my android store. This router is able to stream 720p 30fps with no noticeable lag 99% of the time on the 5Ghz band. And that’s a wireless to wireless connection through rooms with half bar signal strength. I’m sure it could do even better more optimal network conditions. I’ve only had to reset it once in the last year when the network crapped out. I’ve have belkin routers in the past and didn’t like them. I’ve also used Netgear ones which I did like. But the ease and price factors of this router make it a no brainer. Would buy again.
Al in OKC –
Still works great. Love my new TP-LINK dual band router.
Customer –
worked really well, was able to mod it with DDWRT and has not crashed at all, unlike others when feeding it mass amounts of bandwidth.
Daniel Green –
Easy setup. No problems. Great value for the money.
Ryan –
A decent budget router with good specs. The only complaint I have is the 5ghz band has very weak range.
Craig F. –
Those fancy antennas work worse than units that don’t have antennas at all. Distance of any kind made it useless, just crap! Too late to return it, so I’m stuck with this piece of junk.
Joel Chow –
This router is a good deal. Unfortunately, it has failed to work properly for me despite several attempts at improving its range. I live in a relatively small (600 square ft) 2 bedroom apartment and the signal always fails to reach one of the bedrooms. I have to frequently restart the router in order to get connection going again.
Chris –
I have tried to like this router. The feature set and specs are nice for the price and would have been a nice upgrade from my 10 year old router that I am now using until I find a suitable replacement. I only use wireless for 4 android phones, a tablet, windows laptop (Now Wired), and a Fire Stick. I have the bulk of my networked wired (Roku’s, PC’s) as this is truly the best option for speed and reliability.The wired portion of this router has been rock solid but the wireless leaves a lot to be desired. Signal strength is poor on both the 2.4 and 5GHz. Wireless connections constantly drop requiring an almost daily reset. I have tried updating the firmware (no success), I have even tried DDWRT and while more stable still has not completely solved the dropped wireless.12-26-2016, This router is getting two additional stars, The wireless is still week but have turned the wireless off and use it for qos and to update ip address with Open DNS using DDWRT. You could solve the dropped wireless connection that requires a restart by using the keep alive feature to restart the router daily. 3 Stars if you are familiar with installing a 3rd party firmware or willing to learn.
F. U. –
Solid router. Great configuration and management capabilities, and really appreciate the availability of the 5 GHz bands, and the ability to use this with, or separately from the 2.4 GHz bands. Also appreciated the ethernet ports.Just missing the simple rectangular box. I have this unit on its side with other gear, and its shape makes it awkward to stack with other equipment.
Bro tim –
I downgraded the review as this thing isn’t a year old and the wifi 5G doesn’t work anymore cause I cant get it to show up. The 2.5 is working part time and having to reboot it often. I wouldn’t spend the money on this one If I had it to spend again.It isn’t even a year old. That’s junk in my book. It also doesn’t handle several things on it at one time. the range has went down to almost 1 bar in the house. I used to reach it all the way up to the mailbox which is an acre away. This thing needs better parts. I will be going back to Iinksys Or Cisco.
Roy P. –
A+
Datanerd –
This router does the job very well in a 2 bedroom apartment, and has enough range that my phone or laptop can connect to it from outside. The interface is not particularly intuitive, but if you’ve set up a router by hand before, you’ll do OK.
TheProfessor101 –
I am very impressed with TP-LINK products. Assuming you can read, follow directions, and have a basic understanding on how to set things up on your computer, this unit was easy to set up and get working.The dual-band is a nice feature since we have various devices in our home. I set up each antenna for a different speed, so the higher speed devices can take advantage of the higher speed, while the slower/older devices can still connect.Our home is single story and the signal reaches from one end to the other. Of course, your results will vary depending upon obstacles.If I were to purchase again, I would purchase the unit with more than 4 LAN ports. I’ve used all mine up.Great job TP-LINK!
Norman Bayle –
Good
TomDoris –
Replaced a older router from 2012, this is MUCH better, easy startup, etc
Reader Joe –
i have had it for 3 months now and the 2.4 Ghz band dosent work unless i restart it every time which means i cant connect it to chrome-cast , i have had to call customer service twice when it stopped working at all ,
A. C. Peterson –
Update 15NOV2016: I would avoid this router. The wireless card seems to be creating a bottleneck of ~ 20 mbps as compared to being connected to the router via Ethernet. The radios also seem weak even on the highest power setting.The firmware on this device does not seem to play nice with windows 10 as of JUL2016. My wireless connection will often drop even as all of my other devices (a Mac and 3 IOS) stay connected. I have upgraded the drivers as far as possible and the connection still drop. I would only buy this device again as raw material to upgrade to DD-WRT.
Mani Arabi –
Wi-Fi NEVER works.PROS:-Wired ports work and are high speed-It has 2 wi-fi bands, if they ever work.CONS:-Wi-Fi does NOT work. Ever.**Apple devices will not even SEE the access point(s). (Tested on iphone 4, iphone 6 and ipad air 1; none of them could detect the access points).**Android (phones) and Windows (laptops) have no problem seeing the access point and accessing it via the password. However, no internet connection is ever achieved DESPITE THE ROUTER BEING ONLINE and wired ports working fine.I have been building my own computers for 15+ years and am highly technical. Everything SAYS its working on this garbage router, but you will never get a wi-fi internet connection.Thankfully my mom lives next door to my grandparents (whom I bought this for) and her netgear router has no problem providing a wi-fi signal from there. The signal from my mom’s netgear is weak (can’t video chat consistently) but otherwise works fine so I know all my devices (apple, android, and windows) are functioning fine….the only problem is this junk router.
J. Swafford –
Recommended to me by a tech friend. Works well. Took some time to figure out set up and online tutorials were needed as the device came with limited instructions. We run off a land line, so I purchased the TP Link modem as well.
kevin a. –
Great product! Very strong and powerful router for the price. I use this for streaming tv and movies from a few rooms away and it doesnt skip a beat! The prodhct is better than expected. Seller’s service was great. Shipping was very fast! Great experience! Will definity be back for more!! AA++++
Customer –
I got some wifis at my mailbox.
Dale Delp –
Great!
Steve Danklefsen –
Good buy for the money. Easy set up. No problems for have had for at least 6 months if not a year.
Wendaddy –
I use gargoyle router firmware to get QOS control so I do not have to fight my kids for bandwidth.For the 2 year ownership, it is mostly stable. In the first a few months, I get hangs about 2 times a month. Now, instead of waiting for the hang, I just scheduled a reboot every week. It seems to be working.
Customer –
Works great!
D. –
You think it’s a great value – Wow! Dual band N router for so cheap! – until various bands of the 2.4ghz channel start to crap out on you. You can’t the 2.4 channel to auto at that point because it might settle on some of the bands that are not working, so you have to resort to remembering and manually switching to bands that still work.So now I have to go spend money on another router. Great.
Michelle Yu –
it keeps on disconnected on me. I know its not the internet because you can see 5 bars, but somehow it will keep disconnected at leasst once per day. its really annoying.
John Smith –
Unit worked good for 1.5 years with no problems, now intermittent, have to continue to re-boot. Cannot watch videos as video freezes, have to continually reset page.
Ryan –
Pretty nice router. The one thing I don’t like about it is that when you plug in a drive, it will only mount a fat 32 disk.. One of the reasons I chose this model is because I thought I would be able to plug a disk formatted to HFS+ (Mac OS X filesystem) in, and work off of it in another room..
Customer –
Goes out all of the time
Customer –
Integrated DHCP server often assigns an already assigned static IP address to a new device connecting, causing connection issues with the new device. Just keep from binding addresses and it works great.
notsoharsh –
It has worked really well in over an year of use. I needed to restart it maybe 4-5 times until now because of no internet on wifi. Otherwise it has been great. I always have 10 or more devices connected to it and have no problems at all.
Warren –
This is a great dual band wi-fi router at an affordable price. Setup was quite easy.
Alexandru B. –
This is the second device. The first one stopped working after 2 weeks of use. It was replaced by Amazon with a new device. The second device was operational for about 6 months and then stopped working. Unfortunately, I will not be purchasing TP Link products again.
Alex LaFroscia –
I’ve ordered two of these routers, and both have issues. Both the 2.4 and 5-GHz networks will just stop working, requiring a reboot of the router every time, on both sets of hardware. The network will suddenly stop accepting the password, asking for it again, and then refusing to accept the provided (correct) password. The coverage is great, when it works, but owning two with the same technical issue tells me that I don’t have a wonky unit, there is something chronically wrong with them or their firmware.
RandomGravy –
TP-Link no longer allows updating these routers with third party firmware (DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato, etc.). This leaves you with the inferior factory firmware.
Tomitheus –
Had this router for about 1 year. About 6 months ago it was working perfectly fine without any issues. Then once it hit 6 months, we started to get no internet connection when surfing the internet or even on social media. Looked up the issue, and it said to update the firmware. I did so, and issue still occurs. It happens at least once a day. It will be working and all of a sudden no internet connection. It happens on at least 6 devices that I tested it on. Cannot connect to it when this happens either. I have to power cycle the router and it ends up working fine again.
kost –
using it for 2 years already. was happy initially, however adding more and more devices in network it looks like we hit some limit. sometimes it’s stuck for couple of mins, sometimes it requires reload. reload normally required under high load, when smart tv streams + couple of devices having youtube streaming. we have now smart tv, 5 laptops, couple of tables, 5 phones and less active consumers like nest, printer, etc.another issue is sometimes device off sleep cannot get wifi until router reload, device reconnects, resets, etc do not help.so, overall its good if u have like 5-7 devices. having more – you need something more robust.
Customer –
Love the dual frequencies and added speed. Item is installed in our guest house but I can get good signal strength at the far end of the main house, ~120 ft awayfrom wifi through cinder block walls.
Michael & Diane Wojcik –
Great Product!
Podcasts are life –
Stop renting one and get your own! It works great love it.
Raymond H. –
Works much better than the free modem / router that i got with my isp.
Customer –
POS doesn’t hold connections anymore, very unstable after only a year of owning it…guess I should have gone with Linsky’s
Toby –
I am supremely disappointed in this router. I have had it for 1 year and 2 months. It almost made it a year before it started behaving terribly. I have to reboot it all the time. It crashes almost daily. I have tried updating the firmware and that was no help.I will actually be on working late at night at times and no one else is on the WiFi in the house. It will crash while I’m working and I have to physically go and unplug it and plug it back in.Total junk. Do not buy this.
Thomas A. Comer –
DIDN’T WORK FOR ME
Tim Burke –
I bought this router a few years ago, paying more in the hopes of getting a better quality router that did not need to be reset all the time. Sadly, the problems with this router seem to get worse and worse as the years go on. The issue is that most of the time the router works great, then the ping times start going up, and eventually one device or another will stop being able to connect to the cable modem. Often, other devices will continue to operate just fine. After much troubleshooting the thing that always fixed the issue is rebooting the router. I can do it from my phone many times through the router management web interface, but recently even that won’t work, indicating something in the router is crashing.The hardware seems fine, but the firmware in this device, like most routers, is poorly written, poorly tested junk. One of my coworkers recently recommended installing some open source firmware for the router, DDWRT, so we will see if that works. I just want a router that works and doesn’t suck up my time.
Eduardo L. –
Excellent, purchase, works great
Jason K Pae –
Lacks a little bit of range but good for the price
tuffynuttz –
I purchased this router because it had mostly solid reviews and seemed like a good value for the price. Despite a few reviews talking about flaky Wi-Fi I still purchased. It worked pretty well for about 6 to 7 months. At the 6-7 month mark it started having issues with the Wi-Fi not working. While the Wi-Fi had issues a computer that I had hard wired to the router would work fine, so I knew this was not an issue with the cable modem or the ISP. At first a reboot of the router would fix the issue. After a few weeks it needed a daily reboot and only a factory reset and reconfigure would fix the issue. After another month of several reboots and factory resets, I finally grew tired of the issue and called support. The 1st support person I spoke to was rather helpful and after a brief conversation we both agreed that the router was defective. Our conversation was brief only because I have been working in IT related fields for over 10 years and I was able to head off any sort of dishonest answers and useless advice I received. But none the less, my first experience with TP Link Support was positive. The router was still under the 2 year factory warranty and they honored this by doing an RMA. Shortly after the phone conversation I received an email with the RMA information and a request to confirm my shipping address. After confirming my address I received an email that I would receive my replacement router within 1 business week. That was 20 days ago and I still have not received my replacement router. I have called just about every day within the last week to check the status and I am told different combinations of the same information over and over again. First, I was told that the warehouse where these items ship from was in the process of relocating and that would add some time to process and delay shipment by a few days. I called back after two weeks and was told the same information again and that that my RMA was in process and they did not know when it would ship. After about 2.5 weeks I called everyday trying to find some information on what the status was or if I would ever receive my replacement router. Now the story that I get is that the support people who answer the phone are unable to let me talk to the RMA department, there is no way for me to contact the RMA department, and all they can do is send the RMA department an email and request that this be escalated to an emergency situation and someone will contact me within 24 hours. I received this same information 3 days in a row. The last person told me I would receive a call back within the hour. As I write this, that was 20 hours ago. Late last night I called again and after begging…ok more like screaming to talk to a manger I was finally told by the manager that the status had been updated that day from processing to waiting to ship. I asked to either be put in contact with the RMA team or to have them contact me to tell me when it would ship and provide tracking information. Once again I was told they were only able to send an email to the RMA team. Early this morning I received this email:“Dear Customer,Thanks for your calling to request information about TP-LINK ! This is Rebecca from TP-LINK !I have checked your RMA status, our RMA support team has updated it today, so please wait patiently ,they will try their best to arrange replacement for you as soon as possible. Thanks so much for your patience !”Long story short: It has been 20 days and I have no more knowledge about the status of my replacement router than the day I originally called support and the RMA was issued. If you are looking to save a few bucks and buy this router…DO NOT. I also would not recommend ever buying any TP Link products. Their support and RMA process is absolutely atrocious!
Jack –
I hate this router. Over the past two years I have had nothing but lost connections, difficulty logging onto the router, more lost connections, inability to connect, intermittent signal strength on the guest network. You name a problem and I’ve had the problem with this router. I will never, ever purchase a TP link product again.Two months later: I made the mistake of trying to get this router to work right. Horrible mistake. I wasted another half-lifetime on a total piece of garbage. Just bought a ASUS RT ACRH13 on Amazon and it is a little jewel. Fast, easy to program, reliable, inexpensive, strong steady signal, readable instructions; everything the TP-Link is not. Again, avoid TP-Link router like the plague.
Customer –
This router requires constant attention. The router worked okay for the first few months, even though the range was mediocre at best. Over time, the router would require a reboot multiple times weekly. TP-Link customer support was better than average, and they even sent me a better replacement router (archer C50). The C50 ended up being a bigger piece of junk, see my review on it. These are budget friendly routers, but don’t seem to perform as well as other brands.
PAUL –
Not using the WIFI part but works great as a Router
T. P. –
I’ve had this for about 3 years now. Haven’t had any issues, despite the reviews that report poor or loss of function. Reasons why I’m giving 4 stars instead of 5:1) I cannot comment on range because I live in a small apartment. But I have no issues reading the news on my smartphone while taking a dump in the bathroom with 2 walls in between and about 20 feet away.2) I cannot comment on the dual ban function, because I don’t have any devices that can take advantage of them.3) I’m not experienced enough with security to evaluate it in this product.4) I sometimes get bad latency during gaming, or slowdowns during downloads, but almost certain it’s because I share a commercial modem/connection with several other apartments in my building. Although, I cannot be absolutely 100% sure that it’s the router.Also, I don’t even know if this item is still in production after all these years. I’m just eating my chicken, and I decided to write some reviews for all these old purchases I’ve made on Amazon.
Daniel J Helber Jr. –
junk worked less than half year
John jaworski –
Couple years now and still working flawlessly!!! I highly recommend!
Arlana Kemplin –
Reliable and fast with Comcast.
J. Karns –
Have been using my WDR3600 for at least 3 years. It replaced my trusty Linksys WRT54g router which had been in service for many years. Upgraded to the WDR3600 to get access to the the faster ‘N’ band. The price was a deal
MAH –
Works great so far. For the price you cant beat the specs.
Jim Schubert –
I purchased this router specifically for the extra features (USB, FTP, Dyndns). None of these work. There’s an administration page that shows the services are “Stopped” and there seems to be no way to get these services started.On top of this, after losing power a few times the router’s settings were reset.I planned to use this router for wireless instead of the wireless built into my FiOS router, but I don’t feel the tp-link router is reliable enough to fully switch over.
Customer –
failed to work after 2 months
Brendan –
TL;DR:If you have a small house (1,000 sq ft), this will do. Otherwise go with something like the TP-Link OnHub or the Asus OnHub, both by Google.Long version:When I purchased this router in July 2015 for $48, it was enough to cover the small (1,000 sq ft) house we were in. Fast forward a year, I’d been using it in the new house (1,500 sq ft) with not-so-great coverage. In some areas of the house, videos would struggle to play entirely. This is when I decided it was time to retire this tried and true TP-Link router. I have since switched to the Asus OnHub and the coverage is a night and day difference.P.S. If you want stability, install a 3rd party firmware on the router such as dd-wrt as the stock TP-Link firmware isn’t all that great. Even with dd-wrt installed, I’d still suggest scheduling a weekly reboot at midnight or 2am (when no devices are in use).
Scott Rogerson –
Worked great for 2 years, then began to intermittently shut down and a require resets.
Taylor –
Great signal for it’s price.
Luis V. –
worked perfectly for about two months then it started to lose connection and I had to restart the router frequently for it to work. If you want a router that will last for more than 2 months don’t buy this.
Thomas Fish –
After just over 1 year the 2.4ghz band has died, leaving just a few of my devices working on the 5ghz band. Very disappointed that this router only lasted just over a year.
Andrew –
Worked well for less than two years, but now the signal won’t reach into other rooms.
SL –
Great
Danny –
Range isn’t the best, everything else is amazing.
Sean C –
the first one kept on dropping signal, upgraded firmware and wouldn’t even work, had to reset it, and reboot the thing regularly to maintain connectivity, returned & got a new one, after less than one year, same thing happened again,this time I bought a refurbished Asus AC1900 router and got much more stable & faster speeds than i ever got with TPLink,very disappointed,
Brian –
I am very happy with this Router. It is not an AC router but meets my requirements. I use it with TP-Link 4220 Powerline equipment and the wifi in my house is good. TP-Link support is first class.
wla755 –
Works well.
sara23 –
I’ve had this router for a little more than two years and it’s already acting up. I have to unplug and restart it multiple times a week to get the Internet working properly. Do routers really have such a short life span? Should I expect this?
John –
I bought this range extender 6 months ago and got it set up easy enough. I unplugged it to use the outlet for an hour and when I plugged it back In the extender would loose power after 30 sec. I contacted there help line and did the reset but that did not work. They then sent me a bogus phone number for Amazon to return the item. Now what? Problably but a different brand. Good luck if you have this and unplug it.
Murds –
Had this router for just over 2 years when the 5g radio failed and the unit slowed down. Would require a reboot every 24 hours to speed up and reset the 5g radio. For the price I paid 2 years isn’t bad. Would like to see more quality in the TP Link devices as they are decent devices.
A S –
Would work intermittently, then randomly turn off WiFi, or switch to “No internet access” mode (not pinging any DNS routers, provider-supplied or Google or OpenDNS ones.) Needs constant reboots. Spent a lot of time with internet provider support before I narrowed down the issues to the router. A $10 Tenda router given away for free at Microcenter is infinitely more stable than this.I read that stability is improved if one replaces the stock firmware with an open-source one, but seriously, I have to do this to avoid constant frustration?Nice web-based management and statistics interface, though.Big black eye for TP-link.
Natalie Wright –
Stock firmware is garbage, required weekly reboots. Works flawlessly with OpenWRT: easy install, rock solid connectivity, good TX power.
Michael L –
This router has all the standard features you can expect in a router. Settings are fairly straightforward to navigate.However, like others I seem to have intermittent issues. It seems like my 2.4 GHz network is dying. Every now and then I have to reboot the router to get that network working again. During the 2.4 GHz downtime the 5 GHz network works just fine. Antennas are properly connected so I think there is a deeper issue occurring here.Firmware updates seem non-existent now so I would opt for a newer 802.11n router.
D P –
i did not look used at all. item looked brand new except it was not in the original box. this has been a great upgrade.
Arthur O. –
I got this along with my Arris Surfboard modem to help connect the household to the internet wireless and it works very well. You can also physically plug in Ethernet cables if your device can be connected via a wire. Setup was straightforward, however, you really should lock your wireless networks with a password and should have the router settings require a username and password. I don’t think you’re prompted to do this at all which was a bit concerning. You don’t want your neighbors messing with your internet.For the past couple of years, it has worked well. However, when I first got the router roughly three years ago, it would disconnect once a week. It stopped doing that on it’s own without updates so I’m guessing it was my ISP’s fault but who knows. If it hadn’t been for that time where it would disconnect randomly, it would’ve gotten 5 stars.But I want to emphasize that it has worked like charm since then.
Benjamin L. –
Bought this several years ago and still use to this day.
Artie –
this router does the job very well and it serves as a modem as well as a router. Works great
Travis –
OEM firmware was probably ok, but reloaded it with OpenWRT and it runs great. checked the up-time the other day 361 days, no problems.
Raymond –
Worked as advertised and good speed.
EMP –
Lasted for 2.5 years before frequently dropping connections which require a reboot.Tp-Link hasn’t updated the firmware in three years — unacceptable.