TP-Link AC3200 Wireless Tri-Band Gigabit Router Archer C3200 Review
If you have a high-traffic network with multiple clients vying for bandwidth, you may want to consider upgrading to a tri-band router. Whereas dual-band models offer one 2.4GHz and one 5GHz Wi-Fi band, tri-band routers offer one 2.4GHz and two 5GHz bands. The extra 5GHz band goes a long way in easing wireless network congestion and gives you more control over how clients connect wirelessly. With the TP-Link AC3200 Wireless Tri-Band Gigabit Router Archer C3200 ($259.99), you get good 5GHz throughput and a slew of management settings, and it does a solid job of transferring files to and from attached USB storage devices. However, it can't match the overall performance of its triple-band competitors.
Design and FeaturesThe C3200 is an AC3200 router; its 2.4GHz band has a maximum data-link speed of 600Mbps and each of the 5GHz bands can reach speeds of up to 1,300Mbps. It is powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor and supports the 802.11 b/g/n/ac networking standards. In addition to Be...
The TP-Link AC3200 Wireless Tri-Band Gigabit Router Archer C3200 uses three radio bands to help ease network congestion and offers a wealth of management options, but its overall performance comes up short.
Lots of management features; Good close-proximity 5GHz throughput and relatively fast file-transfer speeds in testing
Expensive; Middling range performance and 2.4GHz throughput on our tests