TP-LINK Archer C7 Pro Reviews

Respectable wireless performance and full list of features makes the Archer C7 a truly worthy purchase, especially if you don’t want to spend too much to try 802.11ac for yourself.

Now that there is another major chipmaker in the 802.11ac mix, the salad days of (relatively) high margins are coming to a close and router makers will now engage in the race to the bottom that comes with all new technology. And this, in a standard that is yet to be released. $150 seems to be the new $200 for this class of router, which is where both D-Link's DIR-868L and the C7 now sit. The only buyers who need to be concerned with the intermittent low-throughput problem I found are those with Broadcom-based draft 11ac clients. The ones I know of are ASUS' PCE-66U (PCI-e) and NETGEAR's A6200 (USB 2.0). Linksys' AE6000 uses Mediatek silicon and its WUSB6300 uses Realtek. And at any rate, new firmware should be out soon that fixes the problem permanently. Although the market share leader in China, TP-LINK has been most known in the U.S. for "me-too" products focused on value, i.e. low cost. But if they keep making products like the Archer C7, with plenty of features, strong wired and wireless performance and competitive pricing, they might be on their way to changing that image.