INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Although i know of many people, offices, stores and even companies that use plenty of standalone routers to complete their local networks to date I’ve always chosen modem/routers and smart switches over them for both my home and the lab. I can't really say if that has been the right choice since there are many routers out there with much better feature sets and Wi-Fi performance compared to even the best modem/routers available currently but at least in terms of space saving and ease of use the advantages are evident from the get go. Still with so many router models currently in the market promising lightning fast wireless speeds thanks to the new 802.11ac standard we feel it's crucial for all of you (including us of course) to know which of those models actually work as advertised. With us today we have one of the latest 802.11ac compatible routers to hit the market by D-Link the DIR-880L Wireless AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit Cloud Router.

   D-Link helps you connect to more of everything with our innovative approach to computer networking. From relatively modest beginnings in Taiwan the company has grown over the last 29 years into an exciting global brand offering the latest network solutions. Whether it is for the home consumer, business or service provider we pride ourselves on offering award winning networking products and services. We will continue to lead the way in building networks for people around the world.

   For the DIR-880L D-Link has used the Broadcom BCM4708A (running at 800MHz) CPU along with 256MB of DDR3 RAM, 128MB NAND flash memory and two power amplifiers by Skyworks (SE2623L/2.4GHz-SE5003L1/5.0GHz). Now as many of you know we've pointed out numerous times in the past that although much faster than all previous standards the new 802.11ac doesn't really support WiFi speeds of over 1300Mbps so once again in our hands we have a router that supports the simultaneous broadcast of two bands, 802.11n (2.4GHz 600Mbps) and 802.11ac (5GHz 1300Mbps) to achieve the advertised wireless performance number of 1900Mbps. The DIR-880L also features three 5dBi dual-band dipole antennas and supports beamforming technology (focuses the wireless signal where it detects connected devices) with Turbo QAM (for the 802.11n band) a feature which we've seen quite a few times in the past and basically "boosts" wireless performance to 600Mbps from the standard 300/450Mbps (just as long as the receiver supports it). Also available on the DIR-880L are 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, Gigabit WAN port, USB 3.0 port (right side) and a USB 2.0 port (rear).

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A large product picture is placed at the front of the box and right next to the main product features.

 

 

Some of the features are explained in depth on both sides of the box.

 

 

The full list of features is printed at the rear of the box right above a product picture and a comparison table between AC1900, AC1750, AC750 and N300.

 

 

Inside the box you will find the main body of the DIR-880L, three removable antennas, power adapter with two tips (UK/EU), flat Ethernet cable, software CD, router configuration card, declaration of conformity paper, warranty information, open source statement and a paper with the 2D barcodes for the D-Link mobile apps.

 

 

THE DIR-880L

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 745g heavy enclosure of the DIR-880L (also available in black) is made out of hard plastic and measures 246.9mm in width, 190.4mm in depth and 47.2mm in height.

 

 

There are 6 activity LEDs at the front of the device for the power, internet access, band activity and the two USB ports.

 

 

A USB 3.0 port is placed on the left side of the router while a WPS button is placed on the right.

 

 

Moving at the rear we find the three antenna ports, 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, WAN port, USB 2.0 port, reset button, power button and the DC in.

 

 

Almost the entire bottom is perforated and has 4 rubber feet and two holes for wall mount.

 

 

The DIR-880L may not be the prettiest router around but it's also nothing we haven't seen in the past (we used a marketing picture here since the antennas were not very visible in our picture).

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D-Link updates the firmware of the DIR-880L quite often so before you use it I strongly recommend downloading and installing the latest version from their support page seen above.

 

 

The main screen of the web interface lists the DIR-880L and all the connected devices on it (both wired and wireless).

 

 

By clicking on each of the icons you can access their individual settings, for example the Internet icon allows the user to choose between router and bridge mode and also set the DNS and MTU numbers.

 

 

If you click on the DIR-880L icon you will open the quick info page which also includes the advanced settings for both the network and wireless bands.

 

 

Clicking on the connected devices allows you to change their names, reserve that IP and enable parental controls.

 

 

You can also access the USB port settings by clicking on the USB device icon.

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All features can be accessed from the features menu including QoS (quality of service) priority by dragging each of the connected clients to the boxes beneath.

 

 

From here you can also adjust the firewall settings and rules for both IPv4 and IPv6.

 

 

You can also restrict access to certain URLs (websites) from the website filter menu and also setup the DyDNS and VPN services.

 

 

Finally from the management tab you can setup the time, change the administrator password, enable HTTPS access and remote managed and also perform firmware updates.

 

 

MYDLINK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D-Link also offers their free mydlink service which allows the user to access the router from anywhere in the world (thus the Cloud in the product name). To access that feature and “tie” your router with the service you just need to register as seen above.

 

 

Once you register an account and try to login to the mydlink website you will be asked to install a plugin by D-Link.

 

 

After that you will access the router status screen which shows basic information and also allows you to perform a reboot.

 

 

The mydlink feature also gives you access to the WiFi area of the router from the settings tab.

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Since standalone routers can't directly connect to the internet (unless you have a cable connection which we don't) and thus the modem is responsible for internet speeds the only thing that's left is to test and see how much bandwidth they can offer by directly linking two devices with them. So once again we will be using the networking benchmark by Passmark (v.8) and the QCheck by Ixia to test such devices the same exact way we test Powerline adapters and Modem/Routers. Since we need to test new features and specifications all routers are benchmarked with their highest available wireless standard/band (5GHz in this case). Our systems are placed 15m away from the router with 3 concrete walls between them while each test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average scores are recorded into our charts. Both systems have Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 installed with all the updates until the 10th of December 2015.

 

TEST RESULTS

 

 
CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   I’ve seen many similarly designed routers (and modem/routers) like the DIR-880L in the past so when D-Link send it over to us I wasn’t impressed even at the slightest. Sure I’ve seen worse designs but this is just too “basic” for my taste and the white color didn’t help things since it’s very hard for me to take pictures of white objects placed on our white photo bench. Still this is just about the only thing i didn’t like about the DIR-880L since in the end it surprised everyone here not just with its WiFi performance which was only second to the WRT1900AC by Linksys and the Nighthawk X6 by Netgear (two much more expensive models that feature more antennas as well) and its many interesting and useful features but also because of its user friendly web interface. Some people may find the web interface as a bit “too easy” to navigate (some may not like the graphics either) but for new users I think it’s ideal. The mydlink feature may not be something we haven’t seen in the past since remote management has been around for much longer than the word “cloud” but still it could come very handy for some people.

   Performance and features are not the only things the DIR-880L by D-Link has going for it since it’s also priced very aggressively. To be more specific as I type these lines the DIR-880L is roughly 10% cheaper compared to the equally powerful R7000 Nighthawk router by Netgear and retails for just USD148.88 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 160Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). There are faster routers out there like the R8000/R8500 by Netgear and the WRT1900AC by Linksys (as showcased in our charts) but D-Link has also released the DIR-890LR AC3200 router so if you can afford to spend more any of these will do fine. Still the DIR-880L is proof that you don’t need to spend much on a router to have top of the class WiFi performance and for that and of course for its features and user friendly web interface it gets our Platinum Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Wireless Performance (3^rd Fastest In Our Charts)
- AC1900 Technology (Concurrent 802.11n & 802.11ac)
- User Friendly Web Interface
- Features
- Technologies Used (Beamforming & Turbo QAM)
- Android & iOS App
- 4 Gigabit Ethernet Ports
- 2 USB Ports (USB 3.0 & USB 2.0)
- Price (For Some)

 

CONS

- Design (For Some)