Is a RM1,000 router worth it?

“Is the WiFi working?” That’s a question that gets asked a lot in the SoyaCincau headquarters. Most of the time, it’s met with a resounding groan and a big no. When you’re in a profession that needs a steady internet connection like we do, having your router go down more often than you take meal breaks is just plain frustrating.

So, we put our heads together and after some investigation, we deduced that our poor little sub-RM300 router simply couldn’t handle the load we put it under. So, that got us thinking: Is investing more money in an expensive router actually worth it? To find out, we reached out to TP-Link and asked if they could let us review one of their new routers. They responded by sending us the Archer AC3150 Wireless MU-MIMO Gigabit router.

Yup, that’s a thousand ringgit router. Here’s what we think of it.

Wait, it’s RM1,000?

Nearly. TP-Link’s official online store in Lazada lists the router at RM969 with a 2-year warranty. But that’s still more than 3x what we paid for our original router.

OK, what do you get for your money?

You actually get quite the spec sheet. First up it supports dual-band wireless networking at 2.4GHz and 5GHz. It’s also got MU-MIMO capabilities so it can achieve wireless speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps on 2.4GHz and 2,150 Mbps on 5GHz. That’s a far cry from our sub-RM300 router which can only push 300Mbps on 2.4GHz and 450Mbps on 5GHz.

Besides that, it’s also got two USB ports (one USB 3.0, one USB 2.0) that can convert your hard disk into a network attached storage (NAS) accessible to anyone connected to the WiFi, and four antennas. You can also set up two separate guest networks (one on 2.4GHz and one on 5GHz) for your guests if you don’t want to give them access to stuff like your NAS or other connected devices.

Setup was also really straightforward and TP-Link’s web admin UI was pretty intuitive too (plus you can access it at tplinkwifi.net instead of your router’s IP address). What’s more, it’s also compatible with UniFi, Maxis Fibre and Time Fibre so it should work no problem. We did have a little hiccup with setting up our UniFi connection, but once we went into the router’s Advanced settings, enabled IPTV and selected Malaysia-Unifi, everything was peachy.

TP-Link also lets you control your router via the TP-Link Tether application that you can download on Android and iOS. From the app, you get access to a whole bunch of controls. For example, you can see what kind of devices are connected (and block specific ones from connecting), view your wireless settings, set up guest networks, share passwords and access parental controls among others. It’s got a nice interface, but we feel that performance could be improved as it can get quite frustrating when you want to make a quick settings adjustment but get stuck staring at a loading icon.

Hmm, what about the build?

Well, it certainly feels better than our original router, that’s for sure. However, it is still very much a hunk of plastic, half of which is glossy, while the other half is matte. Is it robust? Certainly. We tried our best to make it flex but it held up really well. Still, we wouldn’t recommend throwing it off a building, however.

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Well, our answer is: It depends. Allow me to explain.

In our office, we usually have anywhere from 30-40 different devices connected at the same time and from our investigation, our old router simply couldn’t handle that load, resulting in frequent crashes and poor network stability. Once we switched over to the AC3150, the difference was night and day. The connection went from going down several times a day (at worst) to maybe once a week.

Range, especially on 5GHz, was also significantly improved. Our office is about 1,300 square feet in size and the router is located in one corner. On our original router, 5GHz coverage would often get spotty as you approach the corner furthest from the router. Since our beanbag is located in that corner, it becomes a pain when you just wanna chill and watch a quick youtube video after hours.

On the AC3150, that problem doesn’t exist. Even at the furthest reaches of our office, the WiFi signals for both bands were going strong. With WiFi analyser, we got about -48 to -55 dBm in the furthest corners while standing right next to the router gave us about -40 dBm.

Running a practical test, we launched a live Twitch stream and walked every inch of our office and the connection was stable throughout. Walking out of our office, the signal didn’t disconnect until we reached the elevators (that’s three separate walls that it has to penetrate) which we found pretty impressive. However, when we tried to go one floor up and stood in front of the office that occupies the space above ours, we couldn’t get a connection.

Next, we ran another practical test — streaming 4K footage from our network attached storage (NAS). Streaming on about three different PCs simultaneously, the AC3150 handled it without any problems as playback was smooth and we didn’t experience any disconnections.

Then we tried copying files to and from the NAS to test the speed. We copied one folder that contained videos and photos of different sizes. Collectively, the whole folder was 2,478MB. We then measured the time it took to copy the files over and divided it with the total file size to get an average speed.

Copying to the NAS from my laptop took 4 minutes and 17 seconds, working out to a transfer rate of 9.6MB/s. Copying that same folder from the NAS to my laptop was quicker, completing in just 2 minutes and 50 seconds, giving us an average speed of 14.6MB/s. Keep in mind that our NAS is running on a regular hard disk while my laptop has a solid state drive. This means that the slower speed copying to the NAS was due to the HDD’s slow writing speed and not the connection speed.

5GHz

2.4GHz

Left: At desk. Right: Beside router

Connection speed was pretty excellent, clocking in at 866.7Mbps next to the router, and 780Mbps at my desk (about halfway across the room) — both of which are far faster than your standard 100Mbps LAN. It isn’t as fast as Gigabit Ethernet, however. That said, wired connections have the added benefit of being stable and providing low latency which is ideal for gaming. Can the AC3150 handle gaming too?

Well, yes. When playing video games, the router was rock solid. On League of Legends, for example, I got a steady 21ms ping that lasted throughout the game without any spikes. It’s not as low as the 16ms I usually get from my LAN cable, but 21ms is plenty playable.

So I guess that brings us to the conclusion. The TP-Link Archer AC3150 Wireless MU-MIMO Gigabit router has passed all our tests with flying colours. It hits all the notes we need it to hit: It’s stable, it’s easy to set up, fast and robust. More importantly, it saves us a lot of frustrated groans by being super reliable and that’s awesome.

For our work use, we definitely think that spending the extra money (even if it’s 3x more) for the AC3150 over a cheap sub-RM300 router is worth it and we will be more than a little sad when we have to return it to TP-Link. For home users who don’t put their router under the same kind of load as ours, it becomes a little harder to recommend because it really comes down to your usage patterns.

A thousand ringgit is a lot of money, so we would suggest thinking really hard about whether you need it or not — considering factors like the number of users, size of your house, network speed and usage — before buying. What we can tell you is that If you need a reliable router, the AC3150 is rock solid and full of useful features.