TP Link AC1200 Smart WiFi Router

My Fellow Impact9 experience Great till you lose internet connection.

I really like TP-Link products for their stability and dependability. I've been slowly changing my entire home network which consists of a 24 port switch, 3 wifi routers and 1 outdoor AP over from Asus to TP-Link. Everything was working great until I lost my internet connection to my main router which is the AC5400. The software demands you setup an account with TP-Link for cloud control of the router. That's all fine and dandy as long as the router is connected to the net. The second the net goes down the router demands you log in, to see you can't log in because there's ...surprise surprise, no internet! Stupid. So then if you are using your cell phone, disconnected from the wifi in order to log in, to be told by the tether app that you aren't connected to router. No kidding. So instead of hosting the log in on the router they force you to log in through the cloud. There may be a way around this but that's just wrong especially if I want a simple to troubleshoot system. They can fix this with a firmware update if they choose to. Overall when it has connection to the net it's been a damn solid router that is very impressive on gigabit speeds.

My Buddy Justin G. experience Big improvement.

A very much needed improvement over the older 2 netgear AC 750 router. I primarily used wifi accept my security cameras so I can't give you feedback on that speed, but my wifi went from 60Mbps to over 200 and a much stronger signal throughout the house with external antennas unlike there netgear.

My friend Jennifer said Great for Spectrum 200mbps plan!.

Update: It is now April 21, 2020 and we've been using the router for 2 months. It is still working perfectly for us and we have zero complaints. I highly recommend it!

We moved to the middle of nowhere about 7 years ago and it never occurred to us to check who provided TV/internet/phone at the new house before buying. We found out after buying the house that the only providers were satellite companies. We realized very quickly that first year that satellite sucks, the internet specifically. We got locked into a $75 a month plan with HughesNet for a year and never once were able to actually use the internet that whole year. It was really frustrating. We simply did not have home internet for the past 6 years due to a lack of a decent provider. This past week Spectrum finally moved their service to our road. We immediately signed up. I knew I wasn't paying them $5 a month to rent a router from them but I also wasn't sure at all how to pick out a router myself. I've always been pretty tech savvy but when you lose access(and a need) to those things you stop keeping up with them, I was seriously behind on all the new updates that have been made over the last several years. I knew I didn't want to spend more than $50 on a router and after doing some research I finally decided on this TP-Link AC1200 and basically just hoped for the best. Some of the reviews weren't great so I was nervous. It arrived a day after our internet was installed so I set it up by myself. It took me all of 20 mins from unboxing to the whole house having Wi-Fi, it was VERY easy. I love that it has it's own app, a very convenient feature. We live in a 2000sq. ft., one floor, manufactured home. These homes have pretty thin walls so the signal reaches from one end to the other very easily. We are also extremely heavy on our data usage in this family and while it's only been a couple of days now it has had zero trouble keeping up with us. We've had zero buffering while streaming & using our phones, everything has been working very quickly. We have several smart TVs, cell phones, a laptop, a printer & a PS4 connected to it at the moment. The technician from Spectrum who installed our internet also said this was a good option for our 200mbps plan. I hope this helps someone make up their mind on whether this router will be a good choice for them. I will update the review if anything changes but as of now this seems to have been a pretty solid purchase and I'm happy with it.

My Fellow Xellaz Talk So far so good! Only time will tell....

Pros:
*Very noticeable range and signal strength improvement compared to my 8 year old router (Asus RT-AC66U).
*No drops on connection while watching streaming videos, youtube, surfing the web, gaming, etc.
*Very easy to configure graphical user interface. You can just set it and forget it.
*If you have Alexa Echo, you can use it to send specific commands to this router to change its settings.
*Its tri-band and not dual band... much more versatile in accepting wireless connections.
*Very easy set up also on the hardware part... just attach the antennas, plug-in the power adapter & ethernet cable, and power it on.

Cons:
*The TP-LINK AX11000 is just around the corner which supports the new AX wifi-6 speeds & WPA3 wifi security encryption. If you want to future proof despite the higher cost, you might want to get that instead.
*It's expensive but it does use pretty good hardware (Quad-core 1.8Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, etc.)
*Lack of more gaming centered features compared to Netgear and Asus offerings.
*TrendMicro antivirus & home security is only for 3 years and not lifetime. I wish there's a way to switch this to BitDefender that other router offers once the TrendMicro 3 years subscription expires.

Other Thoughts:
This is TP-Link's 1st gaming router and its pretty expensive. I'm a tech enthusiast and usually will get the best I can get. I was looking at the Netgear's XR700, and Asus ROG AC5300.. which looked pretty good on paper but has more negative reviews than this router so I ended up getting this one instead.

I was kind of torn between getting this one or waiting for the TP-LINK AX11000 but I kind of really need the upgrade quick. But thinking about it again, I game on a wired connection and I don't really have any devices that uses the AX wifi bandwith. Even if I do end up getting devices that uses AX signal in the future, 2.4Ghz & AC 5Ghz bandwith is plenty for my current and most likely future needs. This router covers my entire house already without the need of using mesh/repeaters/extenders.

Most of all, after doing massive downloads (Gigs of data - mostly Steam games), gaming, torrenting, watching 4k streaming videos, surfing the net, chatting, voip, etc... this device has did it all without breaking a sweat. It hasn't dropped any of my connections (both wired & wireless) and its been very stable. This is something rarely present on new released products that's why I'm hesitant to replace this with the new AX11000 offerings from TP-Link, Asus, or Netgear. I might end up with a defective product that is rushed released and not ready for prime time.

TP Link, I usually buy Asus or Netgear products when it comes to home networking but since their top of the line atm have more bad reviews... I'm taking a chance with you guys. I hope this router last a long time. In fact, the router it replaced (Asus RT-AC66U) didn't die or anything. It's just that as my network expands and my wireless needs grows, I have to upgrade. Don't let me down!

FYI:
I also have this same review on N3W3GG

My Old Chap Amazon Customer Talk THE REP AND WEBSITE PUT A VIRUS ON MY NETWORK.

These are facts. I have the geek squad log showing it corrupted my PC. I installed it, worked fine, called the next day spoke to a lady who was outside of the USA. I was frustrated because she couldnt understand me, I told her Id call back to return the item. SHE hung up, and I went to go back online to disconnect or disable the network. Click the tab to remove the account and the network as hidden. As soon as I did that and the network crashed, was able to use my cellphone hotspot to connect to wifi, to get geek squad on to help me remove the software from my hard drive, and sure enough I went to settings as they told me on the settings to remove programs or I they could do it. But I coudnt pull of any chrome, or IExp. So I went to settings on my BRAND new Asus Zen AIo. And i clicked network to remove it. The window popped up, and then quickly disappeared. I hit task manager to see if it was hidden, NOTHING. I tried again, and then again it keep coming up allowing me to click settings but as soon as I went to network. The actual page disappeared. I have it on video and will post it. DO NOT BUY THIS!

My Fellow M. Varela say My much older and cheap 2 band router is much better. (Has been updated since initial review date).

I had to disable the Airtime Fairness feature because everything I would stream would disconnect. The Smart Connect feature, which worked flawlessly on my older router, sucks. The router keeps putting my 5 GHz AC devices on the 2.4 GHz band, which exhibits higher ping and jitter and slower Mbps download speed using speedtest.net. Sure, I can assign them manually, but why should I have to. I paid twice what I paid for my other router and this can't assign devices correctly in real-time? The range is even less than my old 2 band Archer AC3150 v1. Furthermore, there is no flexibility regarding antenna positioning! I was duped by the great specs, flashy looks, and promise of new technologies. Don't let it happen to you.

4/25/19 Update: If I use any setting but "standard" for the QoS settings the router will disconnect and streaming becomes unwatchable. Again, using any of the technological "advances" in this router renders it awful!

4/17/20 Update: I've finally tested the Airtime Fairness setting since the last update. I have increased my review by one star. The issue seems to be resolved now. I'm still not sure it's helping though. I'll retest the QoS settings at some point and update.

My Old Neighbor Roman tell us You don't need a $100 router.

There are actually two routers on this page as of this writing: w/ MU-MIMO is the brand new Archer A6 and w/o MU-MIMO is the older C1200. I don't know why they did it like this but both are excellent routers and all you need unless you have some very complicated home network setup or live in a very, very large house. Also, the only real difference between the two is that the A6 is much newer and sleeker looking and it has an MU-MIMO option, which is turned off by default and that you'll probably never even notice. It's also cheaper than the older C1200 right now.

I had the C1200 for a few years (V1) and it never gave me a single problem. The only reason I bought the A6 is that the C1200 (at least the V1 - they're on V3 now I think) had a problem with IPV6 networking with Comcast internet. If you care about that at all (and you probably don't), I've had the new A6 for several days now and the IPV6 support has been flawless, as expected. Buy this, do the quick default setup without changing any settings (unless you want to - you can adjust a lot of things) and your wireless internet will be as fast as you ISP and modem allow.

My Old Chap CoolRodz Talk Best Router I've Ever Owned.

While the TP-Link AC4500 is by no means a low cost solution, it's worth every penny spent on it. This router was amazingly simple to set up with the plugging in of the antennas the most difficult, yet even that job is simple enough to accomplish. One password with the auto tri-band setting allows a variety of computer devices to log on automatically. I have eight devices in my household and no issues with any of them finding and hooking to the router after assembly & installation. The eight cable nodes also eliminated a device in my network & simplified the network wiring to the rooms in my house! Router traffic routing has been no issue, is now faster than my previous 2.4/5Ghz router & has been flawless in it's operation. I'm on Spectrum & the only issue there was their notification that I needed a modem upgrade which they sent to my residence, & bumped my line speed to match my equipment without cost! I highly recommend this router, it seems expensive but research will show it's really a mid priced router & provides a much stronger signal throughout my single level home.

My Fellow Kimmies experience Router has weird issues depending on the devices connected.

Pros: the router looks great, has great range coverage, and is able to bring out my network's top speed across the wi-fi.
Cons: The router kept restarting multiple times throughout the day. I devices that seemed to affect it were the nintendo switch, amazon echo, and the arlo smart camera hub. I had to disconnect those devices, and the router appears to not restart itself anymore (after multiple trail/error and resets to factory). I ordered a replacement, but that package was lost/stolen, so now I'm stuck not having all my devices connect to the router. What I have done in my current setup, is having the arlo hub connected to the modem instead of the router. I don't know if this is an issue with the router itself, or another problem, but it is preventing me from giving it 5 stars.

My Buddy Sean tell us Finally realized that this was the source of my Wi-Fi Issues.

Bought this router to attempt to improve signal strength and speed of our network. We have a townhouse and the old router had about 3/4 bars from one side to the other. Was hoping this would improve signal and speed with multiple wireless devices. After switching to this although the signal strength improved, the speed did not. Unbeknownst to us, the router would intermittently drop wi-fi connections and generally slow the download rate significantly. I finally narrowed it down to this router as when I plug in the LAN port I'm getting my advertised 50+ MBPS speed, then on Wi-Fi only 0.5-1 mbps, if it works at all! The ping to the router itself was anywhere from 1ms to 2000ms bouncing all over the place. I also confirmed this on multiple devices. Of course by this point the return window had already closed. Highly disappointed as had high hopes for this, would never buy again, and I would advise you to look elsewhere!