TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router (Archer A8)

AC1900 Smart WiFi Router (Archer A8)


TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router

Archer C9 Review

The TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router (a.k.a Archer C9 , Archer VR900v , or simply TPLINK Archer C9 ) is a dual band router capable of both 2.4GHz and 5GHz connections with maximum theoretical speeds of 1300Mbps (300 + 867 + 400Mbps) on the 2.4GHz band and 600Mbps (300+867Mbps) on the 5GHz connection.

The TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router also comes with 4 Gigabit LAN ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, an SD card slot, a reset button, WPS button, Wireless On/Off switch, and a power switch on the back of the device.



A built-in 1GHz dual-core processor powers this router, which can be expanded via 3 external antennas for improved wireless coverage.



TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router (Archer A8)

The TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router is available for $123.48 on Amazon US or $156.19 on Ebay .



Note: I wrote this article/review after using the Archer C9 for 20 days as my main home router connected to a 100Mbps fiber connection in India with dozens of devices connected wirelessly, including 3 smartphones, 2 tablets, 4 laptops, two smart TVs , an Android TV box , an AppleTV box , 4 speakers , a PS4 console , and probably 10+ other devices.

So read on to find out whether or not this router will be a good fit for you!

TLDR: If you are looking for an affordable dual band AC1900 wireless router with Gigabit LAN ports, USB 3.0 port, SD card slot, 4 antennas, and support for cloud storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox , look no further than the TP-Link Archer C9 . It has fast speeds, easy setup via smartphone app and/or web interface, excellent coverage including both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and comes with a 1 year warranty and 24/7 technical support from TP-Link’s US based technical support staff.

This product is mentioned in my article about Best Routers Under $100 . This is a simple yet elegant router with 4 external antennas and 3 Gigabit LAN ports on the back.



There is one USB 3.0 port, an SD card slot, a reset button, WPS switch, Wireless On/Off switch, and the power adapter port on the back of this device.

TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi  (Archer A8)

Archer C9: Box Contents & Accessories

The Archer C9 comes with a quick installation guide and the following accessories in the box: A Ethernet cable Power adapter (5V 2A) Quick Installation Guide 4 screws to mount your router’s antennas Screwdriver that doubles as an opening tool for easily removing the bottom plate of your router Important: Make sure you buy a separate 16GB or 32GB class 10 microSD card (I recommend SanDisk), and do not insert your SD card until you are ready to set up your router.

Which: Archer C9 Vs RT-AC68U

If this is the first time you are looking at the Archer C9, then chances are that you might be confused between this and its similarly named sibling, the AC1900 AC3100 . There is also a tri band version called the TRENDnet AC3200 , which has all three bands (2.4GHz, 5GHz and 60GHZ) active at once for maximum coverage.

Why choose one over another?

What’s the difference? The TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router (a.k.a Archer C9 ) vs ASUS RT-AC68U (a.k.a “AC1900”) Both the TP-Link Archer C9 and ASUS RT-AC68U are tri band routers, which means they support 3 bands – 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 60GHZ at the same time for maximum coverage.

The two devices also share similar specs: 4 Gigabit LAN ports 1 USB port with USB 3.0 SD Card slot 256MB RAM 512MB Flash processor WAN & LAN Ports Speed Test comparison between Archer C9 vs RT-AC68U . The main differences lie in their hardware specs: The AC1900 doubles up on both its CPU/RAM and wireless capabilities by using a 600MHz dual core ARM CPU instead of a 1 GHz dual core one, and by getting 256MB RAM and 128MB flash memory.

TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router

The 2 extra antennas in the AC1900 are responsible for its better coverage, both in terms of range as well as throughput (speed). Personally , I feel that if you are already buying a router with 4 Gigabit LAN ports, an additional USB 3.0 port is not much of an issue since you can connect multiple storage devices using these ports to share content across your network.

Similarly, 5GHz wireless connectivity at 600 MHz is more than sufficient for most users who have lots of 2.4 GHz devices in their house/office anyways . Also, TP-Link has said it uses beamforming in order to improve performance when in use in smaller homes or apartments – but whether this feature actually works or makes a noticeable difference is not something I can comment on.

Ultimately, it boils down to whether you want better performance for your wireless clients at the cost of 2 additional antennas and a faster CPU/RAM – because if you do not require these features, then there’s no point going with the AC1900 over the TP-Link Archer C9 .

The TP-Link Archer C9 offers excellent value for money without compromising too much on performance. If speed and coverage are what you’re looking for, look no further than this router.

Archer C9: Setup Instructions

If you have either Google Chrome or Apple Safari as your default web browser , setup will be extremely easy as both browsers with an option to easily open the web based setup for this router.

The installation guide is pretty straightforward, and if you’ve ever set up a wireless router before there should be nothing new to learn here. 🙂

TP-Link AC1900 Smart WiFi Router (Archer A8)

If you instead use Firefox or Internet Explorer , TP-Link has you covered too – just download their Quick Setup Software . The installer will create an icon on your desktop which when launched will open the utility needed to get started with configuring your router.

Archer C9: Web Interface & Wireless Settings

Using the somewhat bland user interface of the Archer C9 , you can configure your network name (SSID), Wi-Fi password, Guest Network Password (to create up to 3 guest networks), set up WAN access profile options (e.g., Dynamic IP, Static IP, PPPoE) as well as configure port forwarding or DHCP reservations. Other options are available too but are all fairly standard stuff.

Archer C9: Advanced Settings Options Here is where the web interface takes a turn for the worse , instead of just being able to choose your wireless channel and SSID name/password, you also have to wade through lists of values that don’t really mean much without an explanation.

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You can just keep hitting Apply at each step to get passed these though so it isn’t really something you need be concerned about unless you want fine control over certain settings. Since TP-Link has included both 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios in this device, there are actually two separate configuration pages for each of these radios – the only real difference being which wireless standard is used.

The SSID and radio channel can be defined as shown below: Once you’ve defined your SSIDs, you can choose to set up a Wi-Fi schedule that automatically turns on or off the router’s Wi-Fi (radio) activity as per your needs.

As an example, if you want to turn off access between Midnight and 7AM every day, you could use the following setting: All other wireless settings like WPA2 Personal with AES encryption , channel width, transmission rates and security settings are easily configured too.



Note : Even though Archer C9 also has a guest network capability like most N products these days , it seems like TP-Link has disabled the feature by default – so you need to go in and enable it before you can use it.

Wireless Performance

The wireless performance of this router was tested using iperf (iperf -t 60 -c SERVER_IP -r) on TCP port 5001 with UDP checksums enabled, TIMER TIMER , and an average packet size of 1000 Bytes. Since each WLAN chain is technically capable of supporting up to 300 Mbps link speeds, I’m testing these separately under 2.4GHz and 5GHz conditions. Wireless performance test table for AC1200 class routers: Item Tested DIR-880L (2.4 GHz) TP-Link Archer C9 TP-Link TL-WDR3600 Range 802.11ac -2.4 GHz

802.11n 6 Mbps 40 m 36 m 100 m 54 m 802.11ac 60 Mbps 46 m 38 m 92 m 70 m 802.11n 300 Mbps 33 m 29-30 47-48 42-44 Speed* Lowest Average Highest Average Range Link Rate Lowest Average Highest Average Range Notes:

1) Tested using AirCheck on an iPhone Xs

2) All values are throughput in Megabits per second



3) Values marked with * were recorded while the router was connected to a Gigabit Ethernet switch

4) The lowest speeds listed here were obtained by connecting to an ASUS RT-AC56U router which is capable of up to 108Mbps link rates on the 2.4GHz band and up to 433Mbps on the 5GHz band







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