I was sent a TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND Ultimate Wireless N Gigabit Router (List Price: $76.64, Amazon Price: $56.81) for review on my geek dad blog. I’ve been using it for a couple months now and I highly recommend it. To be honest, until I tried it out, I don’t think I would have recommend the TP-LINK wireless router. It has nothing to do with the quality. I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to routers, and I like to stick with a brand like Linksys. But now that I have tried the TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND wireless N gigabit router, I definitely would consider TP-LINK (Facebook | Twitter) when I need another wireless router.
What I like about the TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND
- Four Gigabit ports — my Internet connection is only a few Mbps so I didn’t think Gigabit speed would make much difference, but now web pages load a lot faster with the TP-LINK router
- Wireless N — compared to my old router, the wireless signal is stronger and faster
- Laptop (a few feet from the router): 5 bars and 120-150 Mbps (sometimes even 300 Mbps)
- Desktop computer (downstairs): 3 bars and 108-120 Mbps (it use to be one bar and 5-8 Mbps)
- USB 2.0 port — it doesn’t support USB printers, but now I can attach my external USB harddrive to the router instead of my computer
- Few dropped connections — I use to get a lot of drop connections on my downstairs PC with my old router, but they are rare now
- Quick Setup Security (QSS) button — I was able to quickly set-up some of my wireless devices with this feature
What I didn’t like about the TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND
- Problems with auto detect wireless channel — I had all sorts of wireless problems when I used the default auto detect for wireless channel, but very few problems after I manually selected a channel
- Wireless MAC Filtering — I had to manually look up the MAC address for my computers and devices (Linksys shows you the MAC addresses of the devices connected to the router)
- Can’t access admin menu — sometimes I can’t access the router’s admin area unless I unplug and replug the power to the router
TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND Wireless Router Specifications
- IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11b wireless standards
- Four 10/100/1000Mbps LAN ports
- One 10/100/1000Mbps WAN port
- One USB 2.0 port
- 64/128/152-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK (see my tips for securing a wireless network)
- WAN: Dynamic IP, Static IP, PPPoE, PPTP (Dual Access), L2TP (Dual Access), BigPond
- DHCP: Server, Client, DHCP Client List, Address Reservation
- Port Forwarding: Virtual Server, Port Triggering, UPnP, DMZ
- Dynamic DNS: DynDns, Comexe, NO-IP
- VPN Pass-through: PPTP, L2TP, IPSec (ESP Head)
- Access Control: Parental Control, Local Management Control, Host List, Access Schedule, Rule Management
- Firewall Security: DoS, SPI Firewall, IP Address Filter, MAC Address Filter, Domain Filter, IP and MAC Address Binding
- Three detachable omni directional antennas
- 2.4-2.4835GHz frequency
- Quick Setup Security button
- Reset button
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