D-Link DIR-880L Wireless AC1900 Dual-Band Gigabit Cloud Router Review

Introduction

D-Link has a long history in the network business and I myself have personally had many of their devices in use over the years, so my expectations are high here. I have the pleasure to take the D-Link DIR-880L AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit Cloud Router for a spin in the test area and it will be interesting to see what the DIR-880L can perform.

Right off the top we have the best possible wireless connectivity with the concurrent dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz connectivity for a total speed of 1900Mbps, 600 Mbps from the 2.4GHz band and 1300 from the 5GHz band.

The Advanced AC SmartBeam technology vastly increases the speed and coverage of your network. This allows you to stream HD video, make Internet calls, and surf the Internet from every corner of your home without interruption. The high-gain external antennas should send the signal into the furthest corners of your home with a strong connection wherever you are., giving you a strong connection wherever you are.

The slower 2.4GHz band is still great for checking emails, surfing the web, or viewing photos, but you’ll want the faster 5GHz band when you game online, stream HD content, or transfer a lot of files.

The wired connections are all full Gigabit connections and that includes the WAN port. No need to worry that the router will throttle your internet speed even though it might be faster than 100Mbit, which isn’t that unusual these days.

The addition of two USB ports, one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 allow you to connect storage devices directly to the router and share them with everyone on the network. It doesn’t matter where you are and what device you connect from, you’ll always have access to your files. This is a great solution for people that rely a lot on portable storage or those who don’t have a NAS. You could also use these ports to charge your mobile devices, a function I often use them for.

The DIR-880L Cloud Router is mydlink enabled, allowing you an effortless access and view of your network no matter where you are. See who is connected to your router, change the settings, block someone from accessing something just like you would at home.

The mydlink SharePort app allows you to connect a USB storage device to the DIR-880L and instantly share documents, movies, pictures, and music with mobile devices. Put your music library on a USB drive and share it with everyone else in your home, or show photos on the living room TV while a family member watches a movie on their tablet. Stream media files to multiple devices without interruption, or save them to your device for offline playback.

Whether you want the D-Link DIR-880L to stand or hang on the wall, that is your choice. It is built to support both and the bottom of the router features four rubber feet for a secure stand as well as cutouts to hang it on two screws.

You’ll also find all the other information such as default passwords, serial numbers, and MAC addresses on the bottom of the unit.

The three antennas can be turned and positioned to give you the best coverage in your own home and surroundings. There aren’t two places that are the same and having the perfect router location can make a lot of difference. Being able to angle the antennas as you like can help a lot with this.

Feature wise you won’t be disappointed in the DIR-880L, may you want VLAN support, firewall, time scheduled operation, parental control, virtual servers, or the aforementioned cloud features.

The dual-core CPU is hidden below the large cooler that I sadly couldn’t get removed. Not knowing just how it’s secured to the chips I rather left it instead of destroying it by the use of force.

On the PCB, we see that this product doesn’t come from anyone. It is very well built, clean, and all components have been properly seated before they were soldered. I have no doubt that this kind of work will last a long time and it is refreshing to see.

Within the package you find everything you need to get started. The router itself, an RJ45 cable so you can connect it to your modem, fiber box, or internet plug, three high-powered antennas, a power adapter and installation manuals to get started.