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D-Link Exo AC2600 (DIR-882) Enthusiast Router Review

Pricing, Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Pricing

At the time of writing, D-Link’s EXO AC2600 DIR-882 router hasn’t quite made it to the UK yet. Our US readers can already get it with shops such as Amazon listing it for $149.99. A fair price for a modern router.

Conclusion

The D-Link EXO AC2600 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Router, or DIR-882, is a simple looking router. It’s very light when you pick it up, and together with the simple design, you’ll sing you got an everyday router between your hands. But that’s just the first impression. It will grow on you and it doesn’t have a cheap feeling as such. It is a device which was created to work well and blend in, and it does just that.

Connections

The wired connection options and other physical functionality features are quite standard. Four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, one Gigabit WAN port, USB 3.0, and USB 2.0. Other features include a physical power button, a WPS button, and a button with which you can turn the wireless networks on and off. These aren’t given features and they’re all great to have.

Impressive Performance

The wireless features will be the DIR-882’s selling point. We get an AC2600 rating with 1733 Mbps speed capabilities on the 5GHz band. That’s the best single-band speeds before moving up to the 1024QAM technology and as such, also perfect for the performance-hungry user. 160MHz channels are supported on the hardware level, but it will require a yet-to-be-released firmware update. The technology itself is aided by the built-in high-power antennas and the AC SmartBeam which directs the signals towards your device.

Now let’s talk about the best part of this review, the actual performance seen in our benchmarks. The D-Link DIR-882 beats anything I’ve seen previously. With over 900Mbps throughput, we are getting close to a bottleneck by one system being wired and the other wireless. That is seriously impressive and it shows that D-Link picked the right hardware and software combination for this router. No matter the distance, the router delivers a throughput previously not seen. At least not in this location.

User Interface

The user interface is a classic D-Link interface. Whether you like it or not, that’s personal preference. You’ll have to decide whether it has and does what you need, but one thing can be said with certainty. It is easy to use, even for novice users.