Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I just received the TP-LINK Archer C8 AC1750 Dual Band Wireless AC Gigabit Router from Amazon Pros; * Installation and setup was easy. Had basic setup up and running, wired and wireless in about 10 minutes. * Instruction for basic quick setup were enough for a quick setup for wired and wireless usage. * After basic setup, I exercised a few of the more advanced features.. all went well. The router UI on port forwarding could be better, but still acceptable. * I activated the FTP server feature. This was great. I will have my internet cameras log motion triggered video to that FTP server. That was my intention and so far, looks like it will work. I have accessed the FTP through the web via a computer, but have not actually had the time to direct my cameras to the FTP site yet. * I attached a USB drive to the USB 3.0 port. Works perfect. Acts as a network drive. I also plan to use this drive as my FTP destination for my camera files * So far.. I am very pleased that my intended advanced use of the FTP and USB drive features of this router seem to be hitting the mark. But then... Wife comes home from work. Tries out the new WIFI network with her iPhone and work computer.... Cons; * Unstable connection. * Devices keep dropping connection even in areas where signal strength is Excellent. Especially the iPhone. * Connection is up for only 3 - 5 minutes, then drops. Picks up again in 30 seconds or so. Stays connected 2 - 5 min again. Repeats. * Now alerted to this, tried with various other computers and tablets (Apple, Win, and Andriod). Same thing. The only time it was not happening was if one was within 10 feet of the router. Again, the `drops' were occurring about 20+ feet away, with signal strength as `Excellent'. * I just verified that my new unit has the latest firmware (even though the latest firmware has a bug / fix noted to correct unstable connection) Latest Firmware; .16.27 Build 20140903 Rel. 75232 These are my initial impressions. I will attempt to resolve and update this review. But I will try things for about 2 more days, then the unit gets returned for a refund (and I will stick with a name brand router) Update 2014-11-03; * TP-Link was quick to write a commnet to contact their customer support. Good. The bad.. good luck getting through. After 3 days or trying to call all I get is a phone busy signal. * Unstable signal. After no phone support from TP-Link, I have troubleshooted this to that it occurs whn I am using the USB 3.0 port with a hard drive attached. Remove the USB 3.0 connection and signal is not dropped. So much for having a network accessible hard drive :( * Also, the port forwarding that I thought was working is not. I cannot get any port to forward. Hours and hours working on this. So I cannot access my internet cameras from outside my internal network at this time. I have wasted enough time. 30 hours at least. Pretty close to sending back for a refund. Will give their support one more day to see if I get anything but a busy signal when I call. Go with a name brand router unless your router needs are basic WIFI usage and nothing else. Update 2014-11-07; * TP-Link phone support is a no-show, After days of getting a busy signal when trying to call their phone number in their comments, I finally got through. But 'getting through' means that you go on hold forever and no one ever answered. To make matters even worse, their 'on hold' prompts you to 'press 1' about every 15 seconds. If you do not, your call gets ended. So not only do you need to be on hold forever, you cannot even put it on speaker phone and do other work because you have to keep pressing 1 every 15 seconds or so !!! * I gave up on the phone support. I contacted TP-Link by email. In fairness, by email they have been very responsive, but still have not resolved my issues (having me try various things). There is a time zone diff (they email me new things to try, I see that email next day, try, email them back, get response the next day, etc. So it is aking a number of days). * I still cannot port forward, so cannot access my internet cams from the web. This worked perfectly with my Linksys router. After a number of attempts to get the TP-Link to port forward (TP-Link feels it is not a router issue), to prove to them that it is a router issue, I reinstalled my old Linksys and works pefect again. I then borrowed a NetGear router from a friend and swapped that in. I had never configed a Netgear route before, but had that Netgear network up, external access to my cameras again working perfect, all in about 1/2 hour. So clearly it is a issue with the TP-Link router. * Because TP-Link is doing a good job in communicating 'new things to try' by email (forget the phone contact with them) I will let this run a bit longer. I am stubborn to get things to work. But even I, after now spending perhaps 40 hrs of my personal time on this am pretty much reaching my limit on how much time I can waste / invest (especially when I know my old Linksys and the borrowed NetGear routers are working perfectly). Update 2014-11-14; * After many emails from TP-Link for me to try different config setting, and the fact that port forwarding on my IP cameras works perfectly on the old Linksys WRT300 and a borrowed NetGear router, TP-Link gave up and said to send the unit back for refund or replacement. I am curious to see if a replacement unit will fix the issues I am having, so elected for `Replacement'. I will update review when the replacement arrives. * I upgraded the rating from 1 star to 2 stars. I think 1 star represents `totally useless for intended function'. As long as I do not attach a hard drive to the USB 3.0 port (which causes an unstable WIFI connection), the basic WIFI usage of the router is OK. The range is not really any better than my 7+ year old Linksys for any of a number of devices I have tried (computers to newer tablets to new iPhones). I would have thought that 7+ years newer technology would have equated to better range. So the rating is probably between 1.5 and 2 stars. Update 2014-12-13; Received the replacement TP-Link C8 router from Amazon about 2 weeks ago. Installed it... same exact issues as the old router. A). Unstable wifi connection with a USB drive connected to USB 3.0 port, especially with iPhones being the worst offenders b). Cannot get the port forwarding entries to function... thus cannot access any of my IP cameras on my network from the internet (they can be accesses within the router LAN). More research, more emails and screen snap documentation of my network setup to TP-Link email support. Again, in fairness; There is a day or so timezone delay, but they are responsive by email. But frustration abounds. I must have (no exaggeration) 60+ hours of my personal time into trying to make this work. I am giving up. Going with a diff router. Both the old Linksys and Netgear routers work fine so will go with one of the newer units of them. To paraphrase as some song lyrics... "I fought the router.. and the router won". :( Update 2014-12-15; Ordered both a Netgear Nighthawk (7500) and a new Linksys WRT 1900AC router. Will decide which one to use. Pros and Cons exist to each. Netgear Nighhawk seems great. The Linksys reportedly has better range than the 7500 Nighthawk. The range will be important to me for the IP cameras located throughout my proprty (barns, driveways, inside the house). The Cons; Linksys although reportedly faster and longer range that the Nighthawk 7500 clearly does not have as full a set of features as even last year's Nighthawk model (7000) does. Noticeably missing or inferior on the Linksys; No VPN utility to set up your own VPN, No backup utility to schedule automated back-ups from attached devices onto the attached USB drive. The 'certified' set of USB drives and USB printers supported by Linksys as being compatible with the router's USB ports is very limited. I see people reporting these issues already on blogs about the Linksys... especially many printers not working with the router.. even name brands such as HP. I happen to own myself a fairly newer upper-end HP printer. My HP is not listed as 'supported' on the WRT1900AC support web page either. But maybe it will work even though not 'officially tested' by Linksys. Update 2014-12-17; Informed TP-Link of the above that the router is being sent back. They gave me one last thing to try. Acknowledged that they have a firmware issue with loopback and port forwarding. They said as a temp fix, to disable the 'NAT Boost' feature of the router and run another test. Well.. NAT Boost.. totally unrelated to Port Forwarding... but hey.. give it a try. Fixed !!!!!!! That resolved the port forwarding issue and I can access the IP cameras from the internet. They also emailed me a firmware patch until the fix becomes part of a new firmware release. Have not installed the patch. I am just running the router with the NAT Boost feature disabled. The net of itall; Between 60 - 70 hours of my personal and time and frustration wasted on something the other routers handled with ease within 10 minutes of settting up port forwarding on those routers. Where do I send the bill for my time :( ???? Further Update 2014-12-17; Coincidentally; My Linksys WRT1900AC and Netgear Nighthawk 7500 arrived in the mail, the same day as the above fix. I think the TP-Link is still going back. Just too frustrated, and given the small price diff between the 3 units (I got the Linksys and the 7500 on Amazon 'deals') it is not worth any future frustration like this with thje the TP-Link and the users being the firmware guinea pigs. I will elect to leave the TP-Link at 2 stars. Perhaps it is a 2.5 stars now that I can actually use it beyond very basic wifi usage. But at this point, the router would only stay if they (TP Link) offered me to keep it as a gesture of 'good faith' for all the frustration, late nights, emails, phione calls, redundant testing I was instructed to do, and wasted hours of my time. Also, on the unstable WIFI signal; I have about 4 various USB drives around my house (Western Digital, Verbatim, Seagate x2) all of varying ages (6+ years old to pretty new devices). All to a greater or lesser extent caused the unstable connection when attached to the USB 3.0 port. I tried with various other computers and tablets (Apple, Win, and Android). Same thing. The only time it was not happening was if one was less than ~15 feet of the router. The `drops' were occurring about 20+ feet away, with signal strength showing as 'Very Good' to `Excellent' at the device. Again, iPhone connections got the worst of it, but pretty much across the spectrum of devices I tried they had the issue at some level. This was never happening with my old Linksys or the borrowed Netgear routers (but they do not have USB ports either). At first I thought that this would just be an annoyance and I could live with it. But when one keeps dropping connections when trying to host work related webinars, this became `unacceptable'. Also, having the WIFI TVs drop connection 2 or 3 times during a movie, then having to re-establish the TV to LAN connection, and then log back into Netflix, and then restart the movie from where left off... This too became too frustrating as well. If you live in a apartment / urban small area dwelling, you may never experience the issue as you never really get very far (radius) away from the router. If one is within 10 - 15 feet radius of the router, does not seem to be an issue. Get to 20' plus away, with a USB drive attached (although signal shows as 'very good' to 'excellent' at the device) the device keeps dropping / reacquiring the connection. Disconnect the USB 3.0 drive and the issue goes away using the same distance / location in the house. For the non-iPhone devices, connection drops maybe 2 or 3 times an hour. Perhaps bearable for some. For iPhones... about 8 - 12 times per hour. TP-Link never had an explanation... wanted me to engage in deeper research. I was too deep into trying to resolve the Port Forwarding issue. In the end, I have no more interest left in the product to pursue the unstable wifi connection issue. To sum up... if one has only basic wifi needs, to just plug in a router and have a wifi connection in their house, the router will probably suit your needs and you will not know of fundamental issues this router has (hence the high 4+ star reviews). But if you plan to use even some `beyond basic' router features in the future for which you bought this router for in the 1st place, I cannot recommend this router. Also, unless you enjoy spending countless hours trying to get something to work, that on other routers works fine, and the vendor keeps telling you the issues are with your cameras, your computer, your OS, your devices, your Internet Service Provider, etc, etc, and you need to keep doing more research and documentation all along the way just to prove them wrong (the vendor clearly at the beginning was just hoping I would take one of their excuses and `just go away') until they finally accept what you have been saying all along that their router has issues, then also I cannot recommend this router. 01/29/2015; Quick Update; I see lots of comments and questions. Sorry I should have set alerts on when incomming comments were added. Also dealing with 'mom health issues'. I will try to answer some questions that people asked that I read in the comments. FYI... As I noted, I received the NetGear X4 7500 and Linksys WRT1900ac routers. I have installed and tested the Linksys WRT1900ac. All the dropped WIFI issues went away (with and without USB 3.0 drives attached). Signal stength is excellent across my 6000 ft2 home. Internet cameras forwarding correctly. The UI on the Linksys is frankly disorganized, but eventually one finds what is needed (just not where one would logically expect the settings to be). The netwaork map graphic of attached devices is buggy.. always showing phantom devices that are not attached to your network, a few other 'nits' with the UI. Limited set of 'officially' supported USB drives and printers (but I have attached a number of 'not supported' drives and they work... have not tested the printers yet). Missing some helpful features (VPN, back-up, etc) that a high end router should have). But overall, a very solid router choice. I will write a review on the WRT1900ac. I have also installed and tested the Netgear X4 7500 Nighthawk. That has been an experiance to say the least (2 router replacements later to try to resolve issues with that). I'll write a review on the 7500 aa well. At least Netgear support has been 'spot on' every step of the way. Once the issue was reported and then demonstated to them,they owned up to it (writing and sending firmware patches, provided 2 replacement routers).. not blaming it all on 'user error', ISP issues, camera issues, etc., as TP-Link support did. Again.. hope this helps people in their router purchase.