D-Link AC2600 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Router Review

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A solid 80211.ac upgrade.

By josh norem

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D-Link has a new router aimed at folks who want some fast 80211.ac wireless without dropping a ton of cash. It’s called the DIR-882 (See it on Amazon) and it’s a high-end router in terms of specs and performance, but about one tier below its spaceship-like DIR-890L/R. Since it’s an AC2600 router, it’s on the upper end of the speed scale, and at $150 it’s about average for a fancy dual-band AC router. Let's dig into it:

Design and Features

The DIR-882 is a very straightforward router in that it has 80211.ac Wave 2 features such as MU-MIMO and 80/160MHz channels, but is otherwise fairly pedestrian in its feature set. As I wrote above this is a dual-band router so it operates on both 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands, so it'll work with pretty much any device regardless of its age. It’s an AC2600 router, which means you get 800Mbps on the 2.4GHZ band and 1,733Mbps on the 5GHz band (they rounded up a tiny bit to get 2600). It supports MU-MIMO so theoretically if you have compatible client adapters you can have better performance for up to three users at once. Again, you need a MU-MIMO adapter on the other end though, but they are becoming more common in notebooks these days.

Aside from that, this is an AC router with all the features that encompasses, including beam forming, a four antenna design, and DLNA Media server support. Looking at the router itself it’s a bit on the large size, measuring 10” by 7” with antenna that are almost comically long, and are attached to the router to make setup easier. You just flip them up and you’re ready to go. The front of the unit sports activity lights but they are so dim you can’t really see them, unless the room is dark. I actually like this as nobody ever really needs to look at their router’s lights anyway, and I don’t like bright LEDs that flash all night long and illuminate an otherwise dark room, but I live in an apartment so that’s a personal thing. Tucked below the right-hand side is a USB 3.0 port for file and printer sharing. I don’t like this location as it’s hard to access and looks pretty terrible if you have anything connected to it.

The back of the router is pretty standard in that there are four Gigabit LAN ports, one USB 2.0 port, a power button, and buttons for WPS and to enable or disable Wi-Fi.

 The router supports a lot of high-end security and performance features that are common in expensive routers including Stateful Packet Inspection, Network Address Translation, Guest Networks, Parental Controls, device-specific Quality of Service, and L2TP over IPSec so you can connect remotely, even for file access via attached storage. It also supports Smart Connect technology, which is where both networks use the same SSID and it connects devices based intelligently. It's a useful feature in homes with a good mix of older and newer devices.

Setup and Admin Software

Setting up the router was a painless process that took all of five minutes. After power cycling my modem I was able to begin the setup process by typing the router's IP address into my browser. A wizard guided me through the process, and required me to name the network (the two are joined during initial setup), and choose an admin password.

  Once things are setup the software interface is a bit sparse but certainly covers the basics, and things are laid out in a way that is easy to figure out regardless of your technical prowess. The main page shows you a map of sorts that displays everything connected to the router, so you can see at a glance what's hooked up and if everything is functioning properly.

Aside from the expired copyright notice, the admin interface is equal parts plain and informative. As you can see the interface is heavy on information instead of using graphics. Most screens are literally tables full of numbers and whatnot, so it's always easy to understand if you know what you're looking at. All of the various settings and features are really straightforward, so I won't cover them all since there are a lot of them. I will cover the Quality of Service feature though, since it's more intuitive than most routers.

In some routers there is no way to prioritize traffic, and in others like those from Netgear it's just a black box that you either turn on or don't, but with the DIR-882 you can specifically prioritize certain devices. It lets you simply drag and drop connected clients into the respective priority boxes, so the whole process is quite simple.

The router also supports a technology named Smart Connect, which is for newbies but can still be useful if you are just lazy. It combines both networks into one SSID so you don't have to wonder if you're connecting to the right network for your device since older phones, PCs and tablets might not be 5GHz compatible. It's a slick feature, but not for everyone obviously.

Performance

To test the performance of the DIR-882 I set up a server/client connection using Netperf, and tested TCP throughput between the two points. I setup the software on my desktop PC and then installed it on a Windows 10 laptop that I used for all the previous router tests. The tests were run on different days at different times to eliminate momentary weirdness that can occur with wireless networking. All tests were run multiple times until I saw what looked like stable, repeatable results. The routers in the comparison charts were all tested using the same equipment in the same environment. Tests were run at 15 feet with line-of-sight visibility and also at 30 feet with two walls separating the client and server. In addition to wireless throughput tests I also ran a quick 2GB file transfer test by connecting a USB hard drive to the USB 3.0 port on the front of the router.

5GHz Performance

2.4GHz Performance

Overall the DIR-882 held its own in my throughput tests, and performed very well considering its $150 price point. What you can't see in the charts above is all of the routers that are faster than the DIR-882 cost significantly more, and are more than twice as expensive in the case of the Linksys and Asus routers.

Using the 5GHz band the DIR-882 was actually faster in my 30 foot test with walls than it was at 15 feet, which is a feature of 80211.ac in that since the data streams detect your device and are aimed towards it, sometimes it needs some room to accurately form the beams. Overall it wasn't the fastest router at 5GHz but it wasn't too far behind. I'd classify it as one of the fastest, and definitely better than average.

The DIR-882 did struggle a bit in my file transfer tests where it was much slower than competing routers. Interestingly in my last round of tests the previous model from D-Link also struggled in this test, so this time around the two of them were neck and neck at the bottom of the benchmark chart. It's a strange performance but seems consistent with the previous model.

At 2.4GHz the DIR-882 also showed very strong performance as well, and again it's not the fastest router I've tested but it's close.

Purchasing Guide

The D-Link DIR-882 AC2500 MU-MIMO Router has an MSRP of around $175, but can often be grabbed for closer to $150 Amazon:

• See the D-Link DIR-882 AC2500 MU-MIMO Router on Amazon

The Verdict

The DIR-882 is a pretty strong contender in the dual-band AC category due to its lowish price of $149. It's less expensive than other high-end offerings, and has an intuitive yet boring interface, strong performance, and a decent feature set that is a bit skimpy but reflected in the price. It's one of the better deals in the router space is an overall great router.

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