D-Link DIR-865L Cloud Gigabit Router AC1750 review

The D-Link DIR-865L is a dual band 802.11ac router with four Gigabit Ethernet ports and a USB port to which you can attach USB drives and printers. Its use of the new 802.11ac standard means it’s designed for fast, efficient transfer of data, so it’s ideal for those wanting to stream high-definition media from their NAS drives or PCs to their smart TV or home cinema setup.

We’ve come to expect very high Wi-Fi speeds from 802.11ac routers, having seen a few of them within recent months. Speeds of 210Mbit/s are typical, and the excellent Netgear R6300 provided an outstanding 288.9Mbit/s at 10 metres and 195.7Mbit/s at 25 metres, so we were keen to see how the DIR-865L compared.

The 802.11ac standard uses the less congested 5GHz band to transfer data at these very high speeds, but the D-Link DIR-865L lets you connect on the 2.4GHz band, which means you can use it with your existing devices 802.11n,b and g devices, too. It also means you can invest in a DIR-865L now and incorporate 802.11ac devices as they become available.

We used the D-Link DWA-182 USB Wi-Fi adaptor (£46.76, www.scan.co.uk) to test the DIR-865L’s 802.11ac performance because our laptop’s built-in adaptor only supports 802.11n. Once connected, we achieved data transfer speeds of 149.1Mbit/s at one metre, 149.1Mbit/s at 10 metres and 70.2Mbit/s at 25 metres. At one time these speeds would have stunned us, but they’re disappointingly slow compared to the Asus RT-AC66U, Netgear R6300 and Buffalo WZR-1800H’s speeds.

A key feature of the 802.11ac standard is increased range over the 802.11n standard. The DIR-865L certainly transfers data more quickly at 25 metres than a standard 802.11n router on the 5GHz band, but the Netgear R6300 is almost three times quicker than the DIR-865L at this distance. Concerned the DWA-182 might be limiting the DIR-865L, we connected to the DIR-865L with our Buffalo AirStation 1300 802.11ac WLI-H4-D1300 Media Bridge. We achieved 195.7Mbit/s at 10 metres, which is better.

Of course, not everyone has 802.11ac devices yet, so also connected to the DIR-865L on the 2.4GHz band using our laptop’s built-in Wi-Fi adaptor. We achieved data transfer rates of 36.5Mbit/s at one metre, 36Mbit/s at 10 metres and 25.7Mbit/s at 25 metres. These are respectable and fairly quick speeds.

We then used the D-Link DWA-182 Wi-Fi Adaptor and again connected to it on the 2.4GHz band. This time we achieved transfer speeds of 78.8Mbit/s at one metre, 72.3Mbit/s at 10 metres and 33.3Mbit/s at 25 metres, which is exceptionally good.

Excited by these results, we then tested the DIR-865L on the 5GHz band using our laptop’s built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi adaptor. We achieved data transfer speeds of 87Mbit/s at one metre, 83.9Mbit/s at 10 metres and 26.6Mbit/s at 25 metres. These aren’t the best speeds we’ve experienced, but they’re far from the worst, and certainly good enough for streaming HD media to your laptop or tablet.

STREAMING MEDIA

To make the most of the DIR-865L’s 802.11ac speeds, you can download the D-Link SharePort Mobile app from the Apple App Store or Google Play. SharePort Mobile lets you access media and files stored on drives attached to the DIR-865L’s single USB port. The app’s simple, and is all the better for it.

SharePort Mobile’s main menu is comprised of six icons that denote different categories, such as music, movies and files. Select a category and you’re presented with a list of all the files stored on the attached USB drive within that category. You can also search by folder and mark specific files as favourites. SharePort Mobile even lets you set up Dynamic DNS so that you can access attached USB storage when you’re away from your home or office.

The D-Link DIR-865L’s web interface is fairly well organised

We used SharePort Mobile on our iPad and had no problem watching MPEG4 and H.264 videos, but couldn’t watch Xvid, DivX, MKV or WMV videos. We had no problem viewing JPG or PNG photos, opening PDF files or listening to MP3 music, but we couldn’t open docx files. This limited file format support may annoy some users, especially if you’re used to Synology’s excellent DS series of apps that let you browse and interact with documents and media on Synology NAS devices.

The DIR-865L is a good unit that’s easy to set up and maintain. It also has all the high-level features we expect from a high-end router, such as port forwarding, guest access, DLNA media streaming and Dynamic DNS support. The D-Link DIR-865L might not be as fast as other 802.11ac routers, but it’s considerably cheaper. However, we’d rather spend the extra and buy the faster Netgear R6300 .