D-Link DIR-826L Cloud Gigabit Router N600 review

MEDIA FRIENDLY?
The DIR-826L has a single USB connection to which you can attach USB drives to share on your network. The media on the drive can be accessed via a web browser, your operating system’s filesystem browser or a mobile app. The DIR-826L’s web interface lets you can create users, set permissions for them and give them home folders.

We had no trouble accessing the media on our attached USB drive. We could stream HD video to our iPad at 25 metres comfortably on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. There was no stuttering while it buffered, which meant we could enjoy our videos without interruption.

Curiously, the DIR-826L doesn’t have a built-in media server, which surprised us. Yes, you can stream media using the SharePort Mobile app, but what if you want to stream media to a PC?

CLOUD SURFING
The DIR-826L lets you provide cloud services for your users without having to configure many settings. Once you’ve registered your router with the Mydlink website using the wizard in the DIR-826L’s web interface, you can access the router’s web interface and attached storage over the internet.

The DIR-826L provides good Wi-Fi speeds, not the fastest, but it has some advanced options and a decent – if basic – selection of mobile apps. D-Link’s web interface could be better organised, and its mobile apps need to offer more options if it’s to be as user-friendly and useful as D-Link would like it to be, but it’s a very likeable router. It costs little and is a bargain buy if you want a cheap router with decent short-range Wi-Fi performance.