D-Link DSL-3580L review

While most routers are happy for you to just plug them in and get connected, a large orange label slapped over the DSL-3580L’s ports insists that you use the setup CD first. While this will be useful for those who’re unfamiliar with router configuration, the setup disc’s long-winded approach is likely to irritate more experienced users, not to mention those on optical drive-free laptops.

You can skip this step if you’re happy to rummage around the router’s comprehensive web interface settings, but remember to set Wi-Fi passwords for the both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless connections, which are not secured by default.

The router has a built-in ADSL modem, but also supports Ethernet WAN connections, such as those from a cable or VDSL modem provided by your ISP, and even 4G connections via a USB dongle. The USB3 port can also be used to share a printer with your network or connect an external hard disk which you can use as the target for the router’s built-in storage server: a simple single-disk NAS.

A straightforward interface for those who know what they’re doing

While many router makers have gone out of their way to simplify their web interfaces as much as possible, or at least provide a friendly front page, D-Link isn’t among them. Instead, you have easy access to a wealth of detailed configuration options for everything from your ADSL connection settings to QoS to prioritise different kinds of traffic across your net connection and business-oriented features such as support for SNMP remote management tools.

Like most 802.11ac routers, the DSL-3580L is chunkier than your average 802.11n model. It stands upright, has a glossy black finish and a bank of lights to indicate the status of various ports and features. At the back of the router are the ADSL, Gigabit Ethernet WAN and USB3 ports, along with four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports. There’s a power switch for the router and separate buttons to enable and disable the 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless networks. A WPS button is located toward the right of the device.

We tested the router with both our laptop’s integrated Centrino 2 wireless chipset, which supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, and D-Link’s own DWA-182 USB Wi-Fi dongle, made to support the same AC1200 standard as the router itself. Unfortunately, 2.4GHz performance was poor, and no amount of tweaking of settings on our part made for any notable improvement. Both integrated chipset and dongle failed to maintain a 2.4GHz connection at 20m, but the dongle performed best of the two, achieving 74.1Mbit/s at 1m and 62.3Mbit/s at 10, compared to 50.4Mbit/s at 1m and 45Mbit/s at 10m from the Centrino 2 laptop.

The best results we got were on the 5GHz band with our laptop’s integrated Wi-Fi, which achieved a very good throughput of 83.9Mbit/s at 1m, 74.6Mbit/s at 10m and 43.3Mbit/s at 20m. Using the D-Link dongle at 5GHz, we were unable to maintain a connection at 20m but got 60.1Mbit/s at 10m and 93.2Mbit/s at 1m. Performance was our PCI-E Wi-Fi adaptor at 5GHz over 20m was 54.5Mbits, which is decent but not particularly notable.

Priced at around £100, the DSL-3580L is a little cheaper than most other 802.11ac ADSL routers and even compares well to some 802.11n dual-band routers. However, its somewhat intimidating interface and poor performance over long distances means we’d rather spend more on the BT Home Hub 5 instead.