TP-Link TD-W8951ND review

The TD-W8951ND is a wireless router with an ADSL modem and four Ethernet ports. With a single antenna and a 150Mbit/s theoretical top speed, it’s classed as an N-Lite rather than a fully certified 802.11n device. It’s remarkably cheap, though, and it still has many of the features that we’d only expect on more expensive routers.

With its utilitarian appearance, it’s not the sort of router you’ll want to position prominently in your living room. There’s a button labelled QSS, TP-Link’s name for WiFi Protected Setup (WPS), which lets you connect two WiFi devices securely just by pushing the button on each device. Renaming it simply causes confusion, as other devices’ buttons will be labelled WPS.

A disc in the box contains a setup utility and quick start guide. The guide is ideal for beginners, showing exactly how to wire up the router. The Easy Setup Assistant software then checks the network and helps set up ADSL and wireless connections. The software isn’t particularly intuitive, though, and it took us some time to work out how to start the setup process.

The router’s web interface has its own setup procedure, which covers the essentials such as Wi-Fi security. The interface isn’t very inviting, though, and demonstrates a poor grasp of the English language. Advanced users will be able to find their way around but others might struggle.

We were impressed by the range of features, which include advanced routing options, QoS and UPnP support. Wi-Fi speeds via our Centrino 2 laptop were excellent except at very long range. However, using TP-Link’s own USB dongle (TL-WN821N, £10) caused speeds to drop dramatically. Channel-bonding is enabled by default, which may produce higher speeds but will interfere with surrounding Wi-Fi signals. TP-Link’s “Auto” Wi-Fi channel selection is either broken or mislabelled, as it always chose Channel 1, which wasn’t always the fastest available.

Advanced users who know what they’re looking for may be able to navigate TP-Link’s unintuitive interface, but this isn’t the best choice for novice users. Long-range performance was poor, but fast speeds at shorter distances, a low price and a wide range of options make it worth considering. Even so, we’d pay a little more for the TP-Link TD-W8961ND.