Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsGood Signal Strength But Some Issues
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2021
I was really looking forward to seeing what the Archer A7 router could do. My terrific, but aging Asus router has been great but was a little pricey at $173 about 3 years ago. So, I decided to go much less expensive this time around. After a lot of research the Archer A7 seemed like a solid pick and was only $46 after an instant $10 coupon from Amazon.
However, there were some issues.
Problem#1: When the package arrived the initial setup was easy using the Tether app. Everything seemed fine and then I went ahead with a firmware update. That's where it all went wrong. I could no longer connect to the internet, very frustrating. As it turns out the update patch wiped out all of the settings I had put in when setting up the router. The router had to be reset to factory specs and the setup done all over again. I was not impressed. After repeating setup the router was back in service.
Problem #2: Once the router was up and running after the firmware update debacle, I went to mount the router on the wall. This is one reason I bought this particular router - it was wall mountable. Well, the slots provided on the back of the router have a plastic bottom which is so shallow that it was impossible to find a screw that would fit all the way into the slot without bottoming out on the plastic bed inside the slot. I ended up grinding down the heads of the screws so they would fit. Easy to do with a grinding wheel but it would be a pain to do this by hand. It would be nice if Tp-link included the proper size screws with the router.
Problem#3: I used the Tether app for setup and it went fine. My mistake was that I used a different password for the router than the password for Tether. This was a mistake that caused me some grief until I realized that you first have to login into Tether with it's password and then select your device (router or whatever) and login to it with its own password. It was really frustrating to get login error messages until I realized that using Tether required two distinct logins - one for Tether and one for your device. If I had used the same password for both Tether and for the router I could have avoided the confusion.
Problem#4: The security settings allow IP to MAC binding. I am not a network person so I had to research this and everything I read said this was a good idea. However, when I set up the binding several of my devices could no longer connect to the internet. I had to undo the binding and when I did everything was fine. This was likely not a router issue but just my lack of knowledge, so no fault of the router, just a head's up.
Note that the QOS function is very limited and it seemed to be slowing down my connection so I turned it off. It might be useful for households of more than one person, but for me it really didn't help.
After almost a week of use I am quite happy with the router. Speedtest shows great results, there have been no dropouts or other hiccups. It looks good on the wall and the signal is strong in my 1,700 square foot house. If it lasts for a couple of years then it will have been a great purchase. I'm also happy that it doesn't run hot, at least not yet.
Feb 13 Update: Today the 5 ghz band stopped working and I had to reboot the router. Hopefully, this is not going to be an ongoing issue. My last router would go months without needing a reboot.
Feb 19 update: Well, looks like this is going to be a finicky router. Another reboot was needed last night. So, it went from Monday to Thursday before needing a reboot. My last router went many months without needing a reboot, so this router is going to be a pain. The performance is good but the constant rebooting offsets that. Don't think I would buy this router again. Downgraded my rating.
Feb 26 update: I tried a few things to see if I could get more stability. I used WIFI Analyzer to find the least crowded channels and selected those manually in the wireless settings instead of selecting "auto" channel selection. Also used 20 mhz(instead of Auto) for 2.4 ghz band channel width. The 5 ghz channel width is still set to auto. Am getting good speeds on both bands and no dropped connection in the last week. Don't know if changing the settings helped or not but just happy that the router hasn't needed a reboot. Hope it lasts (fingers crossed).
