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D-Link DSL-2890AL Gigabit Cloud ADSL2+ Modem Router review: D-Link hits the sweet spot for modem-router price and performance

The D-Link DSL-2890AL offers everything you need for a very good price.

Craig Simms Special to CNET News
Craig was sucked into the endless vortex of tech at an early age, only to be spat back out babbling things like "phase-locked-loop crystal oscillators!". Mostly this receives a pat on the head from the listener, followed closely by a question about what laptop they should buy.
Craig Simms
3 min read

As an AC1750 modem-router, D-Link's DSL-2890AL poses a problem for the more expensive AC1900 competitors. While you'd expect 802.11n 5GHz and 802.11ac to be the same amongst the two grades, what I didn't expect to see was 2.4GHz performance parity with routers that were significantly more expensive.

8.3

D-Link DSL-2890AL Gigabit Cloud ADSL2+ Modem Router

The Good

Its wireless performance is up there with significantly more expensive AC1900 rated modem-routers.

The Bad

There's no printer support and USB performance is bad -- but let's face it, USB storage on routers isn't great anyway.

The Bottom Line

D-Link's DSL-2890AL hits the absolute sweet spot between price and performance for 802.11ac modem-routers.

While the higher-rated AC1900 routers will likely cope with more 2.4GHz devices on the network, for those with only a few devices the 2890AL's AU$219 pricetag represents incredible value.

Read more: Wi-Fi 6: Better, faster internet is coming this year -- here's everything you need to know  

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dlink2890al.jpg
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Design and ease of use

D-Link's unique cylindrical design puts it at odds with wall mounting, and makes it look more like a NAS than a router. Or perhaps a speaker. Maybe a coffee plunger.

Regardless, it has a wealth of status lights, including power, DSL sync, Internet, WPS, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless and individual lights for all four gigabit Ethernet ports. D-Link receives a huge tick of approval for troubleshooting here.

dlink2890al-2.jpg
Dave Cheng/CNET

On the rear are four gigabit Ethernet ports, a USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 port, and physical buttons for both power and Wi-Fi on/off.

The 2890AL still uses D-Link's old web UI, which is straightforward and functional, but could do with a coat of modern paint and a reduction in the number of clicks required to achieve certain tasks. Still, I appreciated the helpful hints D-Link puts down the side that explain options and networking terms, and provides links to extended help stored on the router itself.

d-link-dsl-2890al-ui.jpg
Screenshot by Craig Simms

Features

On top of standard features like QoS, port forwarding and firewall settings, D-Link offers access to its router via its mydlink app. It's very limited though, allowing you to view and block connected devices, check your Internet and LAN IP, and alter basic Wi-Fi settings.

While there are two USB ports, functionality is limited, only supporting storage. This can be accessed over FTP, SMB, or online using D-Link's Shareport Web Access feature. DLNA is also supported.

Parental control includes blacklist or whitelist support, scheduling across WAN, wireless, virtual server, port forwarding, and network filters.

D-Link offers guest Wi-Fi on 2.4 and 5GHz, and supports DDNS through its own service and DynDNS.org.

Performance

Testing was performed with firmware AU_1.02.06, and I used iPerf to determine the maximum wireless speed at three locations: the next room, immediately upstairs with some furniture in the way, and one room away from immediately upstairs.

The wireless client used was an Asus G550 laptop with a 2x2 Intel AC7260 wireless card, as an indicator of average performance. Each WLAN is set to WPA2 personal encryption and a clear channel is chosen. Where possible, the highest channel bandwidth is chosen, either 40 or 80MHz depending on the wireless standard. Where appropriate, transmission standard is set to 802.11n or 802.11AC only.

Due to the variable nature of wireless and surrounding WLANs, each unit was tested multiple times at various times of day to achieve a best case scenario performance value. Your own environment will see different results.

802.11n 2.4GHz performance

Linksys XAC1900 163 152 70.6Belkin AC1750DB 111 112 75.4AVM Fritz!Box 7490 172 173 92.4D-Link DSL-2890AL 168 162 85.1D-Link Viper DSL-2900AL 172 164 88.2Asus DSL-AC68U 170 157 82.8TP-Link Archer D7 110 111 74.1TP-Link Archer D9 175 156 89.5
  • Location 1
  • Location 2
  • Location 3
Note: Throughput in Mbps

The AC1750-rated D-Link matches the AC1900 big boys on 2.4GHz, putting in a strong showing.

802.11n 5GHz performance

802.11n 5GHz performance 175 175 52Belkin AC1750DB 219 183 42.1AVM Fritz!Box 7490 188 211 59.3D-Link DSL-2890AL 193 191 52.9D-Link Viper DSL-2900AL 197 184 64.8TP-Link Archer D7 220 197 43TP-Link Archer D9 193 181 37.7
  • Location 1
  • Location 2
  • Location 3
Note: Throughput in Mbps

802.11n 5GHz is equally strong.

802.11ac performance

Linksys XAC1900 292 285 80.9Belkin AC1750DB 290 275 82.9AVM Fritz!Box 7490 307 300 77D-Link DSL-2890AL 308 297 77.5D-Link Viper DSL-2900AL 294 281 74.1Asus DSL-AC68U 300 291 78.5TP-Link Archer D7 298 287 81.8TP-Link Archer D9 303 292 74.4
  • Location 1
  • Location 2
  • Location 3
Note: Throughput in Mbps

802.11ac performance tends to be similar across all premium modem-routers we've tested, although the DSL-2890AL delivered our top results for the first two locations closer to the router.

Storage was tested over gigabit LAN with a SanDisk Extreme NTFS formatted 64GB USB 3.0 drive plugged into the fastest USB slot, transferring a 100MB file via SMB.

USB storage performance

Linksys XAC1900 23.85 23.63Belkin AC1750DB 9.36 2.87AVM Fritz!Box 7490 6.45 5.85D-Link DSL-2890AL 5.04 4.99D-Link Viper DSL-2900AL 6.14 6.78Asus DSL-AC68U 29.32 32.42TP-Link Archer D7 14.45 13.73TP-Link Archer D9 23.26 13.41
  • Read
  • Write
Note: Throughput in Mbps

There's one word for the USB performance of the D-Link: abysmal. If you've got your heart set on using USB storage, there's better options out there.

Conclusions

D-Link has hit the price-performance jackpot with the DSL-2890AL. While it may not be as featured as some competitors, for a straight up high-performance router, this one would be our choice.

8.3

D-Link DSL-2890AL Gigabit Cloud ADSL2+ Modem Router

Score Breakdown

Setup 8Features 8Performance 9Support 8