Introduction

As the market stands right now, nearly every vendor has an AC3200 solution on the market, in past reviews such as the Nighthawk X6 and the Linksys EA9200, we had a chance to put these monsters of wireless technology through their paces. Shortly after CES 2015, we spoke with D-Link about their latest solution, the DIR-890L/R, and now a few months later, we have the latest in the lab ready for testing.

As we know, A3200 solutions allow the best mix of legacy and modern devices to communicate over a single network. With multiple 5GHz bands, you can manage your devices into a scenario where there is loss of performance with modern 802.11ac devices. Like previous AC3200 solutions, the D-Link DIR-890L/R is built on the Broadcom 5G Xstream platform featuring a 1GHz dual-core processor and what we can only guess is 256MB of DRAM and 128MB of NAND flash like previous solutions. On the wireless side of things, the DIR-890L/R features dual 5GHz bands capable of 1300 Mbps, while the 2.4GHz band reaches 600 Mbps.

Looking over the specifications, we find the DIR-890L/R housing four gigabit LAN ports next to a single gigabit WAN. A single USB 3.0 along with a USB 2.0 port allow Samba and DLNA access over the network. The wireless bands are split into a single 2.4GHz 802.11n network capable of 600 Mbps via TurboQAM, while both of the 5GHz bands are capable of 1300 Mbps.

The D-Link DIR-890L/R carries a MSRP of $369.99 with a one-year warranty.