D-Link DIR-803 Review: An affordable 802.11ac router

D-Link DIR-803 detailed review

Cheap AC routers have played an important role in making the 802.11ac standard achieve mainstream popularity and the D-Link DIR-803 is one such router. The build quality of the device isn't out of the ordinary, the main 802.11ac chip doesn't have a heatsink on it. We left the router on through the night and it didn't seem to heat up so that wasn't much of an issue. The non removable antennae isn't something we look forward to in a router but then again we at least have the option of being able to orient the antennae unlike many budget models. We experienced no connection drops through the duration of the course nor did we see any spikes while running the ping test. The router averaged 1ms on the 2.4GHz band while the 5GHz band would often have pings as high as 6ms and this was within 15 meters.  
 
The interface is simple and you can access options like port forwarding and virtual server routing without navigating too deep within the interface, but quite a few options are not available. The option for transmit power is set to high by default which is optimal. We achieved a TCP+UDP bandwidth of approximately 90 Mbps on one client which should be enough for streaming HD movies to multiple clients with ease. The overall bandwidth is affected by the channel width being set to auto so you may want to change that if you are facing bandwidth issues. Overall, the D-Link DIR-803 is a good 802.11ac router with a simplistic interface but we'd have preferred more options in the interface as are present in the company's more expensive models.
 
Specifications

Wireless LAN Chip: Realtek RTL8881AQ & RTL8192ER
Memory: 64 MB DDR2 800 MHz
Protocols: 802.11b/g/n/ac
Bandwidth: 750(433ac+300n) Mbps
Ethernet: 4x LAN, 1x WAN
Wi-Fi: 802.11ac
Without modem
Warranty: 3 years