my 5GHz
Does the mouse have good options?
Every now and then you come across a product that brings a smile to your face and this could turn out to be one of them. I know I will not be in a position to take full advantage of this router's features for a while because most of my devices lack 5GHz capability but in spite of that there is  no doubt it will help overall network performance. While it appears to be positioned at the modest end of the manufacturer's dual band router product line, there is nothing modest about its' usefulness.Using the resource mini-cd for the setup assistant application, basic installation was completed in less than ten minutes, not factoring in the number of individual devices I needed to reconfigure to identify the new SSID(s) and password(s).  In order to create guest networking, a firmware update from the TP-LINK's website has to be installed. It should be noted the downloaded files must be extracted using WinZip or WinRAR, which might encumber some casual users. If the intention is to continue to use the Assistant app, there also appears to be another firmware update required to coincide with the other the other firmware modifications, as I discovered when I lost connectivity and couldn't restore it via the CD copy.  I didn't download it as I have enough familiarity with router configuration that I had already decided to log onto the administrative page and make manual changes before I realized there was a fix available.With theoretical transfer rates up to 300Mbps over both the 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ bands which results in the published combined rate of 600Mbps,  the router has already proven to be a nice step forward for my home/ home office network even though most of my activity will remain on the lower bandwidth at `g' standard. With two detachable external antennas, I would rate overall signal strength as good but not outstanding over 2.4GHZ. On the alternate band, degradation to some problematic areas in my house was evident (and expected) yet tolerable without with use of a range extender or access point.On a laptop where I swapped the existing adapter for a dual band `n' standard adapter I experienced an immediate consistent increase from the customary 36 to 46Mbps I was used to to 84Mbps via 5GHZ. That will be beneficial for streaming music and video files and networked backups to and from my media server and NAS. I'm sure most users will also be aware the 5GHZ band will only be visible on devices with dual band adapter capability and network names have to be segregated. As expected, WAN transferal over either band was not improved significantly as ISP limitations come into play there although there did appear to be a slight improvement as interference from other networks in my area is minimal on the 5GHz band.Naturally, some of us want caviar at catfish prices so it would have been great if the router had gigabit ethernet ports but it does have a USB port for networking printers and storage devices , freeing up another ethernet port for another device. It also has a power switch, a convenience absent on many devices in this price range, and  wireless on/off switch which is convenient for disabling broadcasts when one is away but needs to leave the network running for some processes like scheduled backups to a networked storage device.One interesting thing was I swapped out my normal adapters for the TP-LINK WDN 3200 thinking paired products from the same manufacturer might marginally improve performance but it turned out the opposite was true. On a laptop and older desktop PC, signal strength was actually lessened by 20% I tend to believe that may be attributable to the adapters lack of external antenna. I did not try the USB type adapter with an external cord which could have impacted results by facilitating different angles. 