Buffalo WZR-D1800H AC1300 1.3 Gb/s 802.11AC Wireless Router Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,489 words · ~7 min read
0:07
welcome to my unboxing of the Buffalo
0:10
ac300 N900 dualband Extreme Performance
0:15
wireless router now when Buffalo says Extreme Performance what they mean by
0:19
Extreme Performance is as Extreme as it
0:23
freaking gets when it comes to wireless
0:26
so this is a Wi-Fi router it is
0:31
802.11 AC which is completely different
0:34
from 802.11a 802.11 b g and N this is
0:40
significantly faster so this guy is capable of up to 1.3 gigabits per second
0:45
remember whenever we're talking Wireless performance we're talking theoretical
0:50
performance and the real world it'll be less but this this theoretical
0:53
performance is definitely faster than your old theoretical performance I can
0:56
tell you that much for sure so that is with ultra fast wirel less 11 AC 900
1:02
megabit per second simultaneous dualband Wireless 11n so that means dual
1:06
concurrent 450 megabit per second streams even if you're using older
1:11
Wireless and equipment with it however if you pair it up with newer Wireless AC
1:16
equipment you will get screaming fast
1:19
theoretically gigabit Wireless connectivity which is up until now
1:25
completely unheard of when it comes to the consumer space anyway so it comes
1:30
with a fairly full oh I love these Ethernet cables I
1:35
have we have one of these in the tech tips room from when we did uh from when
1:39
we showcased a buffalo product in the past these are like their sexy ribbon
1:44
cable Ethernet cables very nice uh those are the kinds
1:49
of accessories that that I get excited about these days I guess I mean I'm also
1:53
excited about the you know 1.3 gabit per
1:56
second wireless performance but uh okay let's cover more more of what Buffalo
2:01
has to say for themselves before we move along so it's dualband 2.4 GHz 5 GHz
2:05
gigabit Ethernet USB port for storage and it is also multiplatform PC Mac or
2:10
mobile devices are all supported and they darn well better be okay uh
2:14
operating in oh right so AC
2:17
is different from n it doesn't operate on 2.4 GHz at all now in theory 5 GHz is
2:23
a bit of a range impediment compared to 2.4 GHz however the advantage of it is
2:28
that there is significant less interference on the 5 GHz band so while
2:32
you get it from a wireless n 5 GHz
2:37
router you get even more from a dedicated 5 GHz Wireless AC router so
2:43
moving right along also right I mean better antenna uh technology better
2:47
transmission power is also going to compensate somewhat for the reduced
2:51
range of the 5 GHz band operating in okay transs up to Ideal and
2:55
uninterrupted HD video streaming concurrent internet access amazing I
2:58
mean I can't wait wait for 1300 megabit per second internet
3:02
access yeah yeah all right 24/7 tech
3:05
support in USA and Canada only threeyear warranty on this guy right here and
3:10
we've got all of the usual stuff right here including what it includes the
3:13
wireless the wired interface so of course it's gigabit which it sort of
3:17
better be if it's going to be like I mean if it's going to be capable of
3:21
gigabit on the wireless side then it
3:24
better be gigabit wired too because that only sort of stands for reason all right
3:28
so let's see what they've included it's kind of a neat looking it's kind of a
3:31
neat looking router casing okay hold on so air Navigator is their connector CD
3:36
I've actually found in my experience I know I usually say throw away the CD but
3:40
I found router connector CDs can actually be kind of useful if you're not
3:44
uh techy and knowledgeable so if you you know buy the router for someone you can
3:48
tell them to use it also comes with a colored quick setup guide shows you how
3:51
to plug the thing into the thing and the other thing and switch the thing on as
3:55
well as oh look at that couple quick tips about uh about setting up the S ID
4:00
sing up the key it's nice to have a handy dandy reference sheet I would
4:03
probably take something like this and like tape it to the unit because that's
4:06
what I usually do with the information that I need connection guide for Android
4:10
devices oh look at that trying to be very complete about things warranty
4:14
statement Regulatory Compliance and supplemental
4:18
information hm fascinating okay so let's
4:22
have a look at what they've got in terms of included accessories screw
4:26
brackets couple mounting ho-ass so looks
4:29
like these guys going in here like uh
4:34
H H probably this would be my guess okay
4:40
give me a oh no I get it I get it I get it okay yeah so these clip in right here
4:43
if you do want to stand the router up there's little guides on the inside so
4:47
you can see that right there just like that and then it will stand without
4:51
falling over so the unit itself has a soft touch rubberized finish on it that
4:57
actually looks quite nice you've got Buffalo's Air Station branding right
5:00
about there on that side and right about there on the other side they've got a
5:03
plastic piece that goes around the top of it kind of like it looks kind of like
5:07
um like Mackie you know like with the sort of aluminum metally looking piece
5:13
going around the outside of a black thing like kind of like a iPad or
5:16
something it's my tablet the air station um on the front uh we've got our uh
5:21
connectivity indicators we've also got an illuminated Buffalo logo and moving
5:26
around to the back we find our 4 gbit Lan our internet Jack as well as our oh
5:32
that's kind of neat our onoff switch so you don't actually have to unplug it to
5:36
power cycle the router should you need to do it as well as our power input our
5:40
USB um USB port and eject button for the
5:44
safe ejection of it and a router button let's figure out what that does give me
5:48
a sec guys apparently on the entire internet information does not exist
5:52
about what this button does but what I suspect it does is it's a hardware button to change from router mode to
5:56
just wireless access point switch mode which would be really useful because
6:00
then you can take your existing setup plug this thing in hit the button it's
6:03
not going to create any conflicting IP address uh assignments anything like
6:08
that and it'll just get you going as quickly as possible also we found
6:12
something cool here's a card in the bottom of the unit that tells you all your default information without taping
6:17
things to the side of it which is pretty cool as well there's a reset button on
6:20
the bottom which if you want to reset the unit you're going to want to hold
6:23
that down and that'll reset it back to factory defaults and in terms of
6:27
included accessories we've got our power brck I think we already covered this
6:30
didn't we so I think that pretty much wraps it up now right now there aren't
6:35
really any AC devices so what's the point of an AC router it's a draft 2.0
6:40
standard at this point in time so why do you need this gigabit Wireless speed
6:44
well Buffalo has a companion product so
6:47
this is the uh the ac300 this is the
6:51
Dual Band Media Bridge so it has 4 gbit
6:54
ports and then this guy right here is basically like a huge network card think
7:00
of it that way like it's a huge external Wi-Fi dongle so that means you can
7:06
connect just one device by gigabit Ethernet to this guy right here and then
7:10
you're going to get your 1.3 gigabit per second theoretical between these two
7:15
devices and then full gigabit connectivity between this guy and
7:18
whatever computer or device it's connected to or up to four devices at a
7:22
time given that they should be bandwidth to spare um the router itself includes
7:27
all the usual features in uh things like
7:30
uh qos so you can prioritize certain things like media streaming or gaming so
7:35
that you don't get any lag and I think that pretty much covers it thank you for
7:38
checking out our unboxing and first look at their AC 1300 dualband Extreme
7:43
Performance wireless router from Buffalo and don't forget to subscribe to Line
7:46
Tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos