TP-Link AC1200 Archer A6 v3.0 or 2.0

drshreenivaas

drshreenivaas

Messages
58
Location
Kolhapur
ISP
BSNL
Hi friends, I a getting BSNL FTTH connection tomorrow and I am in market for a decent router. Till now I had ADSL connection and don't have any prior experience with FTTH. I am getting UTSTARCOM ONT 4842W-I modem with installation and have had shortlisted TP-Link AC1200 Archer C6 and A6 routers by skimming through this forum.
Right now, I am getting TP-Link A6 v2.0 for Rs. 2040 on Flipkart and A6 v3.0 for Rs. 2249 on Amazon. I have placed order for both as I don't know which will be better.
As per info available on net, v2.0 has a internal antenna which v3.0 lacks resulting in little bit drop in range.
v3.0 comes with dual core Mediatek processor, whereas v2.0 comes with single core QUALCOMM processor. Also v3.0 comes with DDR3 RAM instead of DDR2. This results in faster boot, better memory management, less heating and less reboots.
v3.0 also comes with Airtime Fairness feature which according to TP-Link website, Improves network efficiency by limiting excessive occupation.
I want to know if anybody has used both routers in real life and if possible, has compared them?
Plz help me as my both orders will be delivered in three days and I have to cancel one of them, but I don't know which one.
Thanks in advance.
 
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@Sushubh, thanks for tip. On 2nd time, my request of refund was successfully successfully accepted. I also tested replacement router and found it to be subpar as compared to Mercusys MR50G. I think that beam forming of Mercusys MR50G has a larger role to play for a such great range, but I am not a expert. What I have found is that as long as phone is connected, wifi works seamlessly over a large area and once you disconnect phone from wifi network at the furthest point, u won't be able to even find it at the same spot. Though TP-Link A6 v3.0 advertises to possess it, I couldn't experience it.
 
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Sorry to say, but what you are experiencing here is not magic of beamforming...
Instead, it is technically just a byproduct behaviour of the wifi standard.
The weak link is not your router most of the time,it is your smartphone.
MR50G have higher antenna gain as compared to archer counterpart.
This it tends to have slightly more stretched directional wave envelope.
So basically, MR50G have better reception along the direction of antenna.This is necessarily great addition but orientation of smartphone ruins the experience more often than not....
Archer have omnidirectional antenna leading to almost equal and (not really) spherical wave envelope and leads to less perceived signal across antenna.
To read more, please refer to Wikipedia
 
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According to some posts on TP-Link Forum these hidden SSIDs are a part of their OneMesh system and there's no way to turn it off.

Archer C7 v5 is emitting a hidden network - Home Network Community

Hello, my Archer C7 v5 is emitting a hidden wifi network that I can't explain. According to a wifi network analyzer, it's MAC address is identical to the MAC addresses of the 2.4 and 5 GHz network, except that the first 6 entries are AA
community.tp-link.com community.tp-link.com
 
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