We would first like to thank TRENDnet for sending out a sample of their AC1750 TEW-824DRU Dual Band Wireless Router for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About TRENDnet:

 

“TRENDnet's vision is to build innovative, easy to use, and reliable Networks People Trust™. TRENDnet solutions network the countless devices which enable your connected lifestyle and workplace. Building award winning networking solutions since 1990, TRENDnet connects you with what you value most.

 

Founded in Torrance, California, TRENDnet has grown to become a leading global networking hardware brand. From the network core to the periphery, TRENDnet's expansive product portfolio includes Wireless, Wired, Surveillance, Connectivity, and Peripheral device categories. An emphasis on continual improvement and our ISO 9001:2008 quality management certification (click here to view certificate) is an essential component of TRENDnet’s success. The TRENDnet brand is consistently recognized for exceptional quality, superior performance, and responsive support.”

 

Product Features:

 

Easy Setup

Get up and running in minutes with the intuitive guided setup

 

Simultaneous AC1750 Dual Band

Concurrent high performance 1,300 Mbps WiFi AC + 450 Mbps WiFi N bands

 

Qualcomm® StreamBoost™ Latency Prioritization

StreamBoost™ prioritizes latency for gaming and voice streams to eliminate stutter or lag caused by other high bandwidth network traffic such as torrent downloads

 

Qualcomm® StreamBoost™ Traffic Shaping

StreamBoost™ intelligently allocates the optimal amount of bandwidth for each individual device/application and users can further manually assign device priority

 

Device/Traffic Mapping

See all connected network devices/applications and their respective real-time network usage and review historical usage data

 

Pre-Encrypted Wireless

For your convenience the WiFi is pre-encrypted with its own unique password

 

Wireless Coverage

High performance amplifiers maximize wireless coverage

 

Gigabit Ports

Gigabit ports support high performance wired connections

 

USB Share Port

Share content across the network with the USB share port

 

Guest Network

Create an isolated network for guest internet access only

 

Parental Controls

Control access to specific websites or types of content

 

One Touch Connection

Securely connect to the router at the touch of the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button

 

Targeted Beamforming

Increased real-time performance by directing stronger wireless signals to your specific location

 

Backward Compatible

Compatible with legacy wireless devices

 

Energy Savings

Embedded GREENnet technology reduces power consumption

 

 

Product Specifications:

 

 

One of the latest TRENDnet routers is the AC1750 Dual-Band which features StreamBoost Technology from Qualcomm (traffic shaping via the web GUI). The product box comes fully sealed:

 

 

 

On the top side of the packaging which is comprised of quite a small-sized cardboard enclosure we will get to see a photo of the main product along with small icons representing the main features:

 

 

 

On one of the box sides we will learn that the product was designed to offer traffic shaping so gaming would not be disturbed if done from other computers in the same time as downloading torrents for example; also, by offering both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks will allow a better separation for different tasks:

 

 

 

The opposite side will list the product features along with the package contents:

 

 

 

We can learn more about the included traffic shaping in the back area of the packaging:

 

 

 

After removing the top layer, we will end up with a smaller container, which includes the router along with its bundle:

 

 

 

A Quick Installation Guide, one User Guide and a Help/Registration leaflet are also provided:

 

 

 

The Quick Installation Guide will show us how to get everything going in multiple languages:

 

 

 

As accessories, we will receive one power adapter (with a quite small cable) but also one LAN cable:

 

 

 

The power adapter is rated on the output as 12V, 2A:

 

 

 

TEW-824DRU was designed to stay in a vertical position as the previous model we have reviewed quite some time ago, the TEW-818DRU; while the chassis is completely made of plastic, TRENDnet has used a brushed aluminum finish imitation for the sides of the product, which look quite nice:

 

 

 

The frontal area of the router is not very populated with LEDs or other interfaces, in fact comes with only two LEDs, the WAN one and the Power one:

 

 

 

On the top side of the router we will be able to spot a ventilation grill:

 

 

 

Unlike the previous mode we have taken a look at, the TEW-824DRU also features a small embedded dock for more stability:

 

 

 

Most of the router interfaces are placed on the back and here we will get to see the USB 2.0 port, one WPS connection button, four LAN ports, one yellow WAN port, the Power button but also the DC-IN port:

 

 

 

On the bottom we will get to see a large sticker with the connection details (since the router does come pre-encrypted), the MACs for both LAN and WAN interfaces, one serial number but also the Reset button hole:

 

 

 

Right after we connect to the web interface, we will be welcomed by the login screen:

 

 

 

The main interface seems unchanged from the one we have found with the TEW-818DRU and is split in two separate sections: Basic and Advanced. The Basic menu does come with the Network Status, Wireless, Guest Network, Parental Control and Qualcomm StreamBoost sub-sections. The Network Status menu does let us know on the current Internet connection status, the Guest Network details, connected USB devices, Wireless network details, but also the IS of the connected devices:

 

 

 

From the Basic Wireless Settings area, we will be able to configure both 2.4GHz and 5GHz interfaces, so it includes wireless mode selection, wireless network name, broadcast option, channel, channel width and security mode:

 

 

 

 

Guest Network comes with similar settings, but here we can also choose to prevent guests from accessing the local network and isolate the guests from each other for more security:

 

 

 

Parental Control settings are next:

 

 

 

The Qualcomm StreamBoost traffic shaping feature which comes with this router enables allocation of appropriate amount of Internet traffic bandwidth for each identified service; we will also need to enter up our upstream/downstream ISP details in order to activate this service:

 

 

 

The Advanced menu gives us more flexibility on the configuration and here will get to see other menus on the left side of the screen: Administrator, Setup, Wireless 2.4GHz, Wireless 5GHz, Security, Firewall and USB. From the Status sub-section of the Administrator menu we will be able to take a look at the current configuration and also see the WAN connection details:

 

 

 

IPv6 Connection Information is also offered next:

 

 

 

If we need to know what happens “under the hood”, we can always check “System Log”:

 

 

 

From the Advanced Network section, we can enable UPnP, WAN Ping or ping one IP for diagnostics reasons:

 

 

 

Settings Management permits exporting, importing saved settings, restoration of the router to factory defaults but also rebooting:

 

 

 

Time menu is quite self-explanatory:

 

 

 

Moving on to the LAN Settings menu, we are able to establish the internal network IP address of the router along with the DHCP pool range and lease time; also here we can add IP reservations based on MAC:

 

 

 

WAN Settings menu will be configured depending on our ISP details:

 

 

 

Routing settings menu will allow us to define manual static routes or disable the use of dynamic routing on the TEW-824DRU:

 

 

 

IPv6 has a dedicated menu of its own:

 

 

 

We can also define schedules:

 

 

 

Firmware needs to be uploaded from the dedicated section and previously we will get to navigate to the manufacturer website to snatch the file for the router:

 

 

 

System Management menu allows us to change the admin password, define a new name for the router inside the local network but also work with DDNS settings and Remote Management:

 

 

 

Wizard will start up an easy configuration manager:

 

 

 

DHCP Client List with the MAC Addresses and expiration dates are listed next:

 

 

 

For both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks we do have the same settings available involving WDS, advanced Wi-Fi network settings, the option to set up multiple SSIDs, MAC filtering, enable WPS or list the currently connected stations:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Security menu, we will be able to define specific control rules in Access Control or add Inbound Filter rules:

 

 

 

 

The Firewall menu includes DMZ, which can be defined on a specific IP:

 

 

 

Further on, we have the Virtual Server option:

 

 

 

Special Applications can be defined so applications can access resources from the web via trigger ports:

 

 

 

Multiple inbound services/ports can be made accessible from the Internet to a specific computer from the Gaming section:

 

 

 

ALG Configuration menu will allow us to enable or disable communications of the listed protocols or applications:

 

 

 

Regarding USB storage, we can set up SMB or FTP servers:

 

 

 

 

Wired Station

 

CPU: Intel I5 3570K Retail

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional

RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 2x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)

Video: Sparkle X560 Calibre

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

For testing the router on wireless, we have used a secondary desktop machine (i5 6600K,ECS Z170 Claymore, 8GB RAM DDR4 2133MHz, OCZ Vector SSD) running Windows 7 x64 SP1 which had installed on it the high-performance Archer T9E AC1900 PCI-E adapter. The throughput was measured by using PerformanceTest 8.0, by uploading data to the wired server.

For the wired client tests, both stations were linked to the router via UTP wire.

 

Wired Test

 

 

 

We have tested the router while using all available modes from the interface, on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies:

 

 

 

 

To test the USB Storage speeds, we have connected one Corsair Flash Voyager GTX USB 3.0 Flash Drive to the router and performed file transfers both ways. The transfer speeds are quite a bit disappointing and are nowhere near the TP-LINK offerings.

 

Copy

Read

 

2.4Ghz B/G

 

2.4GHz B/G/N 20MHz

 

2.4GHz B/G/N 40MHz

 

2.4GHz N 20MHz

 

2.4GHz N 40MHz

 

5GHz A

 

5GHz A/N 20MHz

 

5GHz A/N 40MHz

 

5GHz N 20MHz

 

5GHz N 40MHz

 

5GHz A/N/AC 20MHz

 

5GHz A/N/AC 40MHz

 

5GHz A/N/AC 80MHz

 

During testing time and also for two weeks while we have used the router to download all kinds of files from one computer to another or from the Internet via torrents or watching TV shows through streaming, we could say that this new TEW-824DRU model from TRENDnet has proven itself quite stable and we haven’t seen slowdowns which could have resulted in the need of a router reboot. Despite the fact that the router does not have external antennas, we have got decent reception two rooms away but the overall speed was better on the TP-LINK Touch P5. Another interesting feature is DD-WRT firmware support, which can be flashed from the manufacturers' website.

 

While the software interface of the router is quite easy to configure, we would like to see a refresh of it like in the TP-LINK case since TRENDnet has been using this one for quite some time now. The Qualcomm Streamboost is a nice touch for people with slower connection speeds and also for the ones which do have low upload speeds with their Internet subscription.

 

Regarding USB connectivity options, we were disappointed to see that there is no USB 3.0 port available, while the supplied USB 2.0 one offers very slow read/write transfer speeds. The wireless speeds on 2.4GHz we have found to be decent while the 5GHz network ones are quite good.

 

TRENDnet TEW-824DRU is thought as a mainstream router for the masses and we would award it the mainstream award for its stability and good speeds on the 5GHz frequency. It can be picked up online for about 140 Euros.

 

TRENDnet TEW-824DRU AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to TRENDnet for making this review possible!