Nowadays, most routers come with user-friendly administration interfaces that make it simple to alter settings and install things like parental controls and wireless security, among other features. Because of the brightly lighted touch screen and colorful graphical user interface on the TP-Link AC1900 Touch Screen Wi-Fi Gigabit Router Touch P5 ($204.99), setting your network is now easier than ever before.
It was simple to set up and had reasonable speed in our tests, but its overall performance fell short of the Linksys EA7500 Max-Stream AC1900 MU-MIMO Gigabit Router ($195.99 at Amazon Canada), which was our Editors’ Choice for midrange routers in the past.
Design and Features
The Touch P5 is a stylish dual-band router with a modern design. It has a curved, black cabinet with a textured design that measures 2.1 by 11.2 by 6.2 inches (HWD), but the main draw is the 4.3-inch, full-color, capacitive touch screen that’s inserted in the middle of the cabinet and bordered by glossy-black bezels, which is embedded in the middle of the cabinet. Designed to be used on a desktop, the router may also be mounted to a wall using the two mounting holes on the bottom of the cabinet, which are located on the back of the router.
There are three detachable and adjustable antennas on the Touch P5, which is powered by a 1GHz dual-core CPU. The fact that it’s an AC1900 router means that it can theoretically achieve speeds of up to 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and up to 1,300Mbps on the 5GHz band.
There are four Gigabit Ethernet connections, a WAN (Internet) port, a USB 2.0 port, as well as reset and power buttons, located at the back of the cabinet. A USB 3.0 port is located on the front of the router, which is a convenient location.
When the router is switched on, a strip of blue LED illumination positioned below the bottom-screen bezel illuminates to indicate that it is operational. When you want to use the touch screen, hit the Home button, which is situated below the panel.
This brings up a Welcome screen that displays the time, date, mode (Router, Access Point, or Repeater), and Wi-Fi bands that are now active. Using the right-side slide, you can access your guest-network settings, and an extra swipe to the right gets you to the initial router-options page, which shares an uncanny resemblance to the one seen on an iOS desktop.
Quick Setup, Mode Selection, Wireless, WPS, Guest Network, Parental Control, Devices Control, Print Server, DDNS, and LAN settings are all represented by icons in this section. Another slide to the right reveals more icons for the DHCP Server, Quality of Service, Clock, Screen Settings, Reboot & Reset, and Administrator Password.
The Home button returns you to the Guest Network interface, where you may sign in again. It is necessary to utilize the Web console to access more complex functions such as NAT Forwarding, Denial of Service (DoS) protection, and SPI Firewall settings. To access the Web console, open your Web browser and type tplinkwifi.net in the URL bar.
Performance
You must enter a new administrator password and select a region and time zone before you can proceed to selecting an Internet connection type (Dynamic, Static, PPoE, or L2TP) and creating a Wi-Fi password. This is done quickly and easily using the on-screen keyboard, and it takes less than a minute to finish. Alternatively, you may utilize the Web console stated above.
On our 5GHz throughput tests, the Touch P5 delivered very good results. Our close proximity (same-room) test yielded a score of 535Mbps, which beats out the Linksys EA7500 (495Mbps), the Synology Router RT1900ac($195.99 at Amazon Canada) (479Mbps), and the Asus Dual Band Wireless-AC1900 Gigabit Router($195.99 at Amazon Canada) (479Mbps) (290.5Mbps).
Asus’s RT-AC68U achieved a score of 238Mbps on the 30-foot test, which was respectable but not as high as the Linksys EA7500 (298Mbps) or the Linksys EA7500 (305Mbps). It did outperform the Synology RT1900ac (231Mbps), but only by a little margin.
When we tested the Touch P5 at 2.4GHz near proximity, it outperformed the Asus RT-AC68U (90Mbps), but it fell short of the Synology RT1900ac (95.9Mbps) and the Linksys EA7500 (95.9Mbps) (97.3Mbps). A score of 44Mbps on the 30-foot test placed it in last place, trailing only the Linksys EA7500 (52.1Mbps) and the ASUS RT-AC68U (81.9Mbps), as well as the Synology RT1900ac (45.6Mbps).
We put a USB drive and a 1.5GB folder containing a mix of photo, audio, video, and document files through their paces to see how fast they can transmit data. On our read test, the Touch P5 had a transfer speed of 25.6MBps, which was considered average. The Tenda AC1900 Wireless Dual Band Router AC15 (42.3MBps) only managed 40.4MBps, whereas the Linksys EA7500 managed 66.7MBps on the same network.
On this test, the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1900 (WRT1900AC)($195.99 at Amazon Canada) came out on top with an 80MBps score, putting it in the first place. On our write tests, the results were similar; the Touch P5’s speed of 23.2MBps fell behind the Tenda AC1900 AC15 (42.3MBps), the Linksys EA7500 (27.8MBps), and the Linksys WRT190AC (27.8MBps) (66MBps).
Specifications
| HARDWARE FEATURES | |
|---|---|
| Interface | 4 10/100/1000Mbps LAN Ports, 1 10/100/1000Mbps WAN Port 1 USB 3.0 Port + 1 USB 2.0 Port |
| Button | Power On/Off Button Reset Button |
| External Power Supply | 12V/3.3A |
| Dimensions ( W x D x H ) | 11.2 x 6.2 x 2.1 in. (284 x 157 x 52 mm) |
| Antenna | 3 Dual Band Detachable Antennas |
| Touch Screen | Screen Type: Capacitive Screen Size: 4.3 inch Screen Resolution: 128 ppi |
| WIRELESS FEATURES | |
|---|---|
| Wireless Standards | IEEE 802.11ac/n/a 5GHz IEEE 802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz + 256QAM |
| Frequency | 2.4GHz and 5GHz Band |
| Signal Rate | 1300Mbps at 5GHz, 600Mbps at 2.4GHz |
| Reception Sensitivity | 5GHz: 11a 6Mbps: -94dBm 11a 54Mbps: -75dBm 11ac HT20: -66dBm 11ac HT40: -62dBm 11ac HT80: -59dBm 2.4G: 11g 54Mbps: -76dBm 11n HT20: -73dBm 11n HT40: -71dBm |
| Wireless Functions | Enable/Disable Wireless Radio, WMM, Wireless Statistics |
| Wireless Security | 64/128-bit WEP, WPA/WPA2, WPA-PSK/WPA-PSK2 encryptions |
| Transmission Power | CE: <20dBm(2.4GHz) <23dBm(5GHz) FCC: <30dBm |
| Guest Network | 2.4GHz guest network × 1 5GHz guest network × 1 |
| SOFTWARE FEATURES | |
|---|---|
| Quality of Service | WMM, Bandwidth Control |
| WAN Type | Dynamic IP/Static IP/PPPoE/PPTP(Dual Access)/L2TP(Dual Access)/Bigpond |
| Management | Access Control Local Management Remote Management |
| DHCP | Server, Client, DHCP Client List, Address Reservation |
| Port Forwarding | Virtual Server, Port Triggering, UPnP, DMZ |
| Dynamic DNS | DynDns, NO-IP |
| VPN Pass-Through | PPTP, L2TP, IPSec |
| Protocols | Supports IPv4 and IPv6 |
| USB Sharing | Support Samba(Storage)/FTP Server/Media Server/Print Server |
| OTHERS | |
|---|---|
| Certification | FCC, RoHS |
| Package Contents | • AC 1900 Touch Screen Wi-Fi Gigabit Router Touch P5 • 3 Detachable Antennas • Power Supply Unit • Ethernet Cable • Quick Installation Guide |
| System Requirements | • Microsoft Windows 98SE, NT, 2000, XP, Vista™ or Windows 7, 8, 8.1,10， Mac OS, NetWare, UNIX or Linux • Internet Explorer 11, Firefox 12.0, Chrome 20.0, Safari 4.0, or other Java-enabled browser • Cable or DSL Modem • Subscription with an Internet Service Provider (for Internet access)Windows 8, MAC OS, NetWare, UNIX or Linux |
| Environment | • Operating Temperature: 0~40℃ (32℉ ~104℉) • Storage Temperature: -40~70℃ (-40℉ ~158℉) • Operating Humidity: 10%~90% non-condensing • Storage Humidity: 5%~90% non-condensing |
| Environment | • Operating Temperature: 0~40℃ (32℉ ~104℉) • Storage Temperature: -40~70℃ (-40℉ ~158℉) • Operating Humidity: 10%~90% non-condensing • Storage Humidity: 5%~90% non-condensing |
Conclusion
Put the TP-Link AC1900 Touch Screen Wi-Fi Gigabit Router Touch P5 on your shortlist if the simplicity of use is important to you when determining which dual-band router to purchase. Configuring your network is a snap thanks to its 4.3-inch color touch screen, and you don’t even have to log in using a desktop or laptop PC to do it!
However, while the Touch P5 scored admirably in both of our 5GHz throughput tests as well as our 2.4GHz close-proximity test, its 2.4GHz range performance, as well as its file-transfer speed, were only average in our testing. If having touch-screen control is not a need, the Linksys EA7500 Max-Stream AC1900 MU-MIMO Gigabit Router, which is our Editors’ Choice midrange router, is a good option. It has higher all-around performance than the Touch P5 and supports Multi-User Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) streaming, which is more common these days.
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