Not to be mistaken as a Pokemon ball, the D-Link AC1900 is a unique looking Wi-Fi USB adapter.
Unlike the usual Wi-Fi USB adapter that looks like a USB stick, the AC1900 is one that looks like a globe and sits very well even as a table top decoration or a paper weight.
At the back there’s the Power LED, USB 3.0 and WPS setup button.
Here are the key features of the AC1900
– Gives your desktop or Laptop PC speeds up to 1900 Mbps2 for a faster connection
– USB 3.0 – Interface 10x Fasterthen USB 2.0
– 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands for flexible connectivity
– WPS Button for fast and secure connection
– Advanced AC SmartBeam – Focuses wireless signal towards your router for enhanced connection quality
– Backwards Compatible to legacy 802.11n/g/a networks
More details at the official product page.
User Experience & Benchmarks
The AC1900 from D-Link is easy to setup. I didn’t pop in the CD but I used the driver downloaded from their website and the adapter works without any hiccups.
What’s interesting is how the adapter provided excellent download speed despite it was connected to a router that’s many walls away.
Here’s the comparison between the D-Link AC1900 against an Intel Wi-Fi device that’s in a notebook.
| AC1900 | Intel Wireless LAN | ||||
| Ping (ms) | Download (Mbps) | Upload (Mbps) | Ping (ms) | Download (Mbps) | Upload (Mbps) |
| 12 | 34.52 | 5.02 | 16 | 24.10 | 10.52 |
| 16 | 39.42 | 5.18 | 14 | 30.60 | 5.91 |
| 13 | 37.80 | 5.33 | 32 | 25.49 | 8.82 |
It’s amazingly fast, so far that I couldn’t believe the test results. I switched between adapters for each round of test and the AC 1900 keeps showing faster speed, in some cases up to 50% faster too!
The Verdict
The D-Link AC1900 Wi-Fi USB Adapter retails at RM 289, as they say “good stuff don’t come cheap” and it’s as such here. If you want to max out your connection (assuming you have a really fast one) then the AC1900 is indeed the Wi-Fi USB adapter of choice.
On the downside, the item is bulky so lugging it around as part of your commuting luggage might not be a good idea, as a desktop device the AC1900 works great and with its unique design you wouldn’t have to worry about it standing out like a sore thumb.
