Archer MR200 4G Router with SIM Slot, AC750 Two Detachable Antennas

Purchased as an emergency router to cover for loss of home broadband (TalkTalk, again, and there's a 3 week wait for an engineer). Some tips and observations: The house in question (my other half's) is also in a mobile not-spot, so you might be wondering if this was a good idea. Well despite no reception at all (not even 2g, for texts or calls) downstairs, we found one corner of one room that had 4G. Fancy that! Turns out it's more or less in line of sight with the distant cellphone tower some miles away. Also 4G in one corner of the loft. We quickly tired of taking turns to stand in the corner on our phones, so I looked into mobile 4G options. Initially looking at small Mifi units which work the same and are portable, but actually, what we wanted was wifi around the house and the same features as our landline router. Some reviews of the small Mifi units say they have limited wifi range - great for in a car, caravan or around a table - but not for a whole house. And they don't have ethernet out connectors (critical if you want to extend wifi with powerline adapters for example, or connect a wired network item like a printer or camera). So that led me to purchase this unit, as for all intents and purposes, it's just like your normal landline router, but takes a sim card. I decided to stick with the network that works up to 4G on my phone which in this case is GiffGaff. Some reviews and some Q&A state this takes a smaller SIM card, it does not, it takes a FULL sized SIM card. But don't worry because assuming you're ordering a SIM card for this from your preferred network, most are full sized with easy snap outs for the smaller sizes, so all eventualities are covered. Now one tip... I suggest you set this up somewhere where reception is guaranteed, I did mine at home in the city where 4G is full power and full speed. It just makes it easier to get started, then install where it's needed and if it doesn't work well you know it's the reception. Installation was easy. Quick start guide included. Note that for GiffGaff it didn't automatically work, you need to connect to the router (in my case I just did it via wireless and typed in the router URL as shown in the quickstart guide) to go through the wizard, GiffGaff was selectable from the drop down menu. Once selected it then magically connected. Once done, just power off then power back up where you want it - no more setting up needed, it just connects by itself, like your phone would. Second tip.. ignore the coverage maps. The place this is installed is not in a 4G area according to the GiffGaff/O2 maps but works in one corner of one room. Initially 2 bars of 4G then 3 bars when I rotated it 90 degrees!! You can either order free SIMs from the various networks and try them or see where your phone gets coverage and stick with the same provider. The speed... wow... I mean you don't expect 4G internet in a rural "not spot" to be faster than the landline and yes we are lucky to get it from one location upstairs, but 13Mb to 14Mb download and 1.5Mb upload and 35ms ping... TalkTalk landline is 12Mb tops. That's measured, by the way, over wireless on an old 2010 Macbook downstairs in the kitchen so I am sure the actual speed is higher (I will speedtest on ethernet at some point to check). The range of the Wifi is really good. Fast connection downstairs under the router, and fast one room either side downstairs. Patchy in the lounge which is downstairs and two rooms across on the 2010 Macbook, but fine on my Moto phone there and the iPad (assume they have newer and better wifi chips built in). Fast enough to handle two people surfing. Little in the way of drop outs etc but that would be quite network dependent anyway. But data usage... OMG. My final tip. If you have been offline for a while and are using a limited data package (say up to 2Gb a month), PLEASE disable auto updates on your devices and PC and iPads etc. Because when they finally connect they will slurp updates and that can be 1Gb gone. One phone alone used 200mb updating. You will need to educate the household about NOT playing video. Or explore a 20-30GB plan so you don't need to worry. One downside of this sort of internet connection... you WILL get irritated when surfing because every freaking advert and auto play video will cost you money. An adblocker is a must with a 4G router. I never thought I'd say it, but this is a viable alternative to landline mobile in terms of speed and uptime, on all aspects apart from ongoing cost of the data. And it's a pretty useful backup to have if internet is critical to you and your landline provider is flakey.

Update Jan '24 ---------------- Well, this TP router worked well for three years....until recently. My mums 4g router went on the blink, it would drop out every half an hour or so and became more and more frequent. No use when you're trying to get tasks done online. I troubleshooted all the usual things; reboot, reset, firmware updates, tweaking settings, others experiences online....nothing worked, whatever I tried. Strangely, I have the exact same make and model of router but 'with less miles on the clock'. I swapped the routers over at my mums, yet the problem still exists, it kept dropping out. Maybe it was the SIM? Nope, it worked fine in my phone. Ultimately I never got to the bottom of the problem. Other users echoed similar problems but with different models of the 4g routers....I got frustrated and fed up, bought a Huawei 4g router and haven't looked back. Such a shame. TP Link I thought had high standards, but this device fell low of my expectation. 3 years and it goes wonky. Not good enough. Update 3 Jan 2021 ----------------- -Only one minor problem that my mum has reported with the router; it does slow down after a few weeks and therefore a reboot of the router is required. After a reboot, everything is back up to speed. Otherwise, no problems. Original Review - Oct 2020 ----------------- I recently purchased this for my aging parents who live rurally. As most people know, landline broadband out in the sticks is as much use as a chocolate teapot. Before purchasing this 4g router, my parents were subscribed to BT for their broadband, and it was expensive, slow, unreliable, kept dropping out, and there was a 'fault' somewhere along the lines that - with countless engineers visits - failed to resolve their internet issues. I had enough of it and purchased them this 4G router. All I can say that this 4G router is BRILLIANT! A complete 180 from before! It has totally changed my parents experience of accessing the internet now. They can now watch HD films and YT videos without constant loading and buffering, and pages load super quick now. It's incredible! They can fill in forms and do their shopping online more reliably now than ever, and video call family which is essential for these Covid restricted times we live in. I bought them a GiffGaff SIM to pop in, let them choose what they want from it and they were good to go. 4G worked flawlessly from the get-go! __________ A few pointers to be mindful of though: Even though the product description says 'just plug in and play', I don't find that *entirely* true. There is an element of some quick setting up to be done before you can surf. - Stating the obvious, you have to buy a SIM card. And depending on who you decide to go with, you may well have to activate the SIM before you can use it. I bought a GiffGaff SIM from a supermarket, activated it online and then popped it into the router when it arrived. It worked perfectly. - When you set up your router for the first time, you have to go to the routers settings 192.168.1.1 and do some quick set up stuff before you get going. It only takes 5 minutes if that, then you're online - but if you're a total geek, you can rummage through all the other advance settings and set up the router to your liking. ___________ In short, this router is A MUST for those of us who live out in the countryside and have lousy landline internet. Also, in the long run, I very much suspect that this will save my parents £££ from going into BT's coffers, which was very costly and wholly unreliable service. This 4G router has blown them right out of the water. Touchwood, so far so good. I hope to update my review in the coming months and see what my parents think of it too. So far 10/10. Happy bunny indeed.

Reviews of the router indicated that set up was easy but I did not find that to be the case. I followed the instructions, inserted the sim and switched on. Sure enough the mobile network was discovered but I just could not connect any device to Wi Fi. Instructions with the device were minimal so no help there. I am reasonably good with tech and decided to connect the router to my desktop via an ethernet cable and access it using it’s IP address. I checked all the settings and discovered the Wi Fi login pin was actually 12345670 and not the pin shown on the bottom of the router. I suspect that 12345670 is a default TP Link pin but why didn’t mention this anywhere? The instructions actually contain an image of the underside of the router showing the SSID and pin so I think it only reasonable to assume that the pin shown is the one to be used for Wi Fi login. I changed the pin in the router settings to that on the bottom of router and it worked fine. I could have kept the default pin but thought it better to use the one shown on the bottom of the router. I give it four stars because of the pin issue but otherwise it would be five stars. Apart from the set up issue I am very pleased with the router. I have it in a spare room upstairs and in that room I get 74mb down and 25mb up. Downstairs in the lounge I get 62mb down and 25mb up and sometimes more. These speeds are certainly better than BT are offering but I am about 800 yds from a mast and perhaps I am getting a good signal. I think an unlimited data package is essential for streaming Netflix etc but if only basic internet and email are used a cheaper data plan would be fine. I bought a 20gb sim and am rattling through it but I am testing how much data different applications use. Turning off automatic updates is very wise with a limited amount of data. Apart from the initial set up problem it is a doddle to use and seems to do the job well. The companion App is very useful and allows easy management of the router. Virgin are my ISP at the moment and I am heartily fed up with their woeful customer service and continual price increases. If this router continues to perform well I will certainly be dumping them.

This is an impressive bit of kit. I live in a rural mobile not spot where you can't use your mobile indoors and internet comes via a bit of wet string. A few weeks ago EE sent me a replacement sim card that was 4G enabled and I noticed that in places on my drive I actually got 4G reception. Well one thought process led to another and I bought this 4G router and an EE data card. I plugged it in walked around with it, like a water diviner, and found a window ledge where I was getting 75% signal strength. Registered the sim card, did a speed test, and the bottom line is I now can get 27Mbs download and 11Mbs upload speeds. I bought an external aerial so that I could tidy up the installation and it has been working 24/7 without a glitch. Signal level sometimes goes down to 50%, depending on the weather, but it has never dropped out. A word of caution though. I could not understand why I could get 4G data and yet my mobile could not even make a call in the same room. The reason is all to do with the frequency bands the operator uses. I am using an EE data card and EE uses a frequency band that gives good rural coverage. Make sure you can get 4G reception with your operator in your location first. As for the router itself this is well built with an excellent user interface and one of the best manuals (downloaded) that I have seen. I can't comment on the WiFi as I use the wired connection. The one downside, of course, is the cost of mobile data so I tend to use it only for moving large files, like photos, where the 11Mbs upload speed is over 20 times faster than my land line. You can have both this router and your existing router connected to the same home network, the manual even explains this. With a couple of batch files on each PC on your network you can switch between routers on a per PC basis. The choice is then yours - slow and cheap or fast and expensive internet. A very impressive bit of kit from TP-Link.

The TP-Link AC750 Dual Band 4G LTE Router is a solid choice for anyone in need of a reliable and fast internet connection on the go. I recently purchased this router for a road trip and found it to be a great investment. First off, the setup was a breeze. The router comes with a SIM card slot and is compatible with most major 4G LTE networks. Once I inserted my SIM card and plugged in the router, I was up and running within minutes. The router also comes with an intuitive web interface, which made it easy to customize settings and manage my network. The speed and reliability of the connection were also impressive. The AC750 Dual Band router utilizes dual-band Wi-Fi technology, which allows for faster speeds and better range than traditional routers. This proved to be especially useful when traveling in rural areas with spotty cell service, as the router was able to pick up a stronger signal and provide a more stable connection. Overall, I was very impressed with the TP-Link AC750 Dual Band 4G LTE Router. It offers fast and reliable internet connectivity on the go and is easy to set up and use. While it may be on the pricier side compared to other routers, the portability and speed make it worth the investment for anyone who needs a reliable internet connection while traveling.

Great router but comes with a 2-pin plug, luckily we had a shaver adapter we could use but still inconvenient. Why no UK plug! Contacted TP-Link support and they advised that I return it to Amazon.

What a device. It's totally saved my online life. I've moved to the back of the Shropshire beyond and the wired speed was set to be 3mb. 3mb! There was a chance of a sniff of a 5g signal so I took a chance. I get about 2 bars and it's flying. 90-150 Mbps. Awesome. And the router controls are excellent allowing total control. Simple, effective, fantastic. Very pleased.

I order a new router as my work laptop was not connecting to global protect and being 5 years. I popped my unlimited Asda Pay as you go sim into the router and very quick set up via the app. The internet works on all devices and the Wi-Fi signal is a lot better. Definitely happy with the product and would recommend.

Simple and easy to use. Quality of wifi signal is very good

Don't waste your money says plug and play 😂😂😂😂😂 You would need bill Gates to get this piece of scrap going, says no configuration joke I sent mine back possibly faulty.

The modem works well but arrived with a UK plug instead of an Australian plug. Has to be used with a travel adapter to work. Because I need the modem to be portable if I had known before delivery I would have purchased a different modem.

Davvero ottimo, con una scheda Iliad ho risolto problema di connessione internet in tutta la casa. Facile da installare; costa un po' ma la qualità è buona

Very good and stable router for home internet.