Introduction

External design and hardware

Initial setup and firmware update

Web-interface

Testing

Summary

Introduction

Usually we get the equipment for testing directly from a vendor or an official distributor in the territory of the Russian Federation. Today we have an exceptional case: we have received D-Link DIR-809 A1 wireless router directly from the Chinese online store GearBest. At the time of writing this review DIR-809 is not officially sold in Russia, however, it has been available for order from online stores in other countries. The sample received was not adapted to work in the territory of the Russian Federation, so that users who also want to make an order in foreign online stores will face with some features of the equipment, which we will describe in this review. Let's get started!

External design and hardware

The first thing we noticed when we have received the parcel, - the packing exterior, neither on the box nor in the manual it has a word in Russian or in English – hieroglyphs only. In our view, a Chinese online store users should be ready for this, so we are not referring it to the disadvantages of the product. Also, despite the additional packaging of the delivery service, the box was extremely crumpled, fortunately, the equipment inside was not damaged, but it will not be suitable to use the router as a gift. Of course, this does not apply either to the quality of the online store service, which sent us the good, or to D-Link DIR-809 wireless router, but we could not help but mention the detected features. Now let's look inside the box. The case of the model has the following dimensions: 190x133x83 mm (without antenna) with weight 229 grams (without power supply adapter).

The device needs an external power source (included in the box) with the following characteristics for functioning: 5V and 1А. Perhaps a few words should be told about the power supply adapter, which has a non-standard for Russia plug (Type A). Therefore, users have to purchase an additional adapter or a new power supply unit with the appropriate plug and specifications. The appropriate adapter can be purchased immediately with the goods in the online store.

The front and side panels do not have anything remarkable on them apart from a ventilation grate on the front panel.

A small ventilation grate is also presented on the upper panel, consisting of two parts - opaque and glossy. Also there are LEDs indicating status of the entire device as a whole, the availability of the Internet connection, status of LAN-ports, as well as wireless module status.

On the rear panel there are four LAN ports and one WAN port Fast Ethernet, three non-detachable antennae, power socket and also Reset/WPS button located on it.

On the bottom of the case there are a ventilation grate, four plastic legs and a sticker with brief information about the device.

Now let's have a look at the insides of the case.

The electronic stuffing of D-Link DIR-809 wireless router is one green textolite card which has all essential elements located on one of its sides.The system is powered by Realtek RTL8881AN SoC. Winbond W9825G6KH-6 chip with the size of 32 Mbytes performs functions of the RAM. Support of the 2.4 GHz frequency range of wireless network segmentis performed by Realtek RTL8192ER chip with 2x2 antennae configuration. SoC is responsible for the operation of the third antenna.

That is where we bring the review of the hardware platform of D-Link DIR-809 wireless router to a conclusion and pass on to examining capabilities of its software component.

Initial setup and firmware update

After the first switching on the router it is necessary to perform the initial setup of the device. The LAN-interface default address is 192.168.0.1. Unfortunately, we understand nothing in Chinese therefore we had to change at first web-interface language to make further setup. First, you need to download a language pack file from the official website of the vendor, then go to advanced settings button marked with a red box in the image below.

At the time of writing this article only two language packs were available: for Portuguese and Spanish languages. At first it is required to install any language file, then to delete it. These manipulations lead to the fact that English becomes language of the web-interface of the device.

Not obligatory, but extremely desirable step is firmware upgrade. The upgrade takes about one minute and doesn't require any technical experience from the user: it is only required to choose the file downloaded earlier and to upload it on the device by means of FIRMWARE item of TOOLS menu.

You can ensure successful change of the firmware either via the web-interface header or via DEVICE INFO item of STATUS web-interface group.

D-Link DIR-809 wireless router supports the firmware recovery mode to which the device can be transferred manually (by holding the Reset button for 15 seconds while boot) or can be transferred automatically in case of failure when updating the firmware. One can ascertain that DIR-809 is in recovery mode by slowly flashing power LED on the upper panel of the case. To recover the firmware it is necessary to connect to the LAN port of the device, assign IP-address from 192.168.0.0/24 network to the NIC and appeal by means of any modern web browser to the address 192.168.0.1.

That is where we bring a review of initial setup and firmware update process to a conclusion and pass on to brief examining of its web-interface. In conclusion we will note that on the FTP server of the vendor contains the bigger quantity of firmwares and language packs, than is available for download via D-Link Web server.

Web-interface

One can access D-Link DIR-809 wireless router web-interface using any modern browser. LAN-interface default address is 192.168.0.1. The password field will have to be left blank upon the first entry.

Upon successful authentication the user will find him/herself on INTERNET page, SETUP tab by means of which it is possible to choose type of connection to a provider and specify the main settings of this connection. Advanced network settings are available in the ADVANCED NETWORK item, ADVANCED tab.

EASY SETUP item, SETUP tab also allows users to make setup of connection to the Internet. Besides, here it is possible to change main parameters of a wireless network. However, to our surprise, not all options of connection are presented in this menu item.

Wireless networks operation is performed by means of WIRELESS SETTINGS item, SETUP tab, and also 2.4G ADVANCED WIRELESS, 5G ADVANCED WIRELESS and WI-FI PROTECTED SETUP items.

One can change IP parameters of LAN interface, and also control operation of the built-in DHCP server via NETWORK SETTINGS item, SETUP tab.

Control of IPv6 protocol addresses can be managed using the same item of the same tab.

By means of VIRTUAL SERVER, PORT FORWARDING and APPLICATION RULES items, ADVANCED tab the administrator can set up redirection and dynamic opening of TCP and UDP ports.

The administrator can allow or deny a certain traffic on the basis of MAC addresses, IP addresses and numbers of TCP/UDP ports, and also on the basis of requested URL in HTTP. The appropriate settings are available in the MAC FILTER, WEBSITE FILTER and FIREWALL SETTINGS items, ADVANCED tab.

If it is required to restrict access rate of this or that client to the Internet resources, it is necessary to use the TRAFFIC CONTROL item.

One can change admin password, allow remote control of the device, control user settings, set up time synchronization and connection to DDNS providers, update a firmware, and also execute cable diagnostics by means of TOOLS tab items. It is worth noting that some time zones for Russia are incorrect. So, for example, Moscow time offset indicated +4, whereas actually Moscow has time offset +3.

By means of STATUS tab items the administrator can view information about the router and its interfaces, get access to log information, study the list of connections, and also view statistical information about operation of the device. Unfortunately, sending logs to the remote Syslog-server isn't provided.

The web interface of D-Link DIR-809 wireless router has the built-in help, access to which can be got using SUPPORT tab items.

That is where we bring a brief review of the router web-interface to a conclusion and pass directly on to testing it.

Testing

The first testing procedure we usually begin our testing section with is estimating the booting time of the device, which is a time interval starting with the moment when the power is on until the first echo reply is received through ICMP. D-Link DIR-809 wireless router boots in 21 seconds. We believe that the result is excellent.

The second traditional test was a security scanning procedure, which has been carried out using Positive Technologies XSpider 7.8 utility. Scanning was carried out from the LAN-interface side. On the whole, there were three open ports discovered: TCP-80 (HTTP), UDP-67 (DHCP) and TCP-52881 (HTTP). The most interesting data of those we obtained are presented below.

To be fair, it should be noted that in the course of testing D-Link DIR-809 wireless router regularly rebooted, that, in our opinion, can become a serious problem even in the home networks.

Before getting down to performance tests we would like to get our readers familiar with the key specifications of the test stand we used.

Component PC Notebook
Motherboard ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme ASUS M60J
CPU Intel Core i7 6700K 4 GHz Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6 GHz
RAM DDR4-2133 Samsung 64 Gbytes DDR3 PC3-10700 SEC 16 Gbytes
NIC Intel PRO/1000 PT
ASUS PCE-AC68
Atheros AR8131
ASUS RT-AC88U
OS Windows 7 x64 SP1 Rus Windows 7 x64 SP1 Rus

The first test was performance of DIR-809 model upon performing of NAT/PAT. For loading emulation we used JPerf utility version 2.0.2. It can be seen from the diagram below that routing speed with NAT is restricted to wire interfaces performance of the device.

In Russia and on the territory of ex-Soviet bloc countries PPTP still remains extremely popular method of connection to the Internet therefore we couldn't help but test DIR-809 performance by operation with this tunneling protocol. To our regret, the encrypted tunnels aren't supported. We tried to turn on PPTP together with MPPE, the tunnel was established, but right there broken, - no data were transferred through it.

It is time to test the wireless module. In 2.4 GHz frequency range DIR-809 can operate in two modes: with enabled and disabled 20/40 MHz channels coexistence. We have tested the performance of the device during operation in both modes. Performance DIR-809 with disabled 20/40 customers support was expectedly higher.

Also we measured transmission speeds of user data in case of connection of the client to a 5 GHz wireless network. At first we used one wired client for this test.

From the diagram above it is visible that the received speeds are restricted to wired interfaces’ performance of the router. We decided to alter the test a little bit, by connecting the second wired client. On the diagram below maximum transmission speeds of user data of the wireless client in the 5 GHz range by operation with two wired clients are presented. Data received pointed out that wired interfaces of DIR-809 are a device bottleneck. To be fair, it is worth marking that we took measurements in situation of rather close lay-out of wireless devices. When moving away the wireless client from the router the speed of wireless connection will decrease, equalizing wired and wireless throughput.

D-Link DIR-809 can work not only in the wireless router mode, but also perform functions of the repeater. Naturally, we couldn't but test operation in this mode. D-Link DIR-809 can extend wireless network only in other frequency range that is if the initial network worked in the range of 2.4 GHz, then DIR-809 will expand its covering only at a frequency of 5 GHz. In this test DIR-809 increased a covering of the network created by ASUS RT-AC88U wireless router, review of which will appear on our website in the near future.

Another useful function of DIR-809 is the possibility of rate-limiting of the user traffic. For this experiment we used a UDP stream instead of TCP connections. Results of measurements are given on the diagram below.

Practically on all of the speed ranges the rate-limit mechanism works correctly, however on very small speeds the considerable errors are possible. We decided to provide the separate diagram for speeds up to 4 Mbps. Also it is necessary to note that we couldn't force this mechanism to work for the outgoing traffic, so rate-limiting works only for incoming packets.

On the announcement of the vendor D-Link DIR-809 wireless router supports the IPv6 protocol, however, to our regret, we couldn't force the device to transfer IPv6 packets.

In conclusion we would like to note that during testing the case of D-Link DIR-809 wireless router didn't heat up more than 38,2 degrees Celsius while average temperature in the room was equal to 23 degrees Celsius. Measurements were taken by means of our laboratory pyrometer ADA TempPro-2200.

That's where we draw the testing chapter to a close and move on to summing it all up.

Summary

D-Link DIR-809 is an inexpensive low-end wireless router which will suit those who wish to lower ones costs or aren't ready to overpay for not used functions of high-end models. The routing speeds provided by the device don't allow calling D-Link DIR-809 the high-performance top router today. However, to most of the users wishing to update the network equipment and get support of both frequency ranges them will be quite enough.

A number of features of the device associated with the way we have received the equipment. These features are, for example, power supply unit which plug is not accepted by sockets in Russia. Or initial language of the web-interface. However we decided not to refer these features to drawbacks of the model.

The strength areas of D-Link DIR-809 wireless router are presented below.

  • Support of two wireless frequency ranges
  • High traffic transmission speeds via PPTP
  • Support of several operation modes
  • Rate-limiting
  • Acceptable wireless speeds
  • IEEE 802.11AC support
  • Existence of the built-in cable tester
  • Competitive price.

Unfortunately, we cannot help but mention some of its drawbacks, which aren't depending on the place of acquisition of the equipment.

  • Absence of the web-interface in Russian
  • Wrong time zones for Russia
  • Instability to network attacks
  • No IPv6 support
  • Impossibility to rate-limit outgoing traffic.

As of when this article was being written, the price for D-Link DIR-809 wireless router in online store GearBest was about 30 dollars, and the best price for D-Link DIR-809 in German-speaking Europe countries, according to website Geizhals Preisvergleich, was 139 euro.

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+1 #17 RE: D-Link DIR-809SoooooooNICE 2017-01-21 20:06
Yeah, absolutely! I agree with you. Indeed I know that certain models are available only in certain countries. I've been trying to go thru d-link's various county sites and also googling it but just can't find the 823. Will look again now. Anyway, good to have you opinion on it. My main concern for now is utilizing my notebook's Ralink RT3592 2x2 card. What actually put me off from buying the dir809 was this info here - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/search/3284-dlink-dir809 I do think these guys know what they are talking about. As they say: 'AC750 class products are an odd class produced mainly as a lower cost alternative to AC1200 routers. They are the lowest cost simultaneous dual band AC class router you can buy. They combine a 2x2 N class 2.4 GHz radio and 1x1 5 GHz AC class radio. Unless you find a really good deal, there is little reason to consider this class of router'. I think I can get a better utilization of my 2x2 wifi card than 809's 1x1 5ghz.
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+2 #16 RE: D-Link DIR-809Maxim Klimanov 2017-01-21 19:24
Nope, I've seen none of the models you'd mentioned. As for their appearance in some countries, I'm sure not all models are available everywhere. So you need to look through vendors web-site for Chine or even Japan. Our test lab is placed in Russia, and we don't have DIR-809 here officially, but one can buy it somewhere abroad. I guess there is something the same with your models. But I do think it would be better to buy devices tested and approved especially for your location.
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+1 #15 RE: D-Link DIR-809SoooooooNICE 2017-01-21 18:41
Yeah! Good point, Maxim! Thanks for your support!

Have you got any experience with the dir822 or 823?

Btw, I cannot find the 823 anywhere besides on aliexpress, which is starting to make me wonder if it is even a real product... :? I mean, the 822 is on the Canadian D-link, but where is the 823? Does it even exist or is it an aliexpress scam?
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+1 #14 RE: D-Link DIR-809Maxim Klimanov 2017-01-21 17:57
Good job!
But I do think a question to the tech support is the best way here. PDFs are written about hardware itself. But drivers or software can restrict your access to some channels. It depends on the country, for instance. So you need to be extremely careful here. Ask your shop guys about money back.
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+1 #13 RE: D-Link DIR-809SoooooooNICE 2017-01-21 13:04
Yes, I dug deep into their pdf manuals and so on and found out that it does transmit 5ghz on 802.11a, n, ac - on all 3, which is great for ppl like me who want to avoid the old and slow a but don't yet have clients that support the new ac. :) I guess I was just lucky that my clients do indeed support 5ghz on n :) And as long as the router does too, which dir-809 does, then 5ghz on 802.11n it shall be :) Eventually I found for pretty much the same price 2 other d-link routers - dir822 and dir823, which are both ac1200 routers so I think I'll go for either one of them.
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+1 #12 RE: D-Link DIR-809Maxim Klimanov 2017-01-21 12:32
OK, I'll try not to forget to connect all my wireless devices to a low-priced router, when I got it next time. But it will not be very soon.
As for the 802.11n, then it supports 5 GHz frequency range as well. The only thing here is channel number. You need to ask both vendors tech teams about supported channels/frequencies. There are three sub-ranges in the 5 GHz range.
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+1 #11 RE: D-Link DIR-809SoooooooNICE 2017-01-20 12:54
One more question, if I may. So I see that the router supports IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac standards. My quesion is - on which of these standards is 5ghz transmitted? On ac, for certain ... no doubt about that. But my problem is that the wifi-adapters on my devices supports 5ghz only on 'a' and on 'n' and of course I prefer 'n', since it is newer and faster than 'a'. 'ac' would be best but my devices do not support it. I know how to answer this question myself AFTER I've purchased the router, but I want to know before I purchase the router, to know if it's worth purchasing. Could you possibly answer that?
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+1 #10 RE: D-Link DIR-809SoooooooNICE 2017-01-19 23:35
Quoting Maxim Klimanov:
Try to recheck your power adapter, upgrade firmware and choose another ISP.

Sorry for the misunderstanding with my 2nd comment. My bad. Yes, top routers would indeed not suffer from this issue, but my Level1 Router WBR-3408; D-Link DIR-300 Wireless G Router; and ASUS RT-N53 Dual-band Wireless-N600 Router all have the described issue. Power adapters on the routers are original and intact, FW was latest also. Do you have any idea if it really could be the ISP at fault? I mean, it really is strange that all these 3 routers fall apart when 4+ devices are hooked up to them, but to be honest my acquaintances on other ISP in other countries tell me the same. So it might be an issue with lower-end routers. That's why I asked if you could test, but I'm sad to hear you no longer have the router at hand. Still, thanks for your effort and for a great review. If you should ever get your hands on this router again, pls do follow up on this issue.
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+2 #9 RE: D-Link DIR-809Maxim Klimanov 2017-01-19 22:21
Quoting SoooooooNICE:
Comment awaiting moderation or what?

Yep, pre-moderation is enabled here.
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+2 #8 RE: D-Link DIR-809Maxim Klimanov 2017-01-19 22:20
Quoting SoooooooNICE:
Hi and thank you for the awesome review. I think you've done a great job with this review and think that the dir-809 is a fairly cheap router for what it offers, which is quite what the standard budget user would want.

My question for you is - could you please test the router by connecting 4-5 wifi devices to it and see if it maintains the connection? So far, all D-Link, Level1 and ASUS routers I've tried have had the issue that the moment I connect more than 4 devices, the router needs to be rebooted cos it just gets jammed and connectivity is lost. I think it has sth to do with how it assigns IPs to the devices or with DHCP. Some have even suggested to me that the ISP might be at fault here, but I've not yet had the chance to test with another ISP.

I would really like to know if the dir-809 suffers from this problem or not. Could you please test and report back?

Good evening SoooooooNICE,
Frankly speaking, I didn't test the device in question in such a way. And I don't have this router in our lab to reproduce the test. Sorry. But it looks strange, that your equipment is unable to serve four or five wireless clients. All wireless device in the lab used for a greater number of clients (more then ten). But we prefer top routers because of the features and performance they have.
Try to recheck your power adapter, upgrade firmware and choose another ISP.
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+1 #7 RE: D-Link DIR-809SoooooooNICE 2017-01-19 21:35
Comment awaiting moderation or what?
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+2 #6 RE: D-Link DIR-809SoooooooNICE 2017-01-19 21:33
Hi and thank you for the awesome review. I think you've done a great job with this review and think that the dir-809 is a fairly cheap router for what it offers, which is quite what the standard budget user would want.

My question for you is - could you please test the router by connecting 4-5 wifi devices to it and see if it maintains the connection? So far, all D-Link, Level1 and ASUS routers I've tried have had the issue that the moment I connect more than 4 devices, the router needs to be rebooted cos it just gets jammed and connectivity is lost. I think it has sth to do with how it assigns IPs to the devices or with DHCP. Some have even suggested to me that the ISP might be at fault here, but I've not yet had the chance to test with another ISP.

I would really like to know if the dir-809 suffers from this problem or not. Could you please test and report back?
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+1 #5 Thank youTom G. 2016-11-22 07:58
Your information is exactly what I needed. Thank you so very much for your feedback.

Have a wonderful day.

Tom G.
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+1 #4 RE: D-Link DIR-809Maxim Klimanov 2016-11-21 07:55
Quoting Tom G.:
Didn't do a very good job on asking my question, This router has 3 antenna. I assume the either the 2.4 band OR the 5Ghz band make use two antenna's leaving one antenna for the other band.
I would like to boost the 2.4 band by parabolic focusing beam so would like to know which antenna to put the parabolic reflector on. .
When viewing the router from the front which antenna are for the 2.4 Ghz band and which antenna are for the 5Ghz band?
Thank you very much for responding to my question. Your reviews are awesome!

Oh, looks like I got your idea. Frankly speaking, I don't know an exact answer to your question, but I have an assumption. As you can see, two grey antenna cables are connected to RTL8192ER chip. One black cable is connected to RTL8881AN silicon. RTL8192ER is responsible for 2.4 GHz range, and 5GHz range is done through RTL8881AN. It means grey cables are for 2.4 GHz channels and black cable is for 5 GHz range. According to the photos above grey cables are connected to the side antennae, while black one is connected to the central antenna.
If you need a more detailed answer, please write an email to the vendor support.
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+1 #3 Antenna QuestionTom G. 2016-11-21 04:09
Didn't do a very good job on asking my question, This router has 3 antenna. I assume the either the 2.4 band OR the 5Ghz band make use two antenna's leaving one antenna for the other band.

I would like to boost the 2.4 band by parabolic focusing beam so would like to know which antenna to put the parabolic reflector on. .

When viewing the router from the front which antenna are for the 2.4 Ghz band and which antenna are for the 5Ghz band?

Thank you very much for responding to my question. Your reviews are awesome!
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+1 #2 RE: D-Link DIR-809Maxim Klimanov 2016-10-22 06:31
Quoting Tom Garven:
Excellent and very detailed product review. I have seldom if ever seen a review where they actually show the motherboard and discuss some of it's components. Very well done.

Question - can you tell me which antenna are the 5 Ghz band.

Thank you very much.

Hi Tom,
What do you exactly mean? Which one is for 2.4 GHz range and which one is of 5 GHz range? Or are you talking about their gain level?
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+1 #1 Review and QuestionTom Garven 2016-10-22 00:07
Excellent and very detailed product review. I have seldom if ever seen a review where they actually show the motherboard and discuss some of it's components. Very well done.

Question - can you tell me which antenna are the 5 Ghz band.

Thank you very much.
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