Why is TP-Link (Wireless) hardware so cheap?

[ld13]

I am looking around for some wireless solutions available to me, and in my search I fell upon these TP-Link range of wireless hardware. What hit me immediately was the fact that the Price of these products was more that much cheaper than any of the other makes of hardware.

e.g. I can pick up a TP-Link Wireless USB adaptor for about R250, while the other brand's pricing starts at around R600.

Is there something wrong with TP-Link hardware? Is it el cheapo stuff that will break if you merely look at it?

 

[Rocket-Boy]

I wouldnt say its going to break if you look at it!
A mate of mine has 4 of them setup at various clients and they seem to be fine, I just wouldnt mount one in a box say for long range networks because you dont want to have to get up there everytime it falls over. If its simple stuff then TP-Link should be fine.

You usually find that a brand name doesnt mean much as pretty much everything runs off of a broadcom or atheros or similar chipset.

 

[TiredOfWaiting]

Also running TP-LINK at home. No problems so far.

 

[ld13]

Responses at last!! The WiFi section of the MyADSL forums seems to be more silent than the others. . .

I wouldn't say its going to break if you look at it!
A mate of mine has 4 of them setup at various clients and they seem to be fine, I just wouldn't mount one in a box say for long range networks because you don't want to have to get up there every time it falls over. If its simple stuff then TP-Link should be fine.

You usually find that a brand name doesn't mean much as pretty much everything runs off of a broadcom or atheros or similar chipset.

You are contradicting yourself here. Does it "fall over" much then? This thing "Could" be used later on at slightly longer ranges.

 

[Amida]

I am looking around for some wireless solutions available to me, and in my search I fell upon these TP-Link range of wireless hardware. What hit me immediately was the fact that the Price of these products was more that much cheaper than any of the other makes of hardware.

e.g. I can pick up a TP-Link Wireless USB adaptor for about R250, while the other brand's pricing starts at around R600.

Is there something wrong with TP-Link hardware? Is it el cheapo stuff that will break if you merely look at it?

I would not recommend TP-LINK there not a very good company and there support is absolutely crap. If the price looks to good it probably is.

 

[kernel]

Guys this is not a free punt from my side but as the authorised distributors of the TP-LINK products for SA I would like to respond to some of the remarks posted.

Firstly the biggest single reason for the TP-LINK range being cheaper than any other manufacturer is that their manufacturing volumes are far greater than any other manufacturer of networking equipment in the east, they are (proven) the biggest manufacturer in the east and the biggest networking brand in China.

Secondly there was mention to the fact that the equipment would not suffice for use in external wireless network configs, I strongly disagree, while I would not suggest trying to use any indoor AP/Client for an outdoor wireless network this quite often is done and does work however usually proves to be a little unstable way of doing things, we have recently started supplying their minipci wireless cards for use with the very popular Mikrotik platform for use in outdoor wireless networks and have found that using this configuration albeit cheaper is far more robust and performs far better than many aternative vendor products.

Thirdly in a review conducted overseas by an external company the TP-LINK range won every category entered into varying from build quality, wireless performance, value for money etc... and in fact acheived a near perfect score across the board which had never before been achieved, it also needs to be noted that the benchmarks were against some of the "leading" vendors in the industry.

Watch this space......

 

[ld13]

Thirdly in a review conducted overseas by an external company the TP-LINK range won every category entered into...

Thank you for your response! Could we please get some kind of a link to this study that was done? Thank you

 

[nivek]

Firstly the biggest single reason for the TP-LINK range being cheaper than any other manufacturer is that their manufacturing volumes are far greater than any other manufacturer of networking equipment in the east, they are (proven) the biggest manufacturer in the east and the biggest networking brand in China.

lol
every chinese/taiwanese company claims to be the biggest in their respective category