The AVM FRITZ!WLAN AC 860 is a small WiFi dongle that comes with a small extension socket so it doesn’t have to sit in the back of your PC where the WiFi signal might not be very good.
You’ll notice the USB connector is blue, and that’s because this is the faster USB 3 type of connection whereas a lot of WiFi sticks are USB 2.
The FRITZ!WLAN AC 860 was tested on a Windows 10 PC connected to a 100Mb Virgin broadband connection via an Asus RT-AC68U router. The PC has previously been connected via an Asus N53 WiFi dongle but found this wasn’t getting a great speed with the PC located upstairs and the router downstairs.
It was then connected via the previously reviewed TP Link AV1200 powerline adapters which dramatically increased the speed over the N53.
Setup of the FRITZ!WLAN AC 860 was really easy, just plug the adapter into your PC and the install software is on the stick. If you have a FRITZ!Box the stick can be configured by plugging it in to that first, if you don’t it’s just a matter of connecting to your WiFi network in Windows.
The first thing to note is that the router creates two networks a 2.4G network and a 5G (faster) network. The Asus N53 would only pickup the slower network, the faster network signal was too weak for it. No such problem for the FRITZ!WLAN AC 860 which picked it up just fine.
As you’ll see in the review video the stick easily out performs the Asus N53 on the slower network, but is a little behind the powerline. However, connect it to the faster network and this stick gives a monster performance, giving me the full 100Mb download speed.
Upload speeds were similar for all devices, Virgin loves to talk about it’s fast download speeds but keeps quiet about it’s rather poor upload speeds!
Brilliant WiFi dongle that helps take full advantage of my internet connection.
Available from Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/1TuPH3c
