TP-Link Deco X60 Review

Quick Summary

The Deco X60 is TP-Link's Wi-Fi 6 mesh system for homes that have outgrown a single router. It is sold as a single unit or as a pack of two or three, and pairs AX5400 speeds with app-led setup and TP-Link's free HomeShield security. Its strength is how easily extra units join one network; its compromise is dual-band radios and only two Gigabit ports on each unit, with no USB and nothing faster than Gigabit. At roughly ₹8,000 for one unit and ₹20,000 for three, it suits ordinary Indian flats and villas on a fibre or cable plan.

Design & Build Quality

Each Deco X60 is a small white cylinder about 11 cm wide and 11.4 cm tall, so it looks more like a speaker or a desk accessory than a router. That matters in an Indian home, where the router often lives in a hall or living room and cannot be hidden in a cupboard without hurting the signal. The antennas are inside the body, which keeps the look clean and removes the fragile external aerials that tend to get bent or snapped.

The trade-off is that you cannot swap or angle antennas to fix a weak spot. You fix it by moving the unit. With a mesh system this is easy to accept, because the whole idea is to place several small units around the house rather than tune one big one. The unit has a single reset button and no other physical controls, which is a sensible choice for something that is managed entirely from a phone.

Wi-Fi Speed & Performance

The X60 is a dual-band Wi-Fi 6 system rated AX5400, made up of 4,804 Mbps on the 5 GHz band and 574 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band. Six streams, MU-MIMO and OFDMA are there to keep many devices responsive at the same time. These are the physical rates that Wi-Fi 6 allows, and real speeds will always be lower, because your phone or laptop, the walls in between and your broadband plan all set the ceiling.

What the numbers do tell you is headroom. A 5 GHz band of this class comfortably covers a Gigabit fibre plan for a Wi-Fi 6 laptop or phone in the same room, and enough capacity is left over for a family streaming, calling and gaming together. The compromise is that this is a dual-band design. Systems with a third radio dedicate a band to the link between units, so a dual-band mesh shares its airtime between devices and the wireless link back to the main unit. Where the units can be joined by an Ethernet cable, the X60 supports that, and it is the better way to run it.

Coverage & Mesh Roaming

TP-Link rates the three-unit pack for houses of four to seven-plus bedrooms, which is the brand's claim rather than a guarantee. In practice that means a single unit for a compact flat, two for a larger apartment or a two-floor home, and three for a villa or a house with thick concrete walls on several floors. Indian construction, with its heavy reinforced walls, is hard on Wi-Fi, so it makes sense to plan for the higher unit count rather than the lower one.

The Decos form one network with a single Wi-Fi name. Phones and laptops that support the standard roaming protocols move to the nearest unit as you walk through the house. The system also learns the layout and client behaviour through what TP-Link calls AI-driven mesh, and it works with any other Deco model, so a later upgrade does not mean starting again.

Ports & Wired Connectivity

This is where the X60 is plainest. Each unit has two Gigabit ports that act as WAN or LAN automatically, and only one can be the WAN at a time. That leaves a single LAN port per unit for a TV, a console or a desktop. There is no USB port and no 2.5G port. For wireless-first homes this is fine; for a home office with a NAS, a printer and several wired machines, a mesh unit with more ports, or a small switch, is needed.

Security & Parental Controls

HomeShield covers the basics well. Its free plan gives network scanning, a malicious-site blocker, intrusion prevention, protection for smart-home devices and a family section with profiles, bedtime and off-time schedules, a pause-the-internet button and usage reports. Paid tiers add more. WPA3 is supported alongside WPA2, and there is a guest network on each band. For parents managing children's screen time from a phone, this is one of the more complete controls available at this price.

Features Assessment

The feature list is practical rather than flashy. Router and access-point modes cover most home setups, dynamic IP, static IP, PPPoE, PPTP and L2TP cover Indian broadband connections, and IPv6, QoS by device and IPTV bridging support the rest. Firmware updates arrive over the air, and the Deco app works with Android 5.0 and iOS 9.0 and later, which includes older phones in the family. Alexa voice control is supported. What is missing is a VPN server and any USB sharing, so those who want such extras should look at a conventional router.

Ease of Use

Setup is the strongest part of the experience. You plug the first unit into the modem, install the Deco app, follow the on-screen steps, then simply power on the next unit and it joins by itself. There is no web page to log into and no channel to choose. The app also handles guest networks, device lists, priorities and parental controls, and works remotely when you are away from home. Advanced users who want deep manual settings will find less to tweak than on a traditional router.

Value for Money

On Flipkart a single unit is priced at about ₹7,999, a two-pack at ₹14,999 and a three-pack at ₹19,999. The three-pack is clearly the best per-unit deal, at roughly ₹6,700 a unit against ₹8,000 for a single one, so buy it only if your house really needs the coverage. Against newer Wi-Fi 7 mesh systems, the X60 gives up tri-band radios and multi-gig ports, but also costs far less, and Wi-Fi 6 is still more than most broadband plans in India can fill. The three-year warranty shown on the shop listing adds confidence.

Who Should Buy It?

Families in flats or houses where one router leaves dead spots will get the most from it, particularly on plans up to Gigabit. It also suits parents who want simple screen-time controls, and anyone who wants a system that can grow by adding units later.

Who Should Consider Alternatives?

Buyers with a home office full of wired devices should pick a system with more LAN ports. Those with a multi-gig internet plan or many Wi-Fi 7 devices should look at a newer, tri-band mesh instead. People who want a USB port for storage sharing or a built-in VPN server will not find either here.