Shootout Wi-Fi 7 routers
These Wi-Fi 7 routers both offer strong performance and features at great prices – you can’t go wrong
Asus RT-BE58U
PRICE
£83 (£99 inc VAT)
from
amazon.co.uk
TP-Link Archer BE550
PRICE
£150 (£180 inc VAT)
from
amazon.co.uk
Since the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard debuted at the start of last year, we’ve seen a steady trickle of routers coming through the PC Pro Labs. Most of them from Netgear, which has been busily building a range of routers, from the premium Nighthawk RS700 (see issue 353, p76) down to the cheap but functional Nighthawk RS100 (see issue 370, p65), currently selling for £120 inc VAT.
This month brings not one but two persuasive competitors. Rather than contesting the high ground, they both promise affordable Wi-Fi 7 with good-enough levels of performance.
A tale of two routers
At £99 inc VAT, the Asus RT-BE58U is the cheapest Wi-Fi 7 router we’ve yet seen. The TP-Link Archer BE550 aims higher, with more bandwidth for both wireless and wired connections. While not quite so aggressively priced as the Asus, it’s by far the cheapest tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router on the market: Netgear’s equivalent Nighthawk RS300 will cost you £240 (see issue 361, p72).
These different approaches are reflected in the very different physical designs of the two routers. The Asus RT-BE58U is small, plasticky and unassuming, with four spindly plastic aerials sticking up at the back. You can hunt all around the casing and the most upmarket feature you’ll find is a single 2.5Gbits/sec Ethernet port; the other four sockets are limited to standard gigabit speeds.