Asus ZenWiFi BD4
A decent mesh for a very fair price, but a regular Wi-Fi 7 router will do all that most people need
PRICE
Two stations: £150 (£180 inc VAT); three stations: £203 (£244 inc VAT)
from
amazon.co.uk
We’ve tested a few Wi-Fi 7 meshes in the past, but never one this cheap. Prior to the arrival of the Asus ZenWiFi BD4, the most affordable Wi-Fi 7 mesh system we’d seen was Amazon’s Eero Max 7 (see issue 352, p68) – yours for a knockdown £1,150 inc VAT.
That was back at the end of 2023, however. The market has moved on, and the latest Wi-Fi 7 systems are much more affordable. The ZenWiFi BD4 comes in at a fraction of the price of the Eero: you’re looking at £180 for two stations, or £244 for three.
To be fair, this is a more cut-down proposition than Amazon’s chunky mesh. That system supported wireless connections at up to 4.3Gbits/sec with 4x4 MIMO, while the ZenWiFi BD4 offers a more modest 2.9Gbits/sec on the 5GHz band and only 2x2 multi-streaming. And while the 2.4GHz radio is rated at a respectable 700Mbits/sec, there’s no support for the 6GHz frequency range – so you can forget about the ultra-fast, ultra-fat 320MHz channels that help Wi-Fi 7 achieve true next-generation speeds.