Wi-Fi 6 router purchasing guide: If you don’t have demand, you can really wait for products in the thousand-yuan range

Although the Wi-Fi Alliance launched the Wi-Fi 6 certification program in September 2019, due to cost constraints in the upstream supply chain, most of the Wi-Fi 6 routers launched that year were priced at more than 1,000 yuan, which caused many friends who were interested in Wi-Fi 6 routers to wait and see.

Fortunately, with the maturity of the supply chain and the intensification of market competition, in mid-2020, we have seen Wi-Fi 6 router products with a starting price as low as RMB 100. Now, it coincides with Double Eleven, and many friends who pursue a better Internet experience hope to take advantage of the promotion season to buy a good-quality and inexpensive Wi-Fi 6 router product. However, it cannot be ignored that WiFi 6 is a new standard after all, and the configuration of router products itself is not very transparent. Consumers can easily fall into the marketing trap of "more antennas means better signals" promoted by manufacturers when purchasing.

Today, we will introduce several Wi-Fi 6 router products based on different usage scenarios and different price ranges, so that you can choose router products more rationally.

1. Cost-effective products for the general public

Router products come in a variety of price ranges, but there is no doubt that what the general public needs most is products that support the WiFi 6 standard, are priced lower, and have high performance. This is also the most competitive area for Wi-Fi 6 routers, with mobile phone manufacturers including Huawei and Xiaomi launching several heavyweight products in this field.

1. Huawei Router AX3 Rro

As a manufacturer with deep technical background in network technology, Huawei did not launch a high-end product, and the entry-level AX3 Pro is only priced at 329 yuan. From this perspective, we can also see Huawei's eagerness and sincerity to seize the market.

Although the price of AX3 Pro is only about 300 yuan, its materials are quite solid. It is equipped with Huawei's self-developed quad-core A53 Lingxiao processor, which supports 160MHz ultra-large bandwidth, which is twice the theoretical speed of 80MHz bandwidth (same MU-MIMO number), and is supplemented by 128MB ROM + 256MB RAM.

At the WiFi 6 level, Huawei AX3 Pro's 2×2 MIMO can reach 2400Mbps in a 5GHz environment, plus 2.4G's 574Mbps, that is to say, its maximum speed can reach 3000Mbps.

Perhaps because it is self-produced, self-developed and self-sold, Huawei AX3 Pro exceeds the level of conventional products in the 300 yuan price range in terms of hardware design and network connection speed, and can be said to be great value for money.

2. Redmi AX5

Since 2019, Redmi has been running on the road of "high cost-effectiveness". For example, its first Wi-Fi 6 router product, Redmi AX5, is priced at only 249 yuan, which is even lower than most WiFi 5 router products.

Judging from the configuration alone, the Redmi AX5 is indeed powerful enough, equipped with a quad-core A53 1.2GHz IPQ 6000 processor, supplemented by 128MB ROM and 256MB RAM.

However, perhaps due to the emphasis on piling up the hardware and lowering the price, the Redmi AX5 has some problems in terms of usage. According to online reviews, the Redmi AX5 has experienced interruptions when updating the firmware or running under high load for a long time.

But judging from the price, this small problem still cannot conceal the super cost-effectiveness of this router.

3. Xiaomi AX 1800

After launching the Xiaomi AX 3600 to seize the mid-to-high-end market and the Redmi AX5 to seize the low-end market, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi AX 1800 in an attempt to seize the WiFi 6 mid-range market.

The biggest highlight of Xiaomi AX1800 is that it has changed the "octopus" appearance of traditional routers. The overall design adopts a cubic design, and it does not look out of place like traditional routers when placed in the living room.

In terms of configuration, the Xiaomi AX1800 is equipped with the same Qualcomm IPQ6000 processor as the Redmi AX5, supplemented by 128MB of ROM and 256MB of RAM. It supports dual-band unification and a concurrent wireless speed of 1775Mbps.

In comparison, although Xiaomi AX1800 and Huawei Router AX3 Rro are at the same price, neither supports 160MHZ.

Judging from the reviews on the Internet, although the Xiaomi AX1800 makes up for the shortcoming of Redmi AX5's interruption of traffic, the signal of Xiaomi AX1800 has dropped sharply when facing the main function of WiFi 6 - wall penetration.

2. Mesh Networking Products in Large Scenarios

Of course, not all consumers live in small apartments. Therefore, if these consumers purchase the single cost-effective product mentioned above, it is easy for them to encounter router signal attenuation problems due to too many obstacles.

In the past, we may need to connect routers via network cables to achieve WiFi coverage throughout the house. But in the WiFi 6 era, we can rely on Mesh (wireless mesh network) networking technology to deploy group routing and create a barrier-free home network.

1. 360 WiFi6 whole house router double pack

From the name "whole house router", we can intuitively feel that this router from 360 is aimed at the needs of Mesh home networking.

Judging from the configuration alone, the core parameters of the 360 ​​WiFi6 whole-home router are exactly the same as those of the Xiaomi AX1800, both equipped with Qualcomm IPQ 6000 processors and supporting 2.4GHz & 5GHz frequency bands. However, 360 may have considered the greater load pressure in home scenarios, so it gave the whole-home router a higher 512MB memory.

From the price perspective, since the main focus is on "wholesale", the price of a two-pack of 360 WiFi6 whole-home routers is only 596 yuan, which is undoubtedly more friendly for users with clear Mesh networking needs.

However, considering that the 360 ​​WiFi6 whole-house router is a home information center, it only supports USB 2.0, and the power supply cannot drive a mobile hard drive without an external power supply. Therefore, this also weakens its expandability.

2. TP-LINK AX1800+1800

I believe that many people also have a demand in large scenarios: to enjoy Mesh networking at a relatively low cost. TP-LINK AX1800 is born for this purpose.

Currently, the TP-LINK AX1800+1800 set is priced at only 359 yuan, which is almost the same price as a Huawei entry-level WiFi 6 router. From this perspective, its price is indeed attractive.

However, TP-LINK is not "Lei Feng" after all. On the basis of meeting higher-end demands and lower prices, the TP-LINK AX1800+1800 has surprisingly reduced configuration. Although it supports 2.4/5GHz Wi-Fi 6, its dual-band concurrent maximum rate is only 1775Mbps, which is only about 2/3 of the products of the same price.

In addition, the expandability of TP-LINK AX1800 is not friendly. It is only equipped with 3 full-gigabit wired ports, which cannot meet the needs of consumers in home scenarios who want to use the router as a file and data hub.

3. Professional Office and Game Acceleration

In addition to daily household scenarios, there are also some consumers who pursue the ultimate network experience due to scenarios such as gaming and office work. Therefore, high-end router products came into being.

1. ASUS TUF-AX3000

As a manufacturer that released WiFi 6 standard routing products as early as 2018, ASUS undoubtedly has enough confidence to make consumers pay for its technology. For example, the price of ASUS TUF-AX3000 has reached nearly 1,000 yuan.

Unlike high-end WiFi 6 routers that mostly use Intel processors, the ASUS TUF-AX3000 is equipped with a Broadcom chip with a main frequency of 1.5GHz and three ARM-A7 architecture cores. It is speculated that this is the result of the high integration of ASUS's overall algorithm and product hardware with Broadcom chips.

From the network level, ASUS TUF-AX3000 supports 2.4GHz/5GHz dual-band, adds 2X2 MU-MIMO, 1024-QAM and OFDMA technology, and has a theoretical rate of 576Mbps+2.4Gbps. As a high-end product, ASUS TUF-AX3000 is undoubtedly very capable.

From the actual experience, ASUS TUF-AX3000 can indeed reach a rate of 2.1Gbps in 4×4 mode. But the problem is that there are almost no 4×4 MIMO WiFi 6 terminals on the market. Therefore, from this perspective, consumers are actually paying for the "future" to a large extent.

But on the other hand, at the end of 2019, the mainstream price of WiFi 6 routers was still over 1,000 yuan. However, in just one year, this figure has dropped to 200 or 300 yuan. In fact, ordinary consumers have no need to pay for the supply chain cycle.

2. NETGEAR RAX80

If you are still not satisfied with the overall performance of ASUS TUF-AX3000, you can also pay attention to Netgear's RAX80.

Although the performance is powerful enough, the biggest highlight of the Netgear RAX80 may still be its unique appearance. The double-wing design is simply a work of art when placed in the living room.

The NETGEAR RAX80 is equipped with a Broadcom quad-core chip and 1GB of memory, which is almost comparable to smartphones. In addition, the NETGEAR RAX80 also supports 4×4 MIMO, which can reach 4800Mbps under 5G. Combined with the traditional 2.4G transmission rate, the total rate of the NETGEAR RAX80 is close to 6000Mbps.

In addition, NETGEAR RAX80 is equipped with two USB3.0 interfaces with a transmission speed of 110MB/s. Therefore, RAX80 can also be used as a simplified NAS.

Similar to ASUS TUF-AX3000, NETGEAR RAX80 also has serious overperformance. According to data released by the China Bandwidth Development Alliance, the average speed of China's fixed broadband network in Q4 2019 was only 28.06Mb/s. At this time, when we look at the total speed of NETGEAR RAX80 of 6000Mbps, this height is almost a meaningless ceiling.

Combining the two products of ASUS TUF-AX3000 and NETGEAR RAX80, although the configurations of current high-end routers are indeed high enough, these products have an unrealistic problem: they are too packed with materials, ignoring the real needs of bandwidth, terminals and consumers, and falling into blind performance stacking. Users are likely to pay for performance that they will not use at all.

Summarize

In general, although the concept of WiFi 6 is becoming increasingly popular, the WiFi 6 router market is not very transparent due to asymmetric market information and consumers' superstitious belief in parameters. For example, Xiaomi's product configuration is indeed high enough, but when used, it is not as stable as Huawei's products.

On the other hand, since WiFi 6 adds many features, manufacturers will also launch "customized" products based on these features and corresponding needs. Therefore, when purchasing, we can pay attention to such products to save consumption.

The configuration of high-end router products does surpass that of mid- and low-end products in all aspects, but we must make it clear that the current experience of mid- and low-end WiFi 6 router products is not bad. Except for a very small number of inferior products, most of them can reach 80 or 90 points. In fact, there is no need for ordinary consumers to spend several times more money to buy an advanced product with a score of 120.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.