99 yuan to 699 yuan: A horizontal review of mainstream home dual-band AC routers at various price points
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Entering the Wi-Fi era, many people's concept of routers is still at the stage of "Tenda" and "TP-Link" that cost tens of yuan in computer booths in university cafeterias. If someone spends hundreds of yuan to buy a router, it is believed that in the eyes of others, this is something that only geeks and enthusiasts can do. But things are different now. Almost all electronic devices are moving towards intelligent networking. As the hub of the home network, routers also bear more and more important responsibilities. With the upgrade of dual-band AC networks, router products with various features have begun to enter people's sight. Some non-network equipment manufacturers have also begun to try to launch router terminal products. Consumers' choice difficulties have appeared in router products. Now we will conduct a comprehensive analysis of five mainstream home dual-band AC routers of different prices on the market: NETGEAR (US Netgear) JR6100, TP-Link TL-WDR7500, Netcore NW774, Xiaomi Router Standard Edition and 360 Security Router. Price comparison: Xiaomi router is the most expensive at 699 yuan. From 99 yuan to 699 yuan, these five router products cover the entire price range that most consumers can accept. Among them, we found that Xiaomi, which has always been known for its high cost performance, has become the most expensive product with its Xiaomi router standard version at a high price of 699 yuan. But we can also see that Xiaomi router is also the only one among several products that comes with a hard disk. Combined with the 1TB capacity Seagate 2.5-inch hard disk, the price of the mobile phone on the market is about 400 yuan. The price of the Xiaomi router standard version excluding the storage component is about 200 to 300 yuan, but this conclusion is still much higher than its own brothers, the 129 yuan Xiaomi router mini version with dual-band AC, not to mention the 360 security router that is less than 100 yuan, which is far from being a cost-effective product. In addition to Xiaomi, the JR6100 with a price of more than 500 yuan also maintains NETGEAR's consistent high-end image, and the TL-WDR7500 has also become the most expensive home router in the TP-Link brand with a price of more than 400 yuan. Further down, the Leco NW774 has a 99 yuan positioning, which is known as the "lowest price in the entire network", and the 360 Security Router is also currently under the banner of "99 yuan ultimate special price", becoming the most accessible dual-band AC router product on the market, 10 yuan cheaper than the recently popular Ji Router Ji Yi S, which is only a single-band router. Appearance design: Does the router need a "marquee"? Although they are all router products, the design styles of the five products are very different. From the perspective of size, Xiaomi and NETGEAR are both vertical designs. NETGEAR plus external antennas require more vertical space, and although Xiaomi uses a more compact closed shell, due to the built-in hard drive, its own weight is also the highest among the five products. Among the other three horizontal design products, the lowest-priced Leco and 360 Security Router have the smallest footprint. Leco is also the only router among the five products that has a hook at the bottom that can be directly hung on the wall. TP-Link seems to want to reflect its high-end positioning, and has designed its product to be quite large. With up to six external antennas, it looks like a black crab. In terms of materials, Leco is the lowest-end. The most ordinary plastic shell has not been processed, and the shell joints are not tightly closed. As a veteran router manufacturer, NETGEAR and TP-Link have maintained the consistent image of router products. The high-gloss plastic and a bunch of external antennas make it easy to tell that this is a router, but in terms of detail craftsmanship, the exquisite triangular holes on the back of NETGEAR give people a visual perception far better than the "big crab" lying on the table, which is also one aspect of the value of the price difference of more than 100 yuan. As new manufacturers, Xiaomi and 360 are different. The matte surface treatment makes the plastic shell look more upscale, and the 360 router, which only costs 99 yuan, has not shrunk in the shell craftsmanship, which is not a major issue, which is more commendable. Finally, I think it is necessary to say something about the "marquee" design of the router. Among these five products, Leco and TP-Link are the most obsessed with lights. 10 indicator lights are lined up on the outer shell of the router, and Leco still does not give up its adherence to the lights on such a small body, which is embarrassing. As a product that "never loses power", is it necessary to set up so many indicator lights at night like a "ghost fire"? This is really a matter worth discussing. For ordinary users, what they care about is whether the router can be connected to the Internet normally. Even if you light up the "PWR" and "SYS" lights for me, I don't know what they mean, and you still bother the user to cover the router with newspapers at night before you can sleep peacefully. In this regard, NETGEAR, which has three of the four indicator lights on the front, is acceptable, while Xiaomi and 360 security routers are directly simplified to one indicator light, which can be said to be more thorough. Yes, we only need a sign to tell us that the router is working. Compared with the bright LED indicator of Xiaomi router, the breathing light design of 360 security router is more in tune with the home environment. In fact, the idea of breathing light has long been common in smart phone products, and it is not difficult to transplant it to other electronic products. But why we did not see it for the first time on router products until 360 security router is a question worthy of deep thought for the entire industry. Network performance: Traditional brands no longer have advantages. First of all, in the layout of interfaces, traditional brand router products continue to inherit the spirit of "whether you need it or not, it's given to you anyway". NETGEAR, TP-Link, and Leco all set up 1 (WAN) + 4 (LAN) network cable interfaces. Leco once again stuffed so many things into its small body. It's a pity that compared with NETGEAR and TP-Link, both of which have added USB interfaces with certain expansion capabilities, Leco is the only device among the five products that lacks this function. Xiaomi and 360 challenged tradition again. In addition to USB and a WAN interface, they only set up two LAN network cable interfaces. It seems that they are not as rich as traditional products. But imagine that most families have routers with a network cable. Not many people are willing to split the line from the router. Two LAN ports are more than enough, and there is really no need to add more. In addition to the reduction of the number of network cable interfaces, Xiaomi and 360 security routers have also canceled the WPS button. In fact, the existence of this function has always been a very useless thing. First, let the device connect to the wireless network, and then press the WPS button at lightning speed. For ordinary people, it is really an impossible task. In the revolution of the inherent thinking of products, emerging manufacturers are at the forefront again. In terms of signal strength, which is the most important factor for most users, Xiaomi and 360 Security Router also have outstanding performances, taking the lead in 2.4G and 5G frequency bands alternately. The best performance of traditional router manufacturers is only in the 5G Wi-Fi environment. TP-Link and Xiaomi are on par, slightly lower than 360 Security Router, while NETGEAR, which has the most expensive actual network components, is disappointing, becoming the product with the weakest wireless signal. However, if you are too picky about signal strength, it is really a bit nitpicking for these five wireless routers. It is like the difference of a few Ghz in the frequency of smartphone processors now. The products are already excellent enough, and the difference in user experience is difficult to detect. But what we can see is that traditional brand routers cannot prevail even in the most basic function comparison. Even with a bunch of "hideous" external antennas, they have not been able to verify the statement that "signal strength is proportional to the number of antennas". The strength of new forces that will subvert the market represented by Xiaomi and 360 is now visible. Internal hardware: In-depth disassembly reveals the real "core" First, on paper, all five products are dual-band routers that support the IEEE 802.11ac standard. NETGEAR, Xiaomi, and 360 Security Routers are all designed with 300+867 Mbps, and the total bandwidth of parallel data in the two frequency bands reaches 1167Mbps. TP-Link claims to be "the highest specification wireless router available on the market", with 450Mbps in the 2.4GHz band and 1.35Gbps in the 5GHz band, which brings the total bandwidth to 1700Mbps. Leco once again highlights its low-end positioning, with a total bandwidth of only 750Mbps for the two frequency bands. However, it is worth noting that the bandwidth design of the router is only a theoretical value, and the actual capacity is still closely related to the network conditions of the use environment. It is certain that the five router products are sufficient to meet the network bandwidth needs of most users. As for the internal chip, the combination of Broadcom BCM4709 1GHz ARM® Cortex™-A9 dual-core chip and 256M memory is worthy of its amazing high price of 699 yuan. But it is a bit regrettable that although the engineering version of Xiaomi router needs to be assembled by users, except for the built-in hard disk, the assembly process is almost irreversible. It is almost impossible to further disassemble the internal structure without destroying the shell structure. In addition, Xiaomi also puts anti-damage marks on the bottom screws that must be removed for disassembly and installation of the hard disk. If it is in this way to prevent users from disassembling by themselves, then the meaning of replaceable hard disk is not great. Then, we were surprised to find that the 360 security router, which costs less than 100 yuan, can stand at the same level as NETGEAR and TP-Link, which are several times more expensive than themselves. All three products chose 128M memory with Qualcomm chip solution. Among them, TP-Link's main processor is Qualcomm QCA9005AP, while 360 and NETGEAR use the same model AR9344. In terms of 5G modules, both 360 and TP-Link use Qualcomm QCA988X chips, while NETGEAR chooses a BCM4352KMLG RF processing chip. It is worth mentioning that both NETGEAR and 360 security routers have designed anti-shielding covers inside the chips, which can better ensure the working stability of the routers compared to the high-priced TP-Link. While reflecting the slightly crude material process of TP-Link, it also reflects the "low price but not low quality" of 360 security routers. Although it is the same 99 yuan value-for-money price, Leco's choice of chips is not as generous as 360. The core part of the whole set of Realtek chipset uses Realtek RTL8881AQ, which integrates the routing processor and 802.11ac wireless functions. The memory size is 64M, which is obviously several levels lower than other products. This may also be the reason why its performance is not as good as others. In general, Xiaomi, which is used to competing in hardware in the smartphone market, has "carried forward" this style to router products. However, "old hands" such as NETGEAR and TP-Link, which have been struggling in the router battlefield for many years, have not equipped their flagship products with overly radical internal hardware. I think the answer to whether Xiaomi routers have already overperformed is obvious. On the contrary, 360 security routers, which are priced at only one-seventh of Xiaomi, allow consumers to exchange the price of Leco for the internal features of NETGEAR. We seem to understand why 360 security routers have received such high attention at the beginning of their launch. Interface experience: The menu interface of the router, which has completely become a battlefield for emerging brands , starts from the user's common sense. Unless you can't access the Internet, these interfaces full of parameters and lack of human touch that are in line with the interests of programmers are places that ordinary people will never open again after seeing them once. Faced with the fact that human-computer interaction design has reached a new height in various products, will the software interface of the router change? The situation is that some people are active and some are slow. There is no doubt that the slow party must be the traditional router brand. The conservative product ideas have been reflected in the appearance and style of the products. In the system interface, whether it is TP-Link, which costs hundreds of yuan, or Leco, which costs 99 yuan, the UI has been optimized in terms of art and the icon color has been modified, but the old operation logic and method have not been changed. For those who don't care about electronic products, let alone those working modes and channel bandwidths, they may not even know what "SSID" stands for. It is common for ordinary users not to change the Wi-Fi name. The complicated setting levels are a waste for most users. Therefore, the current traditional brand routers have been defeated without a fight at the software level. As a network security company and a company that engages in "snatching" online, who can win the battle between 360 and Xiaomi? First of all, Xiaomi is the same as its "born for fever" positioning. Although the mass production version of the product packaging removes the wooden tool box and does not require assembly, it cannot change the "fever" temperament of Xiaomi routers from the inside out. Although the UI design is more than a little better than traditional products in terms of aesthetics, what cannot be changed is that Xiaomi is still a "parameter party". If you are not a hardware enthusiast, the various data monitoring under the Xiaomi router interface is of little significance to most people. As another representative of emerging products, 360 security router focuses more on security and pragmatism. First of all, on the interface, the simple layout of the 8-grid allows users to see the location of their needs at a glance, and the detailed preview with the dynamic positioning of the mouse further simplifies the operation logic of information acquisition. As a router with security as the first priority, 360 also pays attention to all security matters. In addition to the system guiding users to make active security settings, users can also combine the "guest mode" of the mobile app and various network diagnostic functions to further reduce the risk of external users "freeloading" and password theft. At the same time, 360 security router can also manually adjust the signal strength. Considering the hotly discussed router radiation storm in the society some time ago, 360 can be regarded as a step further in considering the safety of users. During use, we also found that if we accidentally accessed a network link with unknown security issues, 360 Security Router would promptly pop up a warning window from the browser of the networked device to prevent the user from further operation. Maintaining home network security from the source of the router and preventing danger from "entering the door" is what we want and what 360, a router product that focuses on security, has already done. Dual-band era: How should we choose a router? There is no doubt that in the comprehensive comparison of these five routers, Xiaomi, NETGEAR and 360 Security Router can be regarded as products with quite balanced performance in all aspects. The more expensive Xiaomi and NETGEAR are more like geek toys. The Xiaomi router with a built-in hard drive sacrifices weight and volume, operating noise and even power supply to take up more space than other products, but the unique product style will still make Mi fans who are "born for fever" love it. Although the 360 router is about 500 yuan cheaper than the previous two, its more user-friendly compact design, the various functions that meet daily usage scenarios under the humanized software interface, and the selection of components without cutting corners, combined with the price of 99 yuan, all show that it is a product that is more in line with the public's taste and worth buying. In the future home, the router will not only be a network device, but also the center of smart home networking. Whether to choose a more fun and expensive product or a more practical device with stronger functionality is the first thing consumers need to know. 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. |
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