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Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. Read our editorial mission & see how we test. Specs wise, the router is powered by a Dual Core CPU with 512MB RAM, Beamforming technology, High Power FEM, OFDMA, FEM, and also the latest WPA3. Archer AX53 supports OneMesh to form seamless coverage throughout your home, preventing drops and lag when moving between signals. This doesn’t necessarily damn the AX3000 Pro, however. It still projected a strong wireless signal to every part of my three-bedroom maisonette, and it drew a moderate 13.4W while doing so, dropping to 9.7W when sitting idle. That’s perfectly acceptable for everyday internet duties. READ NEXT: The very best Wi-Fi 6 routers currently available ZTE Miracle AX3000 Pro review: Price and competition
Users who want to control their router using the Alexa voice assistant and IFTTT (If This, Then That) ZTE proudly advertises that the Miracle has won multiple design awards, and it’s certainly a visually striking design. It’s cutely sized, with a footprint of 245 x 130mm, and while the overall shape is similar to the Honor Router 3, it’s more interesting to look at thanks to tasteful bevels on the casing and antennae, which create pleasing geometric patterns of light and shade. Actual network speed may be limited by the rate of the product's Ethernet WAN or LAN port, the rate supported by the network cable, Internet service provider factors and other environmental conditions.Currently, WiFi 6 and 6E can use 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz (the latter with WiFi 6E) independently. There is no band aggregation implemented for individual wireless clients. It’s worth mentioning the OFDMA implementation should be up/dl on both bands, but so far, the manufacturer hasn’t disclosed whether the Archer AX50 does supports OFDMA dl/ul on the 2.4Ghz band. So, as you can see, the focus is now towards a better handling of the bandwidth, as well as of multiple clients, while the throughput may seem to take a secondary priority. READ NEXT: Our full round-up of the best wireless routers available ZTE Miracle AX3000 Pro review: Should you buy it?
TP-Link has unveiled the Archer AX53 IPv6 IPoE compliant Wi-Fi 6 router, which provides high-capacity connection without stress even amid congestion. Note: The TP-Link AX73 is advertised as an AX5400-class WiFi 6 router, so it features a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 4,804Mbps on the 5GHz radio band and a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 574Mbps on the 2.4GHz band – these are theoretical values, so you won’t be able to reach this performance inside your home (they can hardly be achieved in a lab). The WiFi Features For the WiFi, the TP-Link Archer AX73 relies on Broadcom BCM43684KRFBG 802.11a/n/ac/ax 4×4:4 chipset (along with a Skyworks SKY85743 front-end module) for the 5GHz band and on the Broadcom BCM6750 802.11b/g/n/ax 2×2:2 chip (along with Qorvo QPF4216 integrated front-end module) for the 2.4GHz band.I noticed that on the bottom of the AX73, TP-Link has added four silicone feet to keep the router in place (still can’t fathom why they haven’t done the same with the AX50) and there are also a couple of holes to help you mount the device on the wall. If you want to keep the TP-Link AX73 on a desk, know that the router is not that compact (it measures 10.7 x 5.8 x 1.9 inches) and there are lots of antennas, surrounding the case. The AX73 does come with six antennas, four positioned on the rear side and two on the left and right side of the device and no, they’re not detachable (the trend of upgrading the antennas is essentially gone by this point).
Yet the ZTE still has its appeal. It’s attractive to look at, and not unpleasant to use, as long as you don’t expect too much from the app. Yes, there are any number of faster routers, but for a medium-sized household with medium-sized internet demands it’ll do a fine job. Considering that I have around 50 wireless devices connected to the router, all hungry for attention, it’s quite an amazing feat for the price . We can also thank OFDMA too for this, as it enables simultaneous clients to transfer data at the same time within a single channel. BTW, WiFi 6/6E were just incremental upgrades over WiFi 5 wave 2 (wave 2 implemented MU-MIMO technology, IIRC). WiFi 7 is a much larger step with MLO, potential for real-world +1Gbps WLAN speeds, and 320MHz channel width support.
While not the fastest router in its price range, this stylish model still has ample connectivity for most homes
With OneMesh and a smart connect feature on the AX55 router, you only see a single Wireless SSID. With other wireless extenders, you’d normally have to create a different wireless network name (SSID). This forces you to switch to a different Wi-Fi network manually when you are having flaky connection or dead zones around the house. Not an ideal solution these days. Apart from that, we’ve had tons of Zoom meetings and didn’t experience any instability or disconnections. Mediatek is used as well just another chip. Often qualcomm isnt since they ask a lot for their stuff whilst not reallt offering a benefit and making products needlessly expensive. We can see from the graph that two client devices remained under this limit pretty much for the entire duration of the test, but three clients, the WiFi 6 Lenovo Y520 laptops and the WiFi 6E PC did experience a latency spike (the latter did not surprise me). With the exception of one of the two Lenovo laptops, it shouldn’t have a noticeable impact on the streaming experience. And even in the Lenovo laptop case, it does seem to experience it only for 1% of the time. TP-Link AX5400 AX73 – Multi-client stress test using 5 client devices – 1080p streaming (5GHz, 80MHz). The target throughput is 5Mbps.
On the rear side of the TP-Link AX73, there are four buttons, one for turning Off/On the LEDs, one for enabling the WPS process, one for turning On/Off the WiFi and the last one is a recessed Reset button (press and hold it for about 10 seconds to return the router to its default settings). Further to the right, there are four LAN ports (all Gigabit), one WAN port (also Gigabit), a Power button and a Power connector. On the right side of the AX73, there’s a single USB 3.0 port for adding a printer or an external storage device. Internal Hardware While simulating 4K streaming and web-browsing at the same time on all 5 client devices, we can see that the latency spikes for about 10% on two clients (one WiFi 6 and one WiFi 6E, as expected), but then only the MacBook Pro remained below the set limit for 99% of the time, the other clients experiencing latency spikes for 5% of the time. TP-Link AX5400 AX73 – Multi-client stress test using 5 client devices – 4K streaming & web browsing (5GHz, 80MHz). The lower the score, the better. HomeCare includes a more advanced QoS with optimization by application as well as the standard devices QoS. This can help make sure the games or services you care about the most are first in line for connections no matter the devices you use them on. If you have an online gamer in the house, this feature can keep their pings consistent. Four high-gain external antennas and Beamforming technology combine to extend strong, reliable WiFi throughout your home. With OneMesh network, you can extend your wireless network coverage with ease. We live in a two-storey house and there are spots where things can get a bit flaky occasionally.Without replacing your existing devices or buying a whole new WiFi ecosystem, OneMesh™ helps you create a more flexible network that covers your entire home with TP-Link OneMesh™ products. To put my performance figures into context, Zoom recommends that you need only 4Mbits/sec for a video call – equivalent to 0.5MB/sec – and even streaming 4K UHD video from Disney Plus only requires 25Mbits/sec, or just over 3MB/sec. In other words, the Miracle router proved perfectly fast enough to allow multiple family members to watch videos and chat online at once. The AX53 clearly comes from the same stable as the older Archer AX50. The physical design is pretty much identical and the core specifications are the same, too: four antennas support 4×4 MU-MIMO with a maximum speed of 2.4Gbits/sec on the 5GHz band and a respectable 574Mbits/sec over the 2.4GHz radio. Like its predecessor, the AX53 also supports the wide 160MHz channel width to maximise bandwidth. This means that users will experience noticeable buffering fairly often. What about the fast web browsing? It always remained below the 1.5s limit, so all is decently well. The question is whether the clients were able to go to the 25Mbps limit and were they able to remain there? TP-Link AX5400 AX73 – Multi-client stress test using 5 client devices – 4K streaming & web browsing (5GHz, 80MHz). The focus is on the web browsing. The lower the score, the better.
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