Best Wifi Router - Netgear Orbi Wifi 6, Eero Pro 6, Asus Zenwifi AX

what's up guys it's chris majestic and it's that time of year again where i compare the most popular mesh routers and give my thoughts on them so with wi-fi 6 being the new trend this year i chose to include only wi-fi 6 routers in this year's lineup this includes the netgear orbi rbk850 tp-link deco x60 lynx's velup mx10 aero pro 6 amplifi alien asus zen wi-fi xt8 and the unifi 6 light access point for the ubiquiti fanboys out there so these are the fastest mesh wireless systems offered by most of these manufacturers and even though most of these can be purchased as a one pack the two pack systems can handle more devices and work better for large homes or homes with a lot of dead zones unfortunately since i'm only testing wi-fi six units the nest wi-fi which was last year's winner for best overall category won't be featured in this video since it's wi-fi five but of course you can always compare last year's video to this year's video if you're interested so if you're not familiar with wi-fi 6 also known as wireless ax it's the latest wireless standard that offers faster speeds and even better stability over longer distances which you'll see in some of the charts in this video so if you've never watched any of my best wi-fi videos from previous years then you should know that my house is about 3 400 square feet and i place all of the routers in the same place and run tests from different spots in my house i run a total of 70 speed tests on each unit using my own personal speed test server this includes both wi-fi six and wi-fi five speed tests in six different testing locations around the house two of these locations are known as trouble spots like the home theater area in my basement and outside of my driveway which has become a bit of a stress test even for the best routers so the devices i'll be using for most of my testing are the samsung galaxy s20 ultra for wi-fi six and a samsung galaxy s9 plus for y55 and one thing i feel like i have to mention anytime i do a video on wifi is that you'll never see speeds faster than what you're paying for from your isp in other words you can buy the fastest router on this list but if you're only paying for 200 meg internet service then you'll never see speeds faster than 200 meg no matter which router you buy alright so i'm going to sort these from most expensive down to least expensive then i'll talk about my experience with them then show the results for each system and then compile all of the results at the end of the video and give you my thoughts all right so let's jump right into it first up priced at 6.99 we have the linksys velup mx10 which you might have recognized from my amplify alien review i did earlier this year so this is a two pack ax 5300 system that comes with two identical units so these are the largest units that i'll be testing today and each of these units has a tower design with five ethernet ports which means it has more total ports compared to the other systems these ports can be used to wire the units together for the fastest connection possible which is known as a wire backhaul and the additional ports can also be used to connect the wired devices even if the mesh access point is wireless to the main access point and like most of the other mesh routers at the higher end of the price point spectrum develop has a dedicated wireless backhaul channel that greatly improves the speeds you get from the mesh wireless unit so you get great speeds even if you can't wire them together in my opinion this is honestly one of the biggest benefits of wi-fi 6. so like every system here today develop comes with the power adapter for each unit as well as an ethernet cable setup is super easy using the linksys app which walks you through the entire setup process and as far as performance develop provides good wi-fi 6-speeds but just like the wi-fi 5 version of develop i did run into some minor stability issues even though the speeds were great when testing in the same room as the router i found that the speeds were kind of all over the place sometimes i get 200 megs up or down and sometimes i get 700 or more not only that but i also had a lot of trouble getting my phone to connect to the wi-fi 6 band on the router i could see the wi-fi 6 logo before connecting to the router but whenever i would connect it will revert back to wi-fi five so after rebooting the router a few times i was eventually able to connect to wi-fi six but it was definitely a struggle next up also priced at 699 is the netgear orbi rbk852 so these units look very similar to the rbk50 which was last year's winner for the fastest wi-fi so the rbk852 is a 2-pack ax-6000 tri-band system that has a total of 9 ethernet ports including a 2.5 gig lan port on the main router which is a nice addition for the tiny portion of the population with a 2gig internet connection and just like the other systems the ethernet port can be used for a wire backhaul or they can be used to connect your wired devices and just like develop the orbi has a dedicated wireless backhaul channel that allows you to get even faster speeds from the mesh access point as far as the performance orbi continues to provide the absolute fastest speeds i've seen if you thought the wi-fi 5 orbi was fast in the wi-fi 6 version is even faster providing an average download speed over 800 megabits per second on devices in the same room and continues to dominate at pretty much every distance which you'll see later in the video next is the amplify alien which i did a full review on earlier this year now if you're not familiar with the amplified brand it's made by ubiquity which is a company that makes some great enterprise and prosumer level wireless devices including the unify access point that i'll be talking about later in this video so priced at 6.99 a two pack version of the amplifi alien comes with the main router that has a nice touch screen and a similar access point the main router has the wan port hidden on the bottom and these units do also support a wire backhaul the touchscreen looks nice and shows helpful info on the screen and even allows you to do cool stuff like run a speed test aside from the alien being one of the best looking routers on this list it can be easily paired with other inexpensive amplify units and unlike the other routers you can create multiple custom ssids including wireless ax specific ssids which is helpful if you want to assign specific devices to a certain wireless band and when it comes to performance the alien is among the top performers and has very consistent speeds i've been using this system since the beginning of the year with over 75 wireless devices and if you're a ubiquity fan i'd argue that this is a better alternative to products in the unified line if you're looking for the best speeds possible and don't need the advanced features of the unifi access points next up on the list is the aero pro 6. so priced at 600 dollars the eero pro 6 is a three pack system notice the price is lower than the previously mentioned systems and that's because the aero is an ax 4200 system which means it won't have the speeds quite as fast as the other system but offers a nice balance in the middle even though this is the fastest system that aero offers at the moment i found that ax 4200 is becoming more popular and both linksys and orbee have just recently released lower price ax 4200 systems making them a better buy for people who want a nice balance between speed and cost so all three of the aerial units are identical offering two ethernet ports and a usbc power jack the aero comes with the smallest and least conspicuous units even though they're noticeably bigger than the older aerial routers and just like the other systems the aero has a very simple setup process and has a nice and elegant app with a very easy to use interface and when it comes to performance the aero pro 6 offers great speed and consistent performance last year i mentioned that the aero had the most stable and consistent connection and the aero pro is no exception it wasn't necessarily the fastest in all the tests but the speeds were stable and to my surprise the aero was the only system that gave me usable speeds out in my driveway which says a lot my only gripe with aero is that they don't make a faster version and each access point only has two ethernet ports which can be a bit limiting especially for power users alright next in our lineup is the asus zen wi-fi xt8 so priced around 450 the xt8 is a two pack ax 6600 system making it potentially the best bang for your buck when it comes to speed versus cost not only is it price great considering it's a tri-band system with a dedicated backhaul channel but each unit has four ethernet ports and even a 2.5 gig wand port just like the orbi making it the most feature pack system for the money setup was fairly easy just like the other systems even though i did have the switch on the back flipped in the off position for the first five minutes during setup making me think something was wrong when it comes to performance the xt8 was solid i did notice that i got noticeably better speeds when standing to the side of the unit as opposed to standing in front of him it's not necessarily a problem but it is something i noticed from certain units even though it was more noticeable with this one overall i think the xt8 provides amazing value considering the specs and performance considering it's nearly half the price of the other high-end systems alright so the last of the mesh wireless systems i tested was the tp-link deco x60 so priced around 330 the x60 is the least expensive system on this list now to be fair this is an ax 3000 system so i didn't go in expecting the speeds to be comparable to the higher end systems but at the time of this video the x60 is the fastest wi-fi six mesh system that tp-link offers now tp-link has recently announced the x-90 which would have been a better fit for this video but unfortunately that doesn't come out until next month but the x60 is still a formidable contender so i still think it's worthy of being in this video these units have a short cylinder shape and they're the second smallest units on the list coming second to the aero and just like the aero the x60 only comes with two ethernet ports on each unit so if you have a lot of wired devices you need to be mindful of this even though the setup process was fairly easy and straightforward i did find that it's best to connect only one unit at a time and then add the mesh units later instead of powering them all up at once once i did that the setup was a breeze and the deco app works really well even though the x60 is the least expensive mesh option on this list i think it performed well compared to the systems that are more than double the price now to be fair the speeds were slightly slower in almost all the tests but i found that it did well considering the cost and last but not least is the ubiquity unifi 6 light so you can't do a video about wi-fi without hearing a bunch of tech guys chime in about unified devices so if you're not familiar with the ubiquiti unifi access points these are flying saucer style access points that are made to be wall or ceiling mounted and even though a lot of people use them in homes they're really made to be used in high density areas like restaurants malls or other businesses looking for an enterprise solution now priced at 99. the unified six light is the least expensive option on this list if you're looking to get into wi-fi six but it should be noted that it requires another device such as a ubiquiti cloud key or a workstation with a ubiquiti software to manage it it's also recommended only for technical people since the setup is a lot more involved than the other systems on this list as far as performance the unifi 6 lite provided pretty good performance for both wi-fi 5 and wi-fi 6. now it did fall behind some of the high-end units like the orbi and even ubiquiti's own alien but for a hundred bucks i think it's a no-brainer if you already have a ubiquity setup not only did it provide stable and consistent speeds but it offers a lot more advanced features than every other option on this list alright so now that you saw how each of the systems perform let's see how they compare so these charts will show you how each of the systems compare to each other in each testing location so the first thing you'll notice is that the netgear orbi was the fastest system in almost every single test another thing you might notice is that the lynx develop has pretty low upload speeds on some of these tests now i ran dozens and dozens of speed tests on develop and even tried a few external tests but the speeds were very inconsistent another thing i found interesting was that the aero pro 6 was literally the only system that gave me usable speeds in the torture test out in my driveway this is pretty interesting considering it's the only ax 4200 system i tested making me wonder if that's the sweet spot alright so enough about testing what are my favorites and which one is best overall so the first winner for best overall system is definitely the netgear orbi not only did it consistently provide the fastest speeds but it was one of the most stable and provided a great signal across my entire house yes it is 700 but to be honest you could probably just get one of these and it would work great for most houses and the winner for best bang for your buck goes to the asus zen wifi xt8 priced at 450 dollars compared to the other comparable units being priced at 700 i think the xt8 gives you the most value for your money not only were the speeds right up there with the really expensive units but as i said earlier it also provided the fastest wi-fi five speeds which is important considering most of the devices in your home are probably wi-fi five and finally the winner for best signal strength and most consistent goes to the aero pro 6. so this is only fitting especially since the aero was the most stable system in last year's video i can't stress how impressed i was when i saw that the aero gave me the best speeds in my driveway when every other system on this list was pretty much useless so if you have a really large area to cover and you're looking for a safe bet and don't necessarily need the blazing speeds then the aero pro 6 is a great choice so one thing i want to mention that i usually mention in this video every year is that even though these are mesh wireless systems that come with more than one router i will tell you that most houses don't need more than one and believe it or not you might actually end up with slower speeds if you use more than one unit especially if they're not wired together so what i recommend is to either buy a one pack and see how it goes or you can buy a two pack but go ahead and use one and see how it works and if you have a dead zone then you can hook up the second unit to cover that dead zone so this video focuses on mesh wi-fi systems but i will be doing a separate video for the best gaming router which will include units like the asus rapture tp-link ax11000 nighthawk ax8 and a few others so make sure you're subscribed to the channel so you don't miss out on that video and even though this video includes some of the most expensive mesh systems i am curious to know if you'd be interested in me doing another video with some less expensive systems so leave a comment below and tell me what you think and make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on new videos as always thanks for watching guys and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Chris Majestic

Views: 832,775

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Id: UMgzVFyxB7E

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020