If your router is a few years old and doesn’t offer fast speeds or frequently drops connections, a new router or mesh networking kit can improve your Wi-Fi range, stability, and speed. will all improve. on your house.
Over the past five years, we’ve spent hundreds of hours testing and evaluating over 100 routers. As a result, the best router for wirelessly connecting laptops, smart devices, and other things you rely on in your daily life is the TP-Link Archer AX55.
our picks
This router created a fast and responsive network throughout our test house. You’ll need to spend a lot of money on a router (or mesh kit if you have a very large house) to get anything even remotely better. This is our latest Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax).
Hitting the sweet spot between price and performance, the TP-Link Archer AX55 (typically priced between $100 and $125) broadcast a reliable and responsive Wi-Fi 6 network in our test home. You can find faster routers and cheaper models, but the Archer AX55 is the one we can recommend for most people right now. Provides strong Wi-Fi service throughout homes over 2,000 square feet.
Upgrade selection
If you have gigabit or multi-giga internet service, or need to tweak your network settings for your kids’ internet access or working from home, this Synology router is worth the price.
Synology WRX560 was one of the best-performing Wi-Fi 6 routers in our latest round of testing. It’s more expensive than the TP-Link Archer AX55, but the price is much closer to our top pick than our previous upgrade picks. This model has more customization options than others, so you can spend an hour or two over the weekend tweaking your router’s settings to create a separate network for your smart devices or control your child’s internet access. Ideal if you want to Pick. Chart-topping performance, an IT-grade control panel for network configuration, understated styling, and future-proof features like 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports make this router even more appealing.
budget selection
This TP-Link model is relatively inexpensive, but performs better at short distances than more expensive routers. This is a reliable option for small houses or apartments with a few people and their devices.
If you want to save money or your needs are not so great, TP-Link Archer A8 can provide a stable network for a small house or multi-room apartment. Over long distances, it is clearly slower than more expensive products, so it is not very suitable for high-rise residential buildings. If the router is not located in the center of an apartment or a house with three or more bedrooms, the connection may drop. But over short distances in our testing, the Archer A8 performed better than some routers costing more than $150. The Archer A8 also has modern features such as WPA3 and compatibility with his TP-Link’s OneMesh extender, surpassing its previous budget model, the Archer A7, in that regard.
