Product test
Wi-Fi tested: Asus ZenWIFI BQ16 in a double pack
by Martin Jud
The Asus ZenWiFi AX speed test: how good is a mesh router without a mesh?
7.8.2020
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook
It's the polar opposite of a monstrous router, offering Tri-Band as well as Wi-Fi 6 and can easily be expanded to a mesh system with a second model. Time to see how well it performs in test conditions. And what it's potential for a mesh network is.
If you want to buy a single ZenWiFi router, you'll need patience. For both colours, delivery periods of several months must be expected at time of writing.
Getting hold of a double pack is a bit easier at the moment, allowing you to set up a mesh system. I'm testing this one too, but only in the next instalment of this series.
Technical data for the ZenWiFi AX (XT8):
Apartment floor plan and router location
The testing area, my apartment, covers about 140 m² spread over two attics. Major hurdles for the signal are the installed floor heating and reinforced concrete between the floors.
I attach the Asus router to the most central cable connection of the apartment – in the second attic.
Setting it up
The router offers a total of four RJ45 ports: one 2.5 Gigabit WAN port and three Gigabit LAN ports. A USB 3.1 port type A is also available.
The design of the router is kept simple. All six antennas are installed internally. Two of them are mounted at a 45-degree angle to allow better access to devices above or below the router. It also has active cooling, which I never noticed during testing. Air is drawn through the cooling slits on the side of the unit.
Speed, ping and signal strength per room
Results
The ZenWiFi AX Router performs as follows:
* Average value of rooms that have a signal. The balcony is excluded.The 2.4 GHz range coverage looks much better. The signal strength is a good -60 dBm, the ping is 3 milliseconds and I can surf with an average of 115.58 Mbps. The balcony still achieves 25.33 Mbps. This allows at least one UHD stream to be viewed in Netflix quality.
5 GHz range heat map
I'm not a fan of the dark blue areas in the heat maps. Above -80 dBm, interference of any kind – whether from a microwave, foreign networks or another wall – can signal death for Wi-Fi. So we're lucky that we even have slow 5 GHz Wi-Fi on the far-right balcony.
2.4 GHz range heat map
I'm happy with the 2.4 GHz coverage. Especially on the top floor, a much larger area can be covered.
Comparison with the competition
Direct comparisons in the same test area are rare. I'm gonna change that. The single router that has so far performed best in the 5 GHz frequency range in this apartment is the Swisscom Internet Box 3. It's in first place, even if only by a narrow margin in terms of speed. This changes in the 2.4 GHz frequency range – Asus offers a bit more speed and a millisecond better ping here.
The 5 GHz comparison:
* Average value of rooms that have a signal.The 2.4 GHz comparison:
Conclusion: «Nice» router with decent speeds
Although the main focus of Wi-Fi speed tests is on speed and signal range, there are plenty of other reasons for or against a router. Asus has a lot of settings if you need them. In addition, the router can easily be expanded to a mesh system with a second one. Whether and how well this works out you'll soon find out in my next article.
Martin Jud
Senior Editor
martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.chI find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.
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