WiFi 6 has been with us for a while now, but the adoption of this new wireless standard has been a bit lackluster. And it’s not for lack of clients, WiFi 6 is in new devices for sure. I consider the main reason to be poorer availability, as WiFi 6 has so far appeared mainly in top router models costing hundreds of euros, which only a connoisseur will reach for. But with the arrival of the affordable RT-AX53U, this situation is changing.
In the immediate vicinity
The new product performs surprisingly well in WiFi speed tests, especially in upload, where it significantly outperforms the older but higher-end AC88U. In a pure WiFi transfer between client and server, it was able to match the wired server connection of the aforementioned AC88U. Download shows slightly lower results, but for LAN server, the AX53U is still in close proximity to the AC88U which is three to four times its price.
From a distance of ten metres
We also see a very good result in the distance test, where the AX53U is only slightly slower in upload than the AX88U and more than twice as fast as the AC88U. In downloading we already see a certain deficit and the compared competitors achieve twice the numbers here.
Wired transfers
In the wired tests between the two devices, we see that the AX53U ranked last in both tests with a loss of about 100 Mbps to the AC/AX88U. I assume that the slower dual-core processor was a factor in this bandwidth test. Still, this is no disaster and considering that we are comparing a novelty with models with prices several times higher these are quite good results.
