TP-Hyperlink Archer AX21 Overview: The Finest Router for Small to Mid-Sized Properties

Finest fitted to small- to medium-sized properties and residences with web speeds as much as 500Mbps, the TP-Hyperlink Archer AX21 stands out for its impeccable stability, faster-than-average speeds and Wi-Fi 6 compatibility. It additionally has higher vary than many mesh methods we have examined, which use a number of gadgets to unfold the Wi-Fi sign round larger properties.

That mentioned, it will not sustain with a good mesh router if you happen to’re attempting to blanket a big house or a multistory dwelling. Neither is it your best option if you happen to’re attempting to attach at as excessive a pace as attainable over a gigabit community. As an alternative, the TP-Hyperlink Archer AX21 is for dwelling customers who want a router that is easy to arrange and reasonably priced whereas providing robust and speedy efficiency. If that is what you want, the TP-Hyperlink Archer AX21 sits on the prime of our checklist and few others evaluate.

Wi-Fi 6 for everybody

Wi-Fi 6 has been commonplace for some time now, however here is a refresher for these unfamiliar with the newest Wi-Fi lingo. Earlier than the arrival of Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6 was the the latest model of the wi-fi transmission protocol we generally name Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi 6 gadgets can ship knowledge forwards and backwards at prime speeds which are about 30% quicker than what Wi-Fi 5 is able to, with higher, extra environment friendly efficiency, notably in dense environments the place plenty of gadgets want to attach. Virtually all gadgets launched up to now few years help the usual, however you will want a Wi-Fi 6 router in an effort to reap the benefits of these quicker speeds at dwelling.

That was an expensive proposition when Wi-Fi 6 first turned accessible a 12 months or two in the past, however at this level, a lot of the main producers supply entry-level Wi-Fi 6 routers for $100 or much less. I bought three of these entry-level choices for myself and examined them out — amongst them, the TP-Hyperlink Archer AX21 carried out the very best, and it even held its personal towards fancier fashions that price extra.

A primary design carried out proper

On to the router itself, and let’s begin with some primary specs. The Archer AX21 is an AX1800 router — the “AX” half means it helps Wi-Fi 6, whereas the “1800” half refers back to the approximate mixed speeds of its bands. 

On this case, the AX21 is a dual-band router with a 2.4GHz band claiming prime speeds of as much as 574Mbps and a 5GHz band with a prime switch price of 1,201Mbps. The caveat there’s that you could solely join to 1 band at a time, so when TP-Hyperlink says that the router gives speeds of as much as 1.8Gbps, what it actually means is 1.2Gbps (and that is solely in a perfect, lab-controlled atmosphere). Advertising ploys like that annoy me as a lot as they seemingly do you, however they’re basically an business customary, so do not maintain it towards TP-Hyperlink for taking part in alongside. Simply remember as you store.

One different be aware: The AX21 helps Wi-Fi 6, nevertheless it is not a Wi-Fi 6E router that features an extra band on the newly opened, ultrawide 6GHz spectrum. Routers like these have been available on the market for just a few years, however for many of us, I do not suppose it is important to make the improve. Solely the newest smartphones and laptops help the usual, making it an costly and pointless improve for many. Sticking with plain ol’ Wi-Fi 6 looks like the higher play to me, at the least for many households.

As for the AX21 itself, it is a fairly standard-looking router with 4 adjustable antennas, 4 spare LAN ports and a USB 2.0 jack for connecting peripherals like native storage or a printer. The patchwork array of warmth vents lining the highest face make it look a contact fancier than a budget, shiny plastic suggests. I additionally appreciated the bodily on/off button and the fool-proof ports within the again, with the WAN port you’d use to attach together with your modem color-coded in can’t-miss blue.

Tethered to a reasonably first rate app

Like most TP-Hyperlink routers, you will management the AX21 by way of TP-Hyperlink’s Tether app in your Android or iOS machine. Doing so is a bit easier (and for networking novices, much less intimidating) than logging in by way of the router’s IP handle in an online browser, and it makes for a easy setup. Particularly, after plugging the router in and turning it on, you will open the app, connect with the router’s community, after which pick a community identify and password. That is basically it.

When you’re up and operating, the app lets you view community standing, handle linked gadgets, activate a visitor community, or troubleshoot any points together with your connection. Different minor options of be aware embrace an evening mode that permits you to program the router to kill the blinking lights throughout set hours and carry out computerized in a single day updates on your firmware, each of that are good to have. The AX21 additionally helps Alexa instructions for pausing your private home Wi-Fi, together with Amazon’s Wi-Fi Easy Setup, which makes it quicker so as to add Alexa-compatible good dwelling gadgets to your community.

You may want to move to TP-Hyperlink’s internet portal for extra superior options, like controls for managing a DHCP server, NAT forwarding or IPv6, however the app does supply a primary quality-of-service engine, which helps you to prioritize visitors to particular gadgets at particular occasions. You do not all the time get that with an entry-level router like this.

In equity, nearly each router at this level gives an app like Tether to simplify setup and controls– however I like Tether higher than most, and positively higher than Netgear’s Nighthawk app, which consistently bugs you with popup adverts to buy Netgear’s safety software program. That type of nagging appears much less frequent from TP-Hyperlink.

What about efficiency?

As I discussed earlier, I examined the AX21 towards two budget-priced AX1800 routers: the Netgear R6700AX and the Asus RT-AX55. All three may be yours for about $100, or much less if you happen to catch a superb sale, and all supply first rate efficiency for the worth.

Nonetheless, it was the AX21 that inched out forward in my pace exams, because the blue bars within the chart above counsel. These room-by-room pace averages are the product of tons of of exams throughout a number of days at my smallish, 1,300-square-foot dwelling, the place I examined every router on a 300Mbps fiber web connection. The AX21 was in a position to push that connection to the max in 4 out of 5 spots in my home. Within the fifth, a again lavatory lifeless zone that is on the other finish of my home from the place the router sits, my common obtain speeds plummeted all the way down to 99Mbps, however that is nonetheless a serviceable connection, and it is greater than twice as quick as what Netgear or Asus was able to.

That is to not say that the AX21 beat the R6700AX or the RT-AX55 outright. Although TP-Hyperlink scored the very best common obtain speeds, it was Netgear’s router that notched the very best common add speeds, averaging in at about 195Mbps throughout my total dwelling (the AX21 was an in depth second at 188Mbps, whereas the Asus RT-AX55 averaged out to 170Mbps).

After which there’s latency, or ping, which is a measure of how lengthy (in milliseconds) it takes on your router to ship a sign to a given server and obtain a response. Decrease latency makes for a snappier connection whenever you’re on a video name or gaming on-line, so I be certain to file the ping for each pace check I run. 

The result’s that nifty-looking radar graph. All three routers carried out fairly properly, nevertheless it was the Asus RT-AX55 (yellow) that completed with the bottom common latency, by no means spiking any larger than 19ms. The AX21 (blue) was, once more, an in depth runner-up, with solely a handful of minor spikes above 20ms. The Netgear R6700AX (purple) completed third, with a median latency simply above 20ms and a number of spikes as excessive as 26ms. Not dangerous, however noticeably behind the opposite two.

With all three routers, I additionally made certain to run two utterly separate units of exams, one on a tool that helps Wi-Fi 6 (an iPhone 12 Professional) and the opposite on an older machine that makes use of Wi-Fi 5 (an iPad Air I bought about 5 years in the past). Wi-Fi 6 is backward-compatible, so older gadgets like that may nonetheless be capable to connect with the AX21 simply high-quality — they only will not be capable to reap the benefits of newer options that make Wi-Fi 6 quicker. 

On this case, the distinction in obtain speeds was fairly slim. Throughout my total dwelling, the Wi-Fi 6 iPhone 12 Professional notched a near-perfect common of 299Mbps, whereas the Wi-Fi 5 iPad Air averaged in at about 270Mbps. The distinction between add speeds was barely extra pronounced. The Wi-Fi 6 iPhone 12 Professional averaged in at round 190Mbps, whereas the Wi-Fi 5 iPad Air got here in nearer to 150Mbps, which is a dip of about 20%. In each instances, the distinction will seemingly be much more noticeable with a quicker connection than mine.

Do not count on gigabit speeds

I’ve since upgraded my dwelling networking setup from the 300Mbps connection described above to a gigabit reference to prime obtain speeds of 940Mbps and prime add speeds of 880Mbps. The AX21 was one of many first fashions I retested on this new community, together with the routers I initially examined it towards, plus just a few higher-end routers with help for Wi-Fi 6, together with TP-Hyperlink’s personal Archer AX73 and AX75 and the Linksys Hydra Professional 6.

With common speeds all through my dwelling of 442Mbps down and 239Mbps up, the Archer AX21 wasn’t in a position to max out my gigabit speeds, nevertheless it nonetheless provided quick, constant efficiency, and like earlier than, it managed to outperform different AX1800 fashions just like the Netgear R6700AX and the Asus RT-AX55 at nearly each flip. Once more, the one slight weak spot was with uploads — it was shut, however each the R6700AX and the RT-AX55 completed with averages that have been barely larger than the AX21. 

Maybe most attention-grabbing was how the AX21 fared compared to its huge brothers within the Archer household, the AX73 and AX75. The previous is a dual-band AX5400 mannequin that helps a lot quicker speeds than the AX21, and the latter is principally the identical factor however in a tri-band design, with two separate 5GHz bands. The AX21 managed to maintain up with each of them simply high-quality, ending neck-and-neck with the AX75 and properly forward of the AX73. The AX72, particularly, did not carry out properly in my exams after its poor band steering pushed me to the slower 2.4GHz band in a number of cases the place it should not have. In case you’re interested by the AX21 and tempted to bump as much as a fancier Archer mannequin, I would most likely inform you to stay with the AX21 for the superior general worth.

The decision

Virtually each telephone or laptop computer bought in the previous couple of years helps Wi-Fi 6. In case you use these gadgets usually at dwelling, then upgrading to a Wi-Fi 6 router that may increase connectivity speeds can be an amazing transfer. The TP-Hyperlink Archer AX21 will get you there for $100 or much less, and it gives stronger general efficiency than the competitors, plus an excellent app for maintaining a tally of the community. I did not discover any main band steering points with the router’s SmartConnect function. The router constantly routed gadgets between the two.4 and 5GHz bands as wanted, and I by no means encountered any drops or stalls as I ran exams in my home. I even suppose the design is nicer-looking than common. All of that makes this router an impressive worth and a greater price range decide than different budget-priced Wi-Fi 6 routers I’ve examined through the years.