Is there anything Asus doesn’t make? The Taiwanese company has cranked out everything from 80486 motherboards to PhysX cards and some excellent gaming laptops, and you’d expect its Wi-Fi routers to be top quality too. For the most part, this new Wi-Fi 7 model is just that, but it contains one specific omission.
Since Wi-Fi 6E, routers can broadcast on three frequencies. There are the usual 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and a 6GHz band that offers faster speeds at a shorter range. It’s ideal for a gaming PC in the same room as the router, freeing up the others for phones, tablets and the IoT devices that are increasingly cluttering our homes. This router does not have that band, but are you missing out on something?
Not really. The 6GHz band is fast, but also has a shorter range and does not penetrate solid objects. However, Wi-Fi 7 routers have some clever tricks that ensure you can get excellent speeds on the other bands, certainly faster than you would need on an average internet connection.
There are 320 MHz wide channels, which double the potential bandwidth of Wi-Fi 6 and leave Wi-Fi 5 in the dust. You get 4K QAM that changes the phase and amplitude of the Wi-Fi signal to squeeze more data into the same space, and MLO (Multi-Link Operation) that allows a client to connect over 2.4GHz and 5GHz simultaneously. Even without 6GHz (which is not approved for use in all countries), Wi-Fi 7 is faster, more reliable, and has less latency, as long as you have the equipment to take advantage of it.
RT-BE88U specifications
Wireless standard: WiFi 7
Maximum wireless speed (claimed): 1376 Mbps (2.4 GHz), 5764 Mbps (5 GHz)
Ethernet Ports: 8
WAN: 10Gbit
Processor: 2.6GHz quad core
RAM: 2GB
Storage: 256MB
USB: 1x 3.0 Type-A
Dimensions: 300x188x60.5mm
Weight: 1kg
Price: $350 | £340
Yes, you’ll need a new PC, phone, tablet, smart fridge or whatever to take full advantage of Wi-Fi 7 (although it’s backwards compatible, of course), whether you connect to the 6GHz band or not , but sharing your current Internet connection in a new way may not be enough to get you over the edge into upgrade heaven. It is better to first purchase a powerful multi-gigabit fiber optic connection and figure out the WiFi later.
On to the Asus RT-BE88U then, and it’s a fairly standard-looking Wi-Fi router of the sort that Wednesday Addams might keep as a pet. It’s black, has a wide wedge shape, there are twinkling lights, it has a ventilation grille on the top and angular legs/antennas sticking out of three of the sides. The antennas have a sharp-looking design with a hole through them, so they look like the kind of sword Hawkeye might use after he gets his tattoos, and need to be torqued quite tight when you assemble the router to prevent they flop. forward as if you forgot to water them for a month. They stand tall and proud and their black and bronze color scheme is attractive, but it’s still something you’re going to put on a shelf and then forget about.
At the back there is an unusual addition for a consumer router in the form of an SFP+ port. This stands for Small Form-factor Pluggable and is a hot-swappable network interface used for specific connections, such as copper wire or fiber optic, via a modular connector. There’s a 10Gb Ethernet WAN port next to it, which will be the plug of choice for most people and will almost certainly be good enough for many years of internet upgrades to come. There are also many other network ports on the back, making this router a great choice as a hub if you’re building or upgrading a wired network. You get four 2.5 Gbit Ethernet connections and another four gigabit connections.
LAN4 is a gaming port you’ll want to connect your PC to to take advantage of higher priority for your gaming traffic if you’re using a congested network. The proximity of the two rear Wi-Fi antennas to the Ethernet array means that it can be a little tricky to get your finger underneath to remove cables from a packed rack of cables, although with eight ports available this is unlikely to be a problem. so is. do it too often. A single USB 3 port is located on the side, next to the power connector and associated power switch. The vertical nature of the USB port is a good decision, as it removes any limitations that might have been placed on the size of the flash drive you plug into it for sharing if it had been horizontal.
But Wi-Fi speed is what you want in a Wi-Fi 7 router, and the Asus RT-BE88U offers plenty, even without the 6GHz band. We set it up to test by separating the bands (merging them into one that automatically creates the best connection is also possible) and testing the throughput speed at short distances, and again when there is a little distance and a few awkward parts of a house were placed between the two points. Here are the results:
That’s not bad, and it’s certainly fast enough for streaming and gaming, although it’s not as good as the best Wi-Fi 7 routers like the Eero Max 7 or Netgear RS700S, which can hit close to 700 Mbps.
Setting up the router means installing the Asus Router app on your phone and then scanning a QR code on the bottom of the device to connect to the Wi-Fi network. From there you can automatically detect your Internet settings if you connected it directly, or choose DHCP mode from the advanced settings to set it up as an access point.
For advanced settings, you can log into the router’s web interface, which looks the same as any Asus router from years ago. From here you can split the 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks if necessary, adjust security, and add parental controls and other filters.
Buy as…
✅ You must share: If you want to split a very fast Internet connection between many wired devices, and don’t really care about having the best Wi-Fi speed, then the BE88U is for you.
Don’t buy if…
❌ You must have the best: If you’re disgusted by the idea of having anything less than the best, and you think having an Ethernet home network is an idea from the last century, maybe spend double what it takes for good Wi-Fi 7 -device.
The router is compatible with Asus’ AI Mesh system, which allows you to link routers together to cover a larger area, so setting it up this way is welcome. There’s also a dedicated SSID for IoT devices, meaning your lights won’t confuse the network you’re trying to play with with their constant chatter, and also a guest network for when your cousins come to stay and you don’t trust it them with the password.
It should be pointed out that the Asus RT-BE88U costs almost half the price of some other Wi-Fi 7 routers, so it’s possible to overlook the slightly slower transfer speed and lack of a 6GHz network and save a few notes. The RT-BE88U also has the advantage of being easy to install, and the presence of Wi-Fi 7 means you pick up an element of future-proofing. With all those Ethernet ports, this router can form the heart of your home network for a long time.