TP-Link BE550 Wi-Fi 7 Router Review & Speed Test

I bought the cheapest Wi-Fi 7 router on the market and we're going to test it against the Wi-Fi 6E router this is the TPL link Archer b550 Wi-Fi 7 router this router boasts 9,300 megabits per second of total bandwidth but that's not the case but more about that later in the video but what are we testing the be 550 against this is the Asus RT axe 7800 Wi-Fi 6C router and good news we've already tested this router for the past 6 months and it performs well but we'll talk about that later with the speed tests so we chose the tplink b550 because of the affordable price and it has all the features we could possibly need except maybe a 10 gig lamp port or SFP plus support but to be honest those features are just overkill for our current home networking needs the be 550 comes with five 2.5 gig ports one Wan and four land which means we can upgrade our 1 gig fiber to 2 gig fiber and the be 550 can handle it with no problem and this router also includes USB 3.0 for different networking applications like sharing files or a printer full disclosure we bought this router with our own money the price we paid for the b550 was $269 and we got a sweet $20 discount on top of that and as a bonus one of our amazing patreon supporters gifted us a $100 Amazon gift card shout out to Gerald llin high five so we paid a total of $170 for this router so even if this router sucks we're only out 170 bucks at first glance the b550 looks more like a Bluetooth speaker than a wireless router it's basically a standard rectangle box with some dot matric lights on the front that would be kind of cool having a Bluetooth speaker and a wireless router all inone the size of this router is much smaller than the older and more expensive be 800 and be 900 routers and all connections are on the back this router has no external antennas all six Wi-Fi antennas are internal so the be 550 will fit in most areas the be 550 has some pretty good ventilation at the top and at the bottom and just a heads up there is an internal fan but it's very quiet this router is powered with a standard 110 240 volt power adapter and one more thing to note this router is not mountable unless you want to get creative and use zip ties or velcro straps the be 550 has a ceiling bandwidth at 2.5 gbits per second and the fastest speed you can get on any connected devices wired or Wireless regardless of how capable the Wi-Fi 7 standard is your best eyes P plan for this router is 2 gigs because if you go to a 3 gig plan you'll be wasting a half a gig of speed the TPL link b550 is label as a triband be 9300 the be signifies the Wi-Fi 7 standard and the 9300 is the R's combined Wi-Fi bandwidth of 9300 megabits per second however if you add up all three bands the 2.4 the 5 and the 6 GHz band the total bandwidth is 9,214 megabits per second so TP Link did Round Up And to be honest honest those speeds are just not going to happen with our current ISP speeds networking hardware and end devices and this is probably true for your situation as well also there's just not that many Wi-Fi 7 compatible clients as of April 2024 however the newer Samsung s24 phones are all Wi-Fi 7 compatible as well as the s23 ultra but as up today Samsung has not enabled Wi-Fi 7 on the s23 ultra and I'm not sure why in one more bit of good news if you plan on buying a laptop in 2024 then you probably have a Wi-Fi 7 chip in it thanks to the Intel be2 200 card but all devices prior to 2024 are not Wi-Fi 7 compatible and that's billions of devices so Wi-Fi 7 speeds are theoretical for most situations let's take a quick look at the TPL link web interface this interface is robust with a ton of features including vpns Dynamic DNS port forwarding qos parental controls and TP Link Home Shield basic which is free however hom Shield Pro will set you back6 a month which includes some added features so now let's get to the fun part the all important speed tests all tests were perform the same with each router I didn't have any computer-based Wi-Fi 7n devices during my testing so the numbers on the chart will reflect Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 60 clients and end devices on both wireless routers I tested each band individually the 2.4 the five and the 6 GHz bands I tested 10 ft away with clear and direct line of sight to the the router and then 40 ft away with no line of sight to the router basically in this room each test was performed three times and I took the middle speed as the average because Wireless speed tests can vary quite a bit also I did wired speed tests for both routers and once again each test was performed three times and I took the middle speed as the average additionally I did a wired speed test on my PS5 and lastly I'll show you some comparison data from different sources that include NAS performance reading right time s and other additional speed tests and all this data will give us a clear picture of what Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6C can do for your home network so here are the results from the Wi-Fi 7 versus wi-fi 6C speed tests the be 550 performed the best at 10 ft with all the bands the 2.4 the 5 and the 6 GHz bands with a clear line of sight to the router at 10 ft the be 550 had lower latency and super fast download and upload speeds the be5 50 averaged about 550 megabits per second download and 700 megabits per second upload and average latency was around 15 milliseconds and additionally I did a 20 ft away with clear line sight to the router and all the numbers were nearly the same the be 550 performs very well At Close Range very impressive however the ASUS router performed better at longer distances especially at the 40 ft range with no line of sight to the router the ASUS router had the faster speeds on the five and 6 GHz bands the this could be due to the fact that the router has six external antennas and the b550 does not strangely however the b550 had lower latency on all the bands and performed better on the 2.4 GHz band and the b550 performed better on the wired speed tests the b550 had 944 megabits per second download and 948 megabits per second upload once again we did three speed tests each and took the middle speed as the average and one thing to note these speeds do exceed my's max speed needs and this could be due to the 2.5 gig Wan and L ports and the wired speed test for the ASUS router was a little bit lower than the be 550 but not by much let's go ahead and look at some independent research I found on both these routers to be clear they labeled the b550 as the be 9300 but they are the same router with this additional information you can see the NAS performance the read and right times are pretty impressive the be 550 performance is very impressive especially at this price range so with all this information which router and router standard is the best for your home network Wi-Fi 7 or Wi-Fi 6E the bottom line is the be 550 is perfect for a small home network that wants to Future proof their networking needs and when I say small home that's around 1,500 ft like an apartment condo town home or small single story home anything larger will require the more expensive be 800 or be 900 router this router will optimize your wired and wireless speeds and the USB 3.0 will provide fast read and right times for your Nas or media server the ASUS router is a very capable Wi-Fi 6C router and is quite a bit cheaper than the be 550 if you're on a strict budget and live in a large home then the ASUS router would be your best choice neither of these routers will work for a two-story home unless you utilize the mesh options and that requires additional mesh compatible routers which means more money and speaking of money TPL link offers Home Shield Pro for $6 a month which is $71 a year this Subscription Service offers additional fees features and I'm not a fan of subscription services for home networking equipment it's actually pretty annoying tping should offer all the features without the subscription Services these Wi-Fi 7 routers are very expensive and paying more money to get all the features seems a bit dirty TP Link should get ahead of the game and get rid of those annoying subscription Services all the other companies like Netgear Asus or lynus all of them have those annoying subscription services and TP Link could set themselves apart by getting rid of them and they could Market their products as subscription free and consumers would love it and TP Link would sell a lot more routers and networking Hardware just saying but the big question is which wi-fi standard should you choose for your home network Wi-Fi 7 or Wi-Fi 6E Wi-Fi 7 does offer greater improvements over Wi-Fi 6E but for most people who are upgrading from Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E makes the most sense it's plenty fast to handle gigabit class internet or even 2.5 gig internet besides the speed improvements it's much better at handling a large volume of devices compared to Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 and the additional 6 GHz band will help avoid interference on the 2.4 in 5 GHz band especially if you live in a dense location like a big city and as I mentioned earlier Wi-Fi 7 rouers are still very expensive as of 2024 and will probably remain so till 2025 the b550 is the cheapest Wi-Fi 7 router on the market priced at 269 and remember it's going to be a while before you have a decent amount of Wi-Fi 7 and available clients like lap tops or phones the reality is Wi-Fi 60 is plenty for most households and is the cheaper option if you're going to be upgrading a bunch of your tech devices like laptops and phones and you want a multi- gig wire connection Wi-Fi 7 is the choice for future proofing and allowing you to make the most of your internet connection all TPL link Wi-Fi 7 routers will be listed below at the best prices you can get and if you're in the market for a Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E router check out this video right here my top five wireless routers for 2024 and with that guys make sure to like share subscribe and comment and for God's sakes smash the Bell icon and I'll see you in the next video real soon high five peace