ASUS RT-AX86U Review

A Router that does almost everything with speed

Routers are one of the essential product that is always with us, whether its at home or office, basically one of the gateway to connect all your devices towards the internet, so that you can surf and work, to an extent, even manage your files or play some game.

Today lets talk about a Wi-Fi 6 router from ASUS, the RT-AX86U, a router that is design mainly not just for games, but for most of your connectivity needs.

Design & Ports

The ASUS RT-AX86U is basically designed that is based on a modern look, with it’s red and black color accent mix surrounding the all hard durable plastic design that is perfectly fit at any living room, or in a office front desk. Upon that the three included antenna sits nice and fit on top of the base unit and of course, it is adjustable towards the directions needs to be covered by the area you wanted to use upon. The whole weight of the unit is just around 810 grams, on router category wise, it is consider slightly heavy however it is much attributed from the heatsink inside that is constantly keeping the router cool over normal operation use with a few wireless device connected to the router.

Upon looking at the front the white LED is shining bright to indicate the status of your Wi-Fi connections, LAN, Internet, and specifically an extra 2.5GBPS LAN indicator were also present to show the presences and readiness of the router. Looking at the back over to the middle, there is a slate of lines with holes that is ventilating all the heat away. Further below is the set of ports. Starting from the left is the power adaptor slot, a physical on/off switch, two USB 3.0 which you can use for connecting printers or USB HDD, a dedicated 2.5GBPS LAN port, a WAN port for connecting to your Modem, and 4 Gigabit LAN port which you can connect to your PC, Internet TV, Android Box, etc.

Specifications and features

The ASUS RT-AX86U is basically a Dual Band AX5700 based router that runs on Broadcom 1.8Ghz Processor with 1GB of RAM. Under such specs, we can say that ASUS has fit in very good SOC and feasible amount of memory in a router and it is pretty much needed to handle all the load operations.

Over to the star of the show, which is the Wi-Fi, it supports 4×4 MiMo, and can range quite far, which specs wise it can cover at least half of any homes or office in general with peaked theoretical speed that go up beyond 4804mbps at normal range without thick walls with Wi-Fi 6 certified devices. Besides that the router also supports legacy connections from its standard 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz (Wi-Fi5) Wi-Fi radio A/B/G/N and AC. If you needed an extension to your wireless connection, AI Mesh is there where you can purchase from any ASUS authorized outlet to further expand the area of connection.

Other features such as Mobile Game Mode, Lifetime Free Internet Security from Trend Micro, Adaptive QoS, Open NAT and Port Forwarding were all present as standard.

Setup and Performance

Setting up the ASUS RT-AX86U is relatively easy, with the out of the box menu can be access via web browser or from ASUS Router App which you can download from iOS or Android’s Google Play. Once access to it you will be greeted with a few clicks, button and configurations to set your WAN port with your ISP username, Password, followed by your Wi-Fi configuration and enable AX Wi-Fi 6 to further utilize all the speed you need. Once all its done, it will be saved and you will be greeted again with a standard ASUS Router menu, which is resemblance to any standard Router web menu, that if you wish , you can configure other settings such as adaptive QOS, profiles, game mode, Google Assistant, Firmware Upgrade, Remote Management, VPN Client, LAN Aggregation, etc.

Performance wise, a few round of the testing shows over the internet is very much satisfied and I am happy with the expected performance that holds consistently over 100Mbps via my ISP with low ping and jitter rates when benchmarking and even playing a few games. Torrenting also shows good consistent speed which 5GB file can be downloaded within 30 minutes. Local file test transfer to my WD NAS connected to the LAN port also show stable speed rates with 4GB file test which can be fully transferred over in slightly less than 5 minutes and no drops or disconnection during test via Wi-Fi 6 Laptop. Besides that what I loved the most is using the Asus Router app which I can remotely control, manage and monitor the router and with all the devices connected to it, including even generic TV box and its identification of connection.

Hardware Specs

Verdict and Conclusion

All I can say is the ASUS RT-AX86U packs a punch, from features to specifications, and vast array of management menu that is cater towards simple minded user and the advance enthusiast that further wanted to delve into much in depth optimization towards the router which can further enhance your usage and level up further with the gaming mode that ensure low ping consistent connection over your connected gaming console or PC alike. With remote management available from the app, this makes it appealing if you have kids at home where you can have parental control over connection timers and many features waiting to be discovered. Till date this router is still one of the powerful ones that you can get with a retail price of RM1,398 from ASUS Outlets and Lazada or Shopee Online Stores

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