ASUS announces a trio of WiFi 6-capable mesh routers for $300

Over the last year, we’ve seen a variety of WiFi 6 routers and mesh systems make their way out to consumers, but few have been as affordable as the ZenWiFi AX Mini (XD4) three-piece bundle ASUS announced today. At $300, ASUS has priced its latest mesh router between Amazon’s entry-level Eero system and Google’s Nest WiFi, the three-packs for which cost $249 and $349 when they’re not on sale. Notably, neither of those two systems include WiFi 6 support. For the most part, you’ve had to pay significantly more to get mesh routers with WiFi 6. For instance, the Orbi system Netgear announced last year costs $700.  

For the price, ASUS also didn’t cut a lot of corners with the AX Mini. Working together, the three units can provide 4,800 square feet of coverage, and speeds of up to 1,201Mbps over a 5GHz connection. They also come with full support for OFDMA, a WiFi 6 feature that allows the router to portion a single channel to serve multiple devices simultaneously. However, they’re still missing some features you’ll find on more expensive routers. For instance, none of the three devices are tri-band routers, so they can’t use an additional frequency band to communicate. That’s a feature that can help limit congestion on the busier 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Additionally, none of the three devices come with a multigigabit WAN port, making them less future-proof than some other routers on the market.