Review Asus ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro Wi-Fi 7 mesh router review: Quad-Band Wi-Fi 7 Performance Champion

[Admin]

With a high price tag to match its blazing performance, the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro is the new Wi-Fi 7 speed king.

Asus ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro Wi-Fi 7 mesh router review: Quad-Band Wi-Fi 7 Performance Champion : Read more

 

[das_stig]

$1000 and still using last generation parts. Only good thing about Asus routers, the interface is nicely designed.

 

[magbarn]

Are modern wifi routers really that hard to manufacture or is there a wifi cartel like SSDs/memory? I'm shocked that these devices are going for GPU prices.

 

[das_stig]

Are modern wifi routers really that hard to manufacture or is there a wifi cartel like SSDs/memory? I'm shocked that these devices are going for GPU prices.

No they all basically use the same Wi-Fi chips from Broadcom, Realtek or Qualcomm and their propriety OS just gets driver updates, they just milk consumers.
Other components like cpus, memory, storage are source on open market at discount prices for quantity, cases are injected moulded in seconds and circuit boards offloaded to cheapest 3rd party bidder. You can bet that this $1000 router is probably no more than a few hundred dollars in BOM and labour.

 

[HideOut]

With a high price tag to match its blazing performance, the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro is the new Wi-Fi 7 speed king.

Asus ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro Wi-Fi 7 mesh router review: Quad-Band Wi-Fi 7 Performance Champion : Read more

its absolutely pathetic that a supposed tech journalism site like this is giving any kind of kudos to a router thats over $1000 for home users AND has only 1 GbE ports. I mean even @ $300 they should be 2.5GbE. But hey, as always this 'news and reviews' site gets a kickback if you click on the link.

 

[HideOut]

its absolutely pathetic that a supposed tech journalism site like this is giving any kind of kudos to a router thats over $1000 for home users AND has only 1 GbE ports. I mean even @ $300 they should be 2.5GbE. But hey, as always this 'news and reviews' site gets a kickback if you click on the link.

Via your own sale links from today (and again, you get a kickback) a router thats 1/3 the price with multigig...

https://www.tomshardware.com/networ...ter-hits-new-low-usd399-ahead-of-black-friday

 

[spongiemaster]

its absolutely pathetic that a supposed tech journalism site like this is giving any kind of kudos to a router thats over $1000 for home users AND has only 1 GbE ports. I mean even @ $300 they should be 2.5GbE. But hey, as always this 'news and reviews' site gets a kickback if you click on the link.

Based on the picture, it looks like each node has 2 10GbE ports. Not sure why you want 2.5GbE ports in addition to that. If you can afford $1200 for two mesh routers, you should be connecting to the 10GbE port to a 10GbE switch with all the ports you need. The overwhelming majority for consumers electronics (consoles, TV's, streaming boxes, etc.) have nothing better than 1 GbE ports on them, which is what you would connect to the other ports on these nodes.

That said, $1200 is a truly absurd price for a consumer targeted 2 node mesh system. People complain about GPU price increases, but networking gear prices have seen far more significant prices increases with less benefits to the consumer.

 

[saunupe1911]

Asus support sucks though! Been using ZenWiFi ET8 since 2021 and a recent firmware bricked both satellites. Tech support was worthless since my warranty was up and honestly it wasn't much they could do anyways. Finally I was able to reset it and got it back working smh.

Also I would strongly advise upgrading your modem to the new Netgear CM3000 if you targeting these types of upload/download speeds. Helluva upgrade to my network

 

[atomicWAR]

Based on the picture, it looks like each node has 2 10GbE ports. Not sure why you want 2.5GbE ports in addition to that. If you can afford $1200 for two mesh routers, you should be connecting to the 10GbE port to a 10GbE switch with all the ports you need. The overwhelming majority for consumers electronics (consoles, TV's, streaming boxes, etc.) have nothing better than 1 GbE ports on them, which is what you would connect to the other ports on these nodes.

That said, $1200 is a truly absurd price for a consumer targeted 2 node mesh system. People complain about GPU price increases, but networking gear prices have seen far more significant prices increases with less benefits to the consumer.

I run two PCs with 120TB of storage each on 2.5GbE connected to a 2.5GbE switch to minimize backup times between rigs and that is before we talk about laptops I may or may not want wired depending on workload. So at the very least I also need a 2.5GbE port on the router free for my mesh network that is connected to my modem which eats one 10GbE. If your running that router in a mesh like this I'd want to have that mesh hard wired at 10GbE for the back-haul which eats the other 10GbE port in turn only leaving me with a 1GbE port for those PCs connected to my switch to plug into bottlenecking my whole home server setup both internal and externally...so yeah I would expect to see 2.5GbE or better on this router. 1GbE is honestly dated in my opinion for high end devices like this even if it is good enough for streaming. I still have PC's or switches connected to some of these ports that will use 2.5GbE of bandwidth be it for downloads or backups to my home servers. I have to agree with Hideout about ports on this one though not so much on some of their other claims.

 

[newtechldtech]

for such price I can get extra 2 lines internet for 5 years from my ISP to cover my home without the need of such "Mesh". no thank you.

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

Shouldn’t you best testing Asus’s top WiFi 7 mesh system with Netgear’s similarly priced top WiFi 7 mesh system, the ORBI 970? Instead of Netgear’s budget WiFi 7 mesh system, the orbi 770? The competitor comparison is very disingenuous and potentially misleads potential consumers.

 

[spongiemaster]

I run two PCs with 120TB of storage each on 2.5GbE connected to a 2.5GbE switch to minimize backup times between rigs and that is before we talk about laptops I may or may not want wired depending on workload. So at the very least I also need a 2.5GbE port on the router free for my mesh network that is connected to my modem which eats one 10GbE. If your running that router in a mesh like this I'd want to have that mesh hard wired at 10GbE for the back-haul which eats the other 10GbE port in turn only leaving me with a 1GbE port for those PCs connected to my switch to plug into bottlenecking my whole home server setup both internal and externally...so yeah I would expect to see 2.5GbE or better on this router. 1GbE is honestly dated in my opinion for high end devices like this even if it is good enough for streaming. I still have PC's or switches connected to some of these ports that will use 2.5GbE of bandwidth be it for downloads or backups to my home servers. I have to agree with Hideout about ports on this one though not so much on some of their other claims.

This isn't the product for you. While it can be used as your primary router, this pair and all the variations are ideally used as mesh nodes only. I have the XT9 version of this with the nodes on opposite ends of the house and a router in the center of the house. Based on your setup, you should be buying a router with the ports you need and then one of these nodes to place elsewhere in your home. 1 10gbe port to the router, the other to a 10gbe switch if necessary. All the 1gbe devices plug into the other node ports.

 

[atomicWAR]

This isn't the product for you.

That's the thing though with one small tweak of the specs... it could be the product for me as I do run a mesh even now. But yes as it is spec'd now I won't buy it as this product would fail to meet my needs properly. And I am in the market for a wifi 7 mesh setup... its a shame.

 

[kyzarvs]

That's the thing though with one small tweak of the specs... it could be the product for me as I do run a mesh even now. But yes as it is spec'd now I won't buy it as this product would fail to meet my needs properly. And I am in the market for a wifi 7 mesh setup... its a shame.

If you really have 240TB of storage at home (??), then why aren't you NAS-ing it?

 

[atomicWAR]

If you really have 240TB of storage at home (??), then why aren't you NAS-ing it?

Never met a nas I really liked honestly, though some are serviceable. I have used them in the past but vastly prefer a home server setup and seeing how I need two high powered PCs anyways... its easier for me to run my them as home servers/local backup (I have offsite as well atp). So short answer is preference.

 

[HideOut]

for such price I can get extra 2 lines internet for 5 years from my ISP to cover my home without the need of such "Mesh". no thank you.

VERY good point!

 

[aaronage]

Gosh the incessant whinging here is tiring
“I use wired networking, why doesn’t this wireless solution cater to me!”
“It’s expensive, I could use that money for some other totally unrelated things!”
“I want the latest and greatest but I don’t want to pay for it, ugh!”