70
Brandon Hill
Tom's Hardware
“With a $329 price tag, the RT‑BE86U is a tough sell in the competitive Wi‑Fi 7 router market.”
Critical Assessment
What Critics Praise
- Great performance and throughput
- Excellent port selection
- Very good coverage
- Small footprint
- Configurable via app and web portal
- Four 2.5 Gbps LAN Ports
Points of Contention
- Pricey for a dual‑band router
- Missing 6 GHz band
- Looks very router‑y
- Does not support 320 MHz channels
- Middling file‑transfer speeds
Professional Reviews
3 reviews from 3 critics70
John R. Delaney
PCMag
“The Asus RT‑BE86U is a dual‑band wireless router that uses multi‑gig connectivity to deliver solid throughput performance, but its lack of some key Wi‑Fi 7 technologies may discourage early adopters.”
60
Wes Davis
Gizmodo
“Good Wi‑Fi routers cost money; that’s just a fact. But you quickly run into diminishing returns when you get into the $300‑plus range, especially as the majority of us don’t need super high‑end Wi‑Fi performance.”
