While its number of accessories is paltry compared to some products, it's really all you need for a satisfying networking experience if you're just trying to share a broadband connection between your gaming PC, smart TV, and everyone's phone. Asus has also included the AX4200's open NAT and ease of port forwarding to facilitate stable online gaming connections.
Appearance is not bad. It has a wedge-shaped design, with four antennas standing straight up from the rear end, is reasonably small and light, and has a slot on the back for wall mounting. It is not completely covered by a flashing light, so it could be used in a bedroom where you don't want to wake up in the morning with a logo etched in your eyeballs. [A 2.5Gb WAN socket is provided for when connections this fast become commonplace, and LAN integration with two Ethernet ports can send almost all the bandwidth to a single device. [Also, not only are 2.4GHz networks congested, but this router only gives out 574mbps at best, so it is recommended that you avoid using it or keep it for low-demand devices. That's still quite a lot, but if you connect a few streaming sticks or phones, a gaming PC will want to use the higher frequency band. Beamforming is also included to maximize Internet use in the general direction.
The antenna is fixed but movable, and other than a flashing orange on the side, there is little that stands out about the AX4200; it has the same basic design as the 2012 RT-N66U, and its 450mbps Wi-Fi 4 (then called 802.11n) is now generation, which is greatly outclassed by the current generation.
Still, I have no complaints. A check of a well-known shopping site shows that you paid £100 for an 11-year-old RT-N66U, so that's a 155% improvement in Wi-Fi performance for a 40% price increase.
It's easy to use, and the only thing that has changed since 2012 is how quick and convenient it is to set up a new router. If you want to make your home network more complex, you can use the AX4200 and Asus' AI Mesh to set up a repeater network to broadcast memes throughout the house. [This port can be used to share storage as a media server, AIDisk, Time Machine, FTP, or Samba, or to insert a 4G dongle as a backup connection in case the fiber is down.
The onboard software is feature-rich, running on a 2.0GHz quad-core CPU, a small amount of RAM, and flash storage. Adaptive QoS is included so that gaming machines can be first in line for Internet access, guest networking, various bandwidth and traffic monitoring tools, parental controls, intrusion prevention systems, and Asus' AIProtection suite, It can block malicious sites and prevent known infected devices from connecting through the router.
It all adds up to a well-rounded package for the right price: the AX4200 may not set records for connection speed, weight, or price, but it can quickly and easily upgrade an existing network to Wi-Fi 6, or set up wireless gaming and streaming setup for the first time, it is something that could form the hub of a new network.
2. A 5Gbps input gives some longevity - it will be a long time before domestic Internet connections reach that level - and if you want something easy to set up with significant Wi-Fi 6 speed and features, this is certainly a contender.
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