The Best WiFi 7 Routers, What That Means, and Why It Even Matters

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links. Here’s how we test products and why you should trust us.Amazon/Tp-LinkIf your home internet is slow, it may be due to an old router on an outdated Wi-Fi standard. That was me for a number of years, until I bought this. This is the router I U.S.e every day for my home internet. I bought it with my own money so I can be perfectly honest and not hold back on criticism. So here goes... it’s pretty good! I set it up and it works and, I’m assuming due to the three-band Wi-Fi 7 and MLO, improved download and browsing speed on all my devices.Most service issues I’ve had were caused by my ISP being the worst company on Earth and not the router. We’ve only had one instance where we had to call customer service and frankly, calling TP-Link customer service from the US is a pain in the ass. I didn’t love that experience. Aside from that, it gets the job done.If you half remember a headline or some recent rumblings about TP-Link and the FCC, you might be wondering if you are even allowed to buy this. The answer is yes, totally. Technically, in March the FCC banned authorizations for consumer routers manufactured outside the US. While most other manufacturers have gained conditional approval, TP-Link still is not on that list. This means that going forward, new TP-Link routers (likely Wi-Fi 8) will not be able to be sold in this country. But does it mean anything for how the brand’s current equipment performs? No, not from what I’ve seen.If you have worries about TP-Link for security reasons, or worry about the government turning your shit off in the night, go Netgear. It was the first retail consumer router company to get conditional FCC approval to continue to sell its new routers in the US. Again, I don’t think this is a concern or should be a purchasing factor. However, if you just want a router suited for a slightly larger space than the last TP-Link, you’ll want the Netgear Nighthawk.This specific router is equipped to service Wi-Fi 7 and lower in spaces up to 2,500 square feet. It has two 2.5 Gbps LAN ports and two 1 Gbps Ethernet LAN ports so you can wire in consoles and a PC for high-speed gaming, streaming, or content creation. For those who need a little extra oomph, this is the router of choice.Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowIf you have an even larger space than that, mesh might be the best route to go. In layman’s terms, a mesh router is a system that lets you use one main router and a series of external “node” routers to create a Wi-Fi system that reaches all corners of the house. This eliminates dead zones like the one in the room we always stay in every time i visit my fiancée’s parents’ house. If they had mesh, the router not reaching that room wouldn’t be a problem. As it is, you’ve probably lived in (or still live in) a similar situation, where some rooms just don’t have as strong a connection as others. Mesh is the solve to that.Eero is Amazon’s in-house brand. They are reliable and always easy to find. Best of all, new Eero routers are backward compatible with older generations of Eero devices. This means you can always keep building and expanding your network, and the average consumer doesn’t have to worry about the number on the router.The other route to go when you have a big space, especially if you’re paying for fast, gigabit internet, is one big router. This is another Wi-Fi 7 TP-Link, only much larger and more capable than the one I have.The two 10 Gbps ports are what make this a top pick. For reference, my home internet doesn’t even hit one gigabit over Wi-Fi and the two high-speed LAN ports top out at 2.5 Gbps. In total, this one router can reach a space of up to 3,600 square feet. The unit itself is well... it’s a unit, and a bit of a space hog, but if you need this for your home internet chances are the space won’t be an issue.