Yet, somehow, most of us still rely on our standard modems to do most of the heavy lifting. These modems are often entry-level devices provided by our internet providers. They are good enough for a small household with a handful of devices in close vicinity but can’t possibly match the needs of dedicated power users who can’t live without uninterrupted low-latency high-speed connections.
For users like that, you need a dedicated router that can boost the speed of your internet while also allowing multiple devices to access the full bandwidth potential in real time. The ASUS RT-AX53U is one such router, and we are here to take a close look at its features and performance to see if it is worth the price.
The AX53U is an AX1800 2x2 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 router that comes with a sleek body that is reliably built with tough materials. The whole body is plastic, with massive vents on the top for airflow, as well as four plastic antennas that are located on the sides and rear of the machine.
It houses a Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) chip that supports 80MHz bandwidth and 1024-QAM for dramatically faster wireless connections. This translates to up to 1.5x faster speeds than regular 802.11ac dual-band routers. So much so that you can get a total networking speed of up to 1800Mbps, with 574 Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 1201 Mbps on the 5GHz band.
It’s not just the speed that is better but also how you utilize it since the router also supports MU-MIMO and OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) technologies. These technologies help the router get over the hurdles of previous-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi that could only handle one device at a time on each network channel. Thanks to OFDMA, the AX53U can divide each channel into multiple sub-channels, which allows multiple devices to be bundled together for simultaneous transmission. This not only improves the network capacity by 4x but also reduces latency and makes your internet connection more efficient.
This can work on both your regular Wi-Fi connection as well as 3G/4G SIMs since you can share that internet as well by plugging in a dongle in the USB port. In addition to the USB port, you also get 4 RJ45 connections, with 1 Gigabit WAN port and 3 Gigabit LAN ports. These gigabit connections are up to 10x faster than regular Ethernet connections. This means you can get the most out of both wired and wireless connections going through this router.
All this makes this router a pretty capable machine when it comes to connecting you to the internet. However, the internet is not always a safe place to be, which is why ASUS has also included their AI-Protection system with this machine. ASUS AI-Protection is a commercial-grade network security system powered by Trend Micro.
It protects all connected devices from malicious attacks, even if they have no antivirus capability of their own. It does so by blocking common internet-based attacks before they even reach the network. Moreover, if an infected device is detected on the network, the system instantly blocks it to prevent it from sending any personal information to malicious servers. This makes your computing and IoT devices safer to use without having to invest in separate software or service.
The great thing is that you don’t need to do anything special to access any of these features, as you can simply connect with the ASUSWRT dashboard UI to set up, monitor, and control network applications. This UI can be accessed through any web browser, or you can always use the ASUS router app for the same. Both avenues give you a variety of options to control any and all connections that go through your router, including but not limited to real-time traffic monitoring, bandwidth limiting, parental control, guest modes, and even an internet scheduler for times when you don’t want the internet to be used at all.
Thanks to supporting Alexa skills, you can also control all these functions via voice commands, which brings you one step closer to the connected home dream. You can explore the benefits of all these features and more by getting this router, which only costs AED 346. This is not a big price to pay for true peace of mind and rapid fast internet speeds.
