orbi, huawei ax3 - wifi router advice needed

mmoalem · 10 Feb 2022 at 22:11

Hi all - am in the UK with broadband supplied by vodafone. Using their modem router in the ground floor of the house and upsatirs I was using an old router which lately I have replaced with the Huawei AX3 quad code wifi6 in bridge mode.

a month later I was given a set of used netgear ORBI ac3000 routers which as far as I can tell were the top of the range prior to wifi6 coming out.

Now I have to decide between selling them or replacing the huawei router and selling it instead - really not sure if the fact that its wifi6 means that its better than the ORBI? price wise a used orbi is still more than the huawei but does this means its better?

except for couple of smartphones everything else in my house doesnt support wifi6

if I do keep the ORBI should i replace the vodafone router with it completely or stay in bridge mode as extender? would that make a difference one way or the other?

Turn · 11 Feb 2022 at 05:59

If your wireless is already adequate enough just sell whatever gives you more £££

WJA96 · 11 Feb 2022 at 08:43

0007 said:
If your wireless is already adequate enough just sell whatever gives you more £££

Absolutely agree with this. The AX3 is a great router while Orbi is fine but the prices cannot be justified except to support Netgear’s marketing budget.

sandys · 11 Feb 2022 at 12:00

Couple of Orbis will give you greater coverage if you need it as you can place one some where else and extend coverage which might mean in other areas you end up with faster wifi than a Single AX3 could provide.

tigerstyle · 12 Feb 2022 at 03:24

mmoalem said:
Hi all

I saw this post celebrating the same thing the other day; great first post! 12 years in the making

I just bought an AX3, so you can't sell it to me cheaply sadly

bloodiedathame · 12 Feb 2022 at 06:42

I've got three ax3s in my house, I find them adequate and the kids and wife don't complain...

mmoalem · 12 Feb 2022 at 18:03

thanks all for the advice - i guess what I am trying to undesrtand is how a top of the range ac3000 router compares to the cheapest wifi6 router - obviously wifi 6 itself has advantages but i assume you also have to compare how each router to handle many devices, the coverage (ignoring mesh as the moment as both systems offer that possibility), the power, the cpu, the firmware etc... I was also wondering about the routing abilities of the vodafone modem+router compare to something like the ORBI - I can't switch the vodafone unit to modem only so to replace it I will need to get a VDSL modem... is it worth the hastle?

anyway I am going to try both as access points (switching between them every couple of days) to see if i can tell the difference...