Not the cheapest it has been in the past, but not a bad price given inflation and current demand. It's a discount relative to other retailers at the moment.
Quite a popular router that is well-reviewed and will have continued custom firmware support (eg Merlin, etc) well into the future if you're into that.
Review: https://dongknows.com/asus-rt-ax86u-ax5700-gaming-router-rev…
But did that come with an Australian power adapter. And a positive with this deal from sydneytec is that it's Australian stock so it will arrive much quicker than say from the UK. That's a long way for a shipment to come from the UK.
My unit arrived in Perth in less than a week from the UK. Unfortunately no-one in Perth expects deliveries across the country to be faster than the other side of the world and the UK is likely a faster and cheaper solution! Can confirm it does not come with Aus power plug from the UK.
Not even through Express Post delivery?. I recently had an Express Post delivery from Perth all the way to regional Central Queensland arrive in less than a week. It was some thing around 5 days total (including a weekend) to my door. And literally 2 days flat from Perth airport to Brisbane airport. Now you can't say that an Amazon UK order would arrive quicker.
This is the tracking to prove it.
https://auspost.com.au/mypost/track/#/details/99707723730701…
Express Post all goes through air freight. Stuff just Parcel Post that's way too slow across the country through the road freight.
I bet if you were to buy this from Sydney going to Perth through Express Post it would arrive quicker than the order from the UK. It's airport air freight. Probably literally about 3 days max. Express Post is usually only about $5 more than Parcel Post
Qantas have direct Flight to Perth from London ;-)
@archer175: Still has to go through customs. Takes time there and it's way worse every year around Christmas . You could wait multiple days for customs clearance at that time of the year with the huge backlogs.
Local orders aren't subject to a customs clearance delay
There's a difference (in signals?) between the UK and AU versions due to European regulations. UK routers always seem to be cheaper on Amazon UK compared to the Australian equivalent
I believe the UK routers have some extra different WiFi channel frequencies compared to what's on AU routers. And there's a bunch of higher frequencies available on AU routers that just aren't on UK routers. 5GHz channels 149, 153, 157, 161, 165 aren't on UK routers but are on AU routers. Those are the 5GHz channels that you really want to have on a router.
This web page shows the different WiFi channels for each countries. It's for 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi. I don't know about 6GHz WiFi. But it might be helpful.
https://www.lairdconnect.com/support/faqs/what-channels-are-…
But in my opinion you're better off going for this deal from sydneytec to get all the AU channels for not that much more money. And plus it's guaranteed to come with an AU power adapter. You see you're probably going to have to invest in a UK to AU power plug any way with that UK router so why not just spend the extra to get the AU router here.
And you get local Asus warranty instead of sending it back to Amazon UK.
@Twix: Yeah that's a huge bonus plus. And if some thing adverse happens you can always file a dispute with ebay to get your money back.
If I were up for one of these, I'd pay the extra few $$$ and get an AU stock model
2.5G ETH - > 5.7G WiFi, isn't it bit awkward not to have 10G ETH
Rock solid router, highly recommend.
For this price it would want to be dambed quite good. And here I'm using a Huawei HG659 modem router I got for only around $60 off ebay. But even that one has been going rock solid. I don't need WiFi 6 yet.
I don't get the obsession about the AU plug, nor the whinge about returning an Amazon UK package. The adaptors are about $1.00 or 2.00 on Ebay. Amazon returns are free, irrespective of whether it's UK or AU.
My last two packages from UK, including this exact router arrived in 5-6 days. I got mine for $413.00 it's cheaper by about $10 now.
As for the bands I believe there is an option on the UI to enable these channels that are excluded by default
I don't care about the plugs, but the bands do worry me, and they are locked out of the firmware. At least based on my few hours of googling to find a solution. You need to flash the CFE (not the firmware) so even merlin wouldn't enable them. I couldn't find an AU CFE rom for this router.
So yeah, AU Stock it is.
Yeah it's locked out because there's WiFi frequencies that are banned in the UK but at perfectly legal here in Australia which is why Australian models have those channels. The banned channels are probably locked out in some read only part of the modem. You can't change that.
And just to be clear it's the cfe, which from what I understand is a firmware, but one level higher than the regular firmware. So flashing Merlin does not unlock them. You need to flash the cfe, which doesn't appear trivial.
Nah the bands are hard coded. You can't enable the missing AU Wi-Fi channels by changing the region or flashing Merlin firmware on Asus routers imported from the UK.
$406 on Amazon
This is UK import. As discussed above these have different wifi bands to au stock and can not be fixed by simply updating the firmware or Merlin.
Price dropped to $383 on eBay.
Woo! Ordered one at this price.
Amazon UK via AU was selling for $407 few days ago.
I still believe prices will go down to around $370 and that’s when I will buy.