TP-Link Archer BE800 review - The speedy tri-band WLAN router with Wi-Fi 7 and up to 19 GBit/s

Not only does the TP-Link Archer BE800 | BE19000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Router have an extremely long name, but it also boasts an even longer list of features. At the heart of this is its Wi-Fi 7 support with MLO, three frequency bands at up to 320 MHz, a whopping six LAN ports of which not a single one is slower than 2.5 GBit/s, as well as USB 3.0 (Type-A).

The TP-Link Archer BE800's MRSP is around US$660.

The TP-Link Archer BE800 (BE19000) is based on the Qualcomm Networking Pro 1220 communication platform. The router supports Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be) with all three frequency bands (2.4, 5 and 6 GHz) and channel bandwidths of 20, 40, 80, 160, 240 and 320 MHz. The antenna design is 4x4 at 2.4 GHz, 5 and 6 GHz with MU-MIMO. The 320 MHz is only available to the 6 GHz band using Wi-Fi 7, which in theory doubles its transmission rates compared to Wi-Fi 6E.

TP-Link states that its maximum transmission rates are 11,520 MBit/s for 6 GHz, 5,760 MBit/s for 5 GHz and 1376 MBit/s in the 2.4 GHz network using Wi-Fi 7. Multi-link operation (MLO) allows all three bands to be used simultaneously, which can increase its data throughput to up to 18,656 MBit/s and should reduce latency. However, a suitable counterpart is a mandatory requirement for this. The TP-Link router can set up its own network for MLO.

Furthermore, the router is ideally equipped for wired use: There are four 2.5 Gbit/s ports and three 10 Gbit/s ports. One of the faster ports is a combination port that supports SPF+, meaning two ports at 10 Gbit/s are effectively available. In addition, one of the 10 Gbit/s ports must be used for the internet connection in router mode.

In our test, we concentrated on the router's WLAN speed. To do so, we used two fixed measuring points: The first (MP1) was located in the immediate vicinity of the router (1 m), without any obstacles in between. Measuring point 2 (MP2) was about five meters away as the crow flies, one floor higher and with a concrete ceiling in between. We used our reference router, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000, as a comparison device—although it doesn't support Wi-Fi 7. Three smartphones were used as clients: A Google Pixel 8 Pro, a OnePlus 12 and a Xiaomi 14—all of which are Wi-Fi 7 ready. 

Within the 2.4 GHz frequency band, the router's transmission rates in the immediate vicinity of the respective router were at the level we expected, and both devices provided no cause for criticism in this respect.

The Archer BE800 didn't always deliver the fastest values at the more distant measuring point, but it was more consistent in terms of data supply. The Pixel 8 Pro didn't seem to really want to make friends with the Asus router and only showed very slow data rates in the long-range 2.4 GHz network and also repeatedly suffered packet losses.

In the 5.0 GHz network, the TP-Link Archer BE800 was clearly superior to our reference router at short distances in most cases. However, this changed abruptly at the second measuring point, as the TP-Link router was only faster in this case when sending data to the OnePlus 12, while the ROG Rapture scored in all other measurements. The Pixel 8 Pro even completely lost its connection to the Archer BE800 when sending at the second measuring point and two thirds of all data packets were lost when receiving data.

In 6 GHz mode, the TP-Link Archer BE800 flexed its muscles and achieved very high transmission rates. The peak value we measured during our test was achieved with the Xiaomi 14, which reached almost 4 GBit/s when sending.

The channel bandwidth of 320 MHz resulted in significantly higher data rates than the ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 with Wi-Fi 6E, and the OnePlus 12 even managed to almost double the speed over short distances.

This was also noticeable in the measurements taken from further away. In this case, the Archer BE800 almost always outperformed the Asus router. 

Using Multi-Link Operation (MLO), which is a new feature of WiFi 7, all three bands can theoretically be used simultaneously to increase data transfer rates to almost 19 GBit/s. You have to activate this on the TP-Link Archer BE800. To do so, the router sets up a network with its own SSID.

During everyday use, however, it seems the optimization of the end devices is not yet perfectly designed for MLO and, as a result, bundling these frequency bands didn't work with any of the three smartphones. Although their data rates were almost always high over short distances, they didn't manage to live up to the stability and performance values of the 6 GHz network when it was addressed directly. Even so, this is likely to improve with future updates. 

The TP-Link Archer BE800 router has an MRSP of around US$660 and you can view all of the manufacturer's available routers via its Amazon storefront.