Xiaomi has put up for sale in Spain what is probably the best router low cost with WiFi 6 you will find. A wall penetrating machine with a Wi-Fi at the height of more expensive models of leading brands.
Designed to maximize Wi-Fi coverage
Xiaomi has been really pragmatic in designing the AX3200 (known as AX6S in other markets) to meet the expectations that an average user expects from a router, mainly not having to deal with wifi coverage problems and getting a more than decent speed in any corner of the house. Xiaomi solves it by equipping the equipment with a total of 8 antennas, 4 dedicated to each band.
In addition to giving more simultaneous speed to multiple devices thanks to MU-MIMO, more antennas improve coverage for two reasons. The first is that it increases the gain, which has a positive effect on the level of the signal that the router receives from the clients. The second is that the beanforming or formation of the radiation beam towards one direction, it has more resolution when aiming precisely towards the client’s position. The result is that the use of 4 antennas compared to the 2 that equip other routers clearly makes a difference regarding Wi-Fi coverage and the speed that is obtained at the same distance from the router.
If your home is very large and you still have coverage problems, you can always get other devices with the system mesh from Xiaomi to create a wifi mesh with roaming between access points. My recommendation is that you get a second AX3200 and connect it by cable to the main one.
Two disadvantages that are not so
And I say that Xiaomi has been pragmatic when designing this router, because while it provides the equipment with good Wi-Fi, it has renounced two quite dispensable features in order to reduce the cost.
The first is that the 2.4GHz band can’t work with WiFi 6, since it only supports up to WiFi 4. Is this a problem? Ask yourself if you have any home automation equipment at home, such as Wi-Fi switches or bulbs. These use the 2.4 GHz band and force the network to work on WiFi n when connected. Do you have a laptop or mobile with WiFi 5? When these devices connect to 2.4 GHz they are actually using WiFi 4 (remember that WiFi 5 only works on 5 GHz). For many years to come, in most homes the 2.4 GHz band will continue to serve older devices and be forced to work on WiFi 4, so for all practical purposes you won’t miss a thing.
The second disadvantage is that the 5 GHz band does not support 160 MHz widths, as other WiFi 6 routers allow, which initially reduces the speed by half. But there is only one 160 MHz channel for the whole world, which is directly impractical in neighborhoods saturated with Wi-Fi. To this we must add that the wider the channel width you will have less coverage and that because the only 160 MHz channel uses some channels DFS will automatically switch to a width of 80 MHz when detecting a radar. In short, you will not miss the fact that the AX3200 does not have 160 MHz channels.
Is the AX3200 better than the AX3600?
If we compare the Mi Router AX3200 with the one that until now was the best router low cost Xiaomi, the AX3600, which many consider a good machine, the new model comes out very well, especially when checking the price difference.
To compare them, the first thing will be to forget about the home automation antenna that equips the AX3600. It is only used by devices of the brand and thanks to it Xiaomi cheats a little. If we subtract the speed of this antenna from the tricky AX3600 nomenclature, we are left with an AX3000 router.
Where the AX3600 is superior is in the processor, the amount of RAM and that the 2.4 GHz band does support WiFi 6 (although it only has 2 antennas). If you have Xiaomi home automation, a very large number of devices using the network and you can afford the difference, go ahead with it.
You can compare both models in the following table, where I also add the Mi Router AX9000, the Xiaomi gaming router that already plays in another league.
| 2,4GHz | 5GHz | Processor | RAM | VAN | LAN | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mi Router AX3200 | 600Mb WiFi 4, 40Mhz MIMO 4:4 | 2402 Mb WiFi 6, 80Mhz MIMO 4:4 | MediaTek 2 núcleos 1,35GHz | 256MB | 1Gb | 3x1Gb | 59,9€ |
| Mi Router AX3600 | 573Mb WiFi 6, 40MHz MIMO 2:2 | 2402 Mb WiFi 6, 80Mhz MIMO 4:4 | Qualcomm 4 núcleos 1,4 GHz | 512MB | 1Gb | 3x1Gb | 129,99€ |
| Mi Router AX9000 | 1148Mb WiFi 6, 40MHz MIMO 4:4 | 4804 Mb WiFi 6, 160Mhz MIMO 4:4 | Qualcomm 4 núcleos 2,2GHz | 1GB | 2.5Gb | 4x1Gb | 199,99€ |
You can get an idea of the difference between a cheap Huawei WiFi 6 router like the AX3 (with the same hardware as the Honor Router 3) with 2 antennas versus a Xiaomi with 4 antennas in this article: This is how WiFi 6 routers behave low cost of Huawei and Xiaomi by taking them to the limit
Price and where to buy the Mi Router AX3200
The equipment is for sale by the official authorized store Mi Store Spain for €59.99 with free shipping from Madrid. The 3-year warranty is offered by Xiaomi Spain. It has global firmware, and supports VLAN, a basic feature to replace an operator’s router.
This article is not sponsored and is just my unbiased opinion of the team. Many people ask in the forum for a recommended cheap router and this is my answer.
- Although the specifications of the AX3200 say that it offers 800 Mb in 2.4 GHz, this is achieved with 256-QAM, a non-standard modulation in WiFi 4 that only devices with a Mediatek chipset take advantage of, so we have preferred to show the standard speed.
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