According to ZyXEL, the Armor Z1 is a Wave 2, 4x4-stream router, but unlike the Netgear Nighthawk X4s and TP-Link Archer C2600, it’s merely MU-MIMO “ready”. It’s classed as AC2350, with a 600Mbits/sec maximum link speed on the 2.4GHz frequency, versus the 800Mbits/sec supported by true AC2600 routers.
That’s not to say the Armor Z1 is slow, however. It managed to reach a top speed of 76MB/sec at close range over 802.11ac, which is above average for a router in its price range. As ever, 802.11n performance is noticeably slower, at 17.3MB/sec, but, again, this is on par with competing models. Unfortunately, results get worse over long range – 25.5MB/sec over 802.11ac and just 10.7MB/sec on a 2x2-stream iPad mini over 5GHz 802.11n place the Armor Z1 firmly in the…