Devolo BE9300 review: Powerful Wi-Fi 7 for those hard-to-reach rooms
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The Devolo BE9300 performed brilliantly in my large home, bringing strong Wi-Fi to those awkward corners. Four Ethernet ports per node add to its appeal, but there’s one cheaper alternative worth considering before you buy.
The most annoying thing about bad Wi-Fi is how good it can be in the wrong room. You can get a cracking speed test next to the router, then walk upstairs and find your video call turns into a slideshow.
A mesh system is what you'll need if you want to fix that, and the Devolo BE9300 is one of the latest, and one of the most high-tech systems you can currently buy.
It makes a fairly convincing case for itself, at least on paper.
It's a tri-band Wi-Fi 7 system that uses 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz. I can offer speeds of up to 9.3Gbps, but obviously you're limited to the speeds you pay for.
What a mesh system is good at is ensuring the WiFi you're paying for reaches the furthest extremities of your house, and remains strong and fast.
The Devolo BE9300 costs £429.99 for two units, or £639.99 for three, so it needs to do more than make the numbers look good next to the router.
What I liked about the Devolo BE9300
In the interests of background, the BE9300 is a model up from Devolo's popular sister model, the BE6500, which I've also tested. It was a fabulous setup, but it lacked proper tri-band support.
While the older model operates on 2.4 and 5 GHz, it only works optionally on 2.4 and 6 GHz. Using both simultaneously is not possible. The BE9300 addresses this, and that can be pretty critical for some people.
For most people, though, all you'll be interested in is how effective the BE9300 is at ensuring you have complete WiFi coverage in your home. My house is pretty big, but it's performed incredibly well. You'll need to be careful where you place each node, but it can really help you achieve decent speeds in even the furthest corners, and maximising your WiFi performance is what these kits are all about.
I also like seeing four Ethernet ports on each unit. If you’ve got a desktop PC, a games console, and a TV in the same room, you can plug them straight into a mesh node. That’s useful even if the node itself connects wirelessly to the main unit, although the quality of that wireless link still matters.
What I didn’t like about the Devolo BE9300
Of those four Ethernet ports, only one runs at 2.5Gbps. If you use it to connect the main unit to a faster broadband service, the other wired ports on that unit are limited to 1Gbps each.
That won’t bother most households, but if you’ve got a fast wired network as well as fast broadband, it’s a compromise I wouldn’t expect to make at this price.
While Devolo has addressed the use of all three bands, it hasn't addressed another minor niggle. There are limitations to what you can do in the accompanying app. It can all be sorted on a web browser, but that won't suit everyone.
The price is also worth discussing. The BE6500 costs £249.99 for two units, and the three-pack is £369.99, so that's still less than two BE9300 units.
If you’re trying to reach a back bedroom through several thick walls, a third node you can put in the right place may do more for you than an extra band.
Overall verdict: Should you buy a Devolo BE9300?
I’d shortlist the BE9300 if you’ve got fast broadband, devices that can use 6GHz, and a couple of rooms where you want wired connections without running cables through the house.
The four Ethernet ports per node are useful, and make this a more versatile bit of kit than the headline speed suggests.
If your main complaint is that the Wi-Fi gives up halfway up the stairs, I’d start by comparing it with the cheaper BE6500.
The BE9300’s extra banding versatility gives you more wireless capacity, but I’d pay the extra £180 only if I knew what I was going to use it for.
Overall it's a terrific bit of kit, and good value for money compared to some systems, but it'll be considered a luxury tech item for more casual users.