FRITZ!Box 4690 WiFi 7 Router Review

1. Introduction2. FRITZ!Box 46903. FRITZ!Box 4690 Administration Interface4. FRITZ!Box 4690 Analysis5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

We've generally been impressed by AVM wireless broadband routers here at KitGuru. They're a little quirky, but performance is generally good and the features are top of the pile, with unique telephony and smart home capabilities. Since we last looked at one of the company's products, the AVM name has disappeared and now it's just FRITZ! This doesn't mean any change in ownership, however, just a simplification. Speaking of simplifying things, the FRITZ!Box 4690 is for people who already have a cable modem or fibre, so don't want the complication of a device with this built in. It's intended to deliver the fastest home networking to an already rapid broadband connection.

The FRITZ!Box 4690 returns to the wave-like design we've seen in many previous routers, such as the AVM FRITZ!Box 7690. Apart from the lack of a built-in VDSL/ADSL 2+ modem, the 4690 has a very similar specification to the 7690, although it also lacks the latter's support for Zigbee, a wireless standard for controlling smart home devices such as lightbulbs, roller blinds, temperature and motion sensors, smart plugs, and switches. It does still offer the signature FRITZ!Box support for telephony, however.

With its focus on users with an existing fast broadband modem, the WAN connection is 10Gbit, but you get a second of these and all the remaining LAN connections deliver 2.5Gbit. WiFi 7 is of course supported, albeit only in dual-band form. The 4690 is BE7000 rated, combining 5,760Mbits/sec at 5GHz and 1,200Mbits/sec at 2.4GHz. There's no 6GHz signal with this router, unlike the AVM FRITZ!Box 5690 Pro. There are optional extras to create a mesh network, too, although units to test this weren't supplied for our review.

Telephony options include two RJ11 phone ports on the back plus a single German TAE on the side. You also get a single USB 3.0 connection for media server storage, NAS options, or mobile data backup. All this comes in at around £330, which is pricey for a router but not one with this range of features available. Read on to see how the promising specifications shape up in reality.

The FRITZ!Box 4690 is available from Amazon UK for £330.31 inc VAT.

Specification:

• Wireless protocols: MU-MIMO with 802.11b/g/n/be 2.4GHz, 802.11a/n/ac/ax/be 5GHz
• Performance: BE7000 (5,760 + 1,200 Mbits/sec)
• Antenna Configuration: 4×4 internal antennas
• Ports: 3 x 2.5Gigabit Ethernet LAN, 1 x 10Gigabit Ethernet LAN, 1 x 10Gigabit Ethernet WAN, 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x RJ11 phone, 1 x TAE phone
• Modem Support: 10Gigabit Ethernet WAN

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