FRITZ!Box 4690 WiFi 7 Router Review

The FRITZ!Box boxes echo the non-monochromatic nature of the products themselves. But being a German brand, FRITZ! also of course offers plenty of detailed information.

As this is a UK edition of the FRITZ!Box 4690, the package only includes a power adapter for British plugs, plus an Ethernet WAN cable supporting 10Gbit, and an adapter from RJ-11 to a BT phone connection.

The 4690 maintains the flowing wave appearance we have seen with so many FRITZ!Box routers in the past, with a cheerful combination of slightly creamy white alongside red. There are status lights on the top for power, WLAN and phone activity (with buttons to turn these off), a WPS button with status light, and an info light that will tell you that something needs attention.

The wired networking is where the 4690 particularly shines. The WAN port is 10Gbit, so will provide full benefit from current and future super-fast broadband options. Then there are the two RJ-11 ports, although FRITZ! only supplies a single adapter for a UK BT phone connection. Next along is a four-port LAN hub, which won't hold back your broadband connectivity either. One of these ports is also 10Gbit, so ideal for your main desktop workstation, gaming rig, uplink to a switch, or a NAS that is shared by other devices. Then the other three LAN ports are still quick, offering 2.5Gbit wired connection. The port for the power brick completes the rear connectivity.

On the left is the USB 3.0 port, which supports sharing storage, printers, and even a fallback mobile data dongle. On the right, and probably not that useful for UK users, is a German TAE telephony port.

Acer Swift 14 AI WiFi 7 Laptop

For testing the latest WiFi 7 wireless networking, Acer sent us its Swift 14 AI notebook, based around a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus Oryon X1P-64-100 CPU. This is a ten-core processor running at up to 3.4GHz across all cores, although without a single-core boost frequency (you need the X1P-66-100 for that). Our sample was supplied with 16GB of LPDDR5x memory and a 1TB SSD. Although this is an ARM-based laptop, it can still run Windows 11 and our standard WiFi testing software, iPerf3. It's a solid choice for road warriors who need to spend days away from a reliable power source, thanks to a 26-hour battery life.

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