The AX21’s sleek black chassis is similar to TP-Link’s Archer AXE75, but instead of a textured top and six antennas, it has a mesh cover and four non-removable, adjustable antennas. The router is designed to stand on a desk or mount to a wall with two holes on the bottom. It measures 1.5 x 10.2 x 5.3 inches (HWD) and has six small LED indicators on the front for power, activity on both wireless bands, Internet connectivity, and WPS and USB activity. On the back are four 1Gbps LAN ports, a 1Gbps WAN port, WPS and reset buttons, a USB 2.0 port, and the power button and connector for the AC adapter. Link aggregation is not supported, and you won’t find any multi-gig LAN/WAN or high-speed USB ports, but that’s not surprising given the router’s low price. The Archer AX21 is a dual-band AX1800 router that can reach maximum (theoretical) data rates of 574Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 1,201Mbps on the 5GHz band. It is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core CPU and supports most of the latest Wi-Fi 6 technologies, including orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) transmissions, WPA3 encryption, MU-MIMO data streaming, and direct-to-client signal beamforming. Unlike the ZTE AX3000 Pro, however, the AX21 does not support 160 MHz channel transmissions. It does, however, support OneMesh technology, which lets you create a mesh network with the AX21 and other compatible routers and extenders. This is one of the few TP-Link routers that doesn’t offer HomeShield parental controls or anti-malware protection. Instead, you get simple parental controls that let you set daily and weekly time limits and create lists of blocked and allowed websites. You can set these and other settings via the TP-Link Tether Mobile app or the web console. You need the latter to access advanced settings like NAT forwarding, IPv6, and DHCP server settings.
