This week, the biggest names in laptops are showing up at CES with new designs, new chips, and usually sneaking in the word “artificial intelligence” in some way. But most of them also arrive quietly, bringing one of the most important upgrades to busy competitive gamers: better Wi-Fi, with support for Wi-Fi 7. It’s about time, because router companies have been rolling out Wi-Fi 7 routers throughout 2023, and we’ve been waiting for machines capable of testing the standard’s ridiculous speed promises.
Wi-Fi 7 is coming to gaming laptops first, so the focus on gaming makes sense. One of the biggest benefits of Wi-Fi 7 is that it allows a device to connect to a router over multiple bands, a feature called “multilink operation,” which gives your laptop a clue as to where to transmit packets. s Choice. This means that when your 5GHz band reaches capacity, it will only send data along the 6GHz pipe and vice versa. The result should be lower latency when you’re on a busy network, which is crucial when you can’t connect to Ethernet.
Most new laptops with Wi-Fi 7 will be available soon. But at least for now, some of the earliest products are very expensive: the 16-inch Razer Blade 16 starts at $3,000, and the 18-inch MSI Titan 18 HX A14V starts at at least $5,000. (The only option currently available for pre-order is $9,099.) Both products will be available in mid-January.
If you don’t want to invest your life savings in a laptop, we’ve also released some more affordable gaming models with Wi-Fi 7. The Lenovo Legion 7i will be available in March for $2,099, while the HP Omen Transcend will be more affordable at $1,499.99. Two of Dell’s Alienware gaming laptops are also getting Wi-Fi 7 support, while the company’s popular XPS series has received the nod in two of its three laptops: the XPS 13 and XPS 16.
Asus seemed to be the big exception to the unspoken Wi-Fi 7 gaming laptop rule at the show. The company doesn’t list Wi-Fi 7 in the specifications of any of the laptops it’s released in its ROG series, including the Zephyrus series. This is surprising considering the company was one of the first to launch Wi-Fi 7 routers.
If you’re looking to upgrade your gaming laptop and you’re not one to stick to a wired connection, now is a good time to start considering a Wi-Fi 7 router. There weren’t many announcements at the show — Acer is about to launch a gaming router, and MSI announced a mesh system — but there were a few products coming in 2023, including gaming routers from Netgear and ROG. However, you may want to be careful about pulling the trigger. The selection is still a bit sparse and most are still quite expensive.
Artificial intelligence (or is it “affectionate intelligence”?) may be all the headlines at CES 2024, but gadgets still manage to show off and accelerate as usual. With Wi-Fi 7, routers are already here to give us the road — and now the Wi-Fi Alliance is certifying the standard, laptops will power our cars.
