APC – Issue 556 March 2026 – APC

It provides a stronger signal than a single Wi-Fi extender or a powerline adapter, and can bring speedy internet to every corner of your home – even without Wi-Fi 7. Mesh Wi-Fi uses satellite nodes to extend your Wi-Fi coverage. You get at least one node in the mesh kit, which either connects to your existing router (if it’s mesh-compatible) or replaces it (if the mesh router has a modem, see box on opposite page). Place additional nodes in spots where your Wi-Fi signal is weak, and add more as required.

As mentioned on page 56, Wi-Fi 7 mesh systems are expensive, but there are lots of affordable Wi-Fi 6 options. Here are the best. TP-Link Deco X10 From $127 from tinyurl.com/ TP-Link’s Deco X10 (pictured below) is available in one-, two- and three-packs, so you can buy as many nodes as you need. Each one is technically a Wi-Fi 6 router in its own right, delivering theoretical speeds of up to 1,201Mbps on the 5GHz band and 300Mbps on 2.4GHz.

However, TP-Link says you should expect a speed of between 500Mbps and 900Mbps (if your broadband connection is that fast). Coverage ranges from 190 square metres for a single node to 520 for three. Connecting the nodes is easy via the TP-Link Deco app, which also includes security and network-analysis features. Note that you can’t wirelessly connect Deco devices to the TP-Link Archer AX18 (see opposite page), but need to use an Ethernet cable. Amazon Eero 6 From $249 from tinyurl.com/ APC556eero6 Amazon’s Eero 6 mesh Wi-Fi 6 router (pictured below) is available on its own, or with up to three extenders (for $599).

It supports speeds of up to 500Mbps and over 75 simultaneous devices, spreading your Wi-Fi signal across up to 560 square metres (with all three extenders). Eero 6 includes Amazon’s Alexa assistant, allowing you to control connected devices with your voice or by using the Eero app.

Welcome to another month in the world of the PC, which is a month within the greater year Mark has now dubbed the “year of hell” on page 12. Is it, though? Well, yes, unfortunately it is. We’re only now starting to see some of the effects of what was initially a simple little RAMpocalypse spread through the industry. For anyone not keeping score, 32GB of RAM now costs close to $1,000. Yes, really. Sigh. In the shops – and I hope they all survive this year, but fear some may not – we’re seeing Chinese memory brands we once were only barely aware existed now front and centre.

Most are either CXMT or one of that company’s sub brands. CXMT isn’t a small player, and the kits we are seeing sold locally are using Hynix and Samsung DRAM, as far as we’re aware. The only brand I see that explicitly uses CXMT DRAM that is officially getting imported into Australia is Kingbank. That brand also sells RAM that uses Hynix and Samsung DRAM. I imagine a key reason they are selling outside of China now is because of the demand and potential to make excellent profit!

It’s not really any cheaper than the brands we’re used to, though, instead it’s filling in the supply holes that are now common. But that then helps them ramp production, and another major DRAM producer will be excellent news longer term. But let us be distracted, at least for a moment, with the annual excitement that is the Australian PC Awards (page 18). It’s happening right now and in this issue we’ve got the big finalists reveal.

For this year we had a big old sit down to think about things, resulting in more categories being added. There’s now 40, up from 27 for the last few years. This lets us add all-new categories that were much needed, like best NBN of various types, and split up the big categories, like monitors, which now has individual categories for Productivity, Creator/ Professional and Gaming. Which makes a lot of sense. Lastly we welcome a new columnist. John-Anthony Disotto will be giving us a page of his finest all about Apple in each issue.

John knows his stuff and for those of you who use Apple, or know someone that does, we hope to bring you some good new knowledge in each issue.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: aa8084f16c280307
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 30,449,403 bytes (29.039 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 133
• Language: English (en)

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