As someone who is mostly in the digital world for work, having faster Wi-Fi at home is an essential. I’ve been living with a Wi-Fi 5 mesh router system at home for years, and it still bothers me that I’m not getting the best speeds. Ever since news came out about Wi-Fi 7 being in the Philippines, I decided that my next tech investment would be towards a new router. Good thing I got my hands on an affordable Wi-Fi 7 router from Mercusys to help me see its advantages. Here is my review of the Mercusys Wi-Fi 7 MR27BE router.
Disclaimer: Mercusys sent me the Mercusys Wi-Fi 7 MR27BE loaner unit. It arrived on February 21, 2025, and I’ve been using it for around 2 weeks.
Unboxing Experience
Unlike phones where we now have to buy chargers, we get everything we need to use the MR27BE inside the box. While I can’t confirm exactly what kind of Ethernet cable we have, it seems to have a decent quality.
Initial Setup
Setting up the MR27BE was simple. I just plugged in the power cable in the leftmost port and one side of the Ethernet cable in the WAN Ethernet port on the right. What’s nice about setting up routers these days is that you can do hassle-free setups through an app. The Mercusys app basically got me through the setup without having to tinker the router itself.
After performing the setup, it was easy to check on the router’s status through the app.
Overall Experience
I did mention that I had troubles with my current Wi-Fi 5 mesh router and I’m looking to upgrade to a Wi-Fi 7 router. I’m currently living in a 2-floor house and the internet speed tends to slow down in the 2nd floor. While this router isn’t exactly gonna solve that problem completely, testing its speed and general coverage would help me decide if Wi-Fi 7 is worth upgrading.
The MR27BE has four omnidirectional antennas and beamforming that allow for better Wi-Fi coverage. It is capable for up to 3.6 Gbps speeds within the Wi-Fi network (2880 Mbps for 5GHz, 688 Mbps for 2.4GHz). It’s also nice to have Wi-Fi 7 and its slew of new features compared to previous versions: MRU (Multi Resource Unit), OFDMA, MU-MIMO (Multi-user, Multiple In Multiple Out), Multi-Link Operation (MLO). This router can also handle up to 150 devices in the network, including IoT devices that could easily clog up your Wi-Fi.
A nice thing about the MR27BE is having a 2.5Gb LAN port. This is great for devices that need more bandwidth for faster connections such as a gaming PC.
I had a really positive experience with this Wi-Fi 7 router. While I didn’t do extensive testing, I did some speed tests using three devices: an iPhone 16 Pro (the only Wi-Fi 7 device I have), and two Wi-Fi 6 devices (a realme GT 6 and an M3 MacBook Air). Here are some of the speed test results:
iPhone 16 Pro (Wi-Fi 7)
realme GT 6 (Wi-Fi 6)
M3 MacBook Air (Wi-Fi 6)
Simultaneous Test
I even tried doing a simultaneous speed test with the three devices to see if the performance hit is significant or not. So far, I haven’t really experienced a major hiccup when connecting all three devices.
Here are the speed test results when doing the simultaneous speed test:
Router Configuration
If you’re someone who likes to do some tinkering with the router, you can configure many settings of the MR27BE router. You can even configure QoS (Quality of Service), which can be limited in certain routers. While you can do basic router configuration through the Mercusys app, you can do more through the web interface.
Should You Buy the Mercusys Wi-Fi 7 MR27BE?
If you’re looking for an affordable entry into Wi-Fi 7 with all of its unique features like MLO, OFDMA, and MU-MIMO, then the MR27BE is a good choice especially at the SRP of P4,690. While it lacks that new 6GHz band that enables even faster speeds, just having the capability to handle more devices while having faster speeds than previous Wi-Fi versions is great.
You can get the Mercusys Wi-Fi 7 MR27BE router for P4,690 at its official online stores on Shopee and Lazada.