We didn’t test any of the more-expensive extenders (up to $300). In the past, we’ve accepted extenders without Ethernet support, but this time we’ve made the feature mandatory. Our testing takes into account the change in network performance when you’re adding an extender to a busy network, measuring both throughput (speed) and latency (the wait before a page loads).
Good performance: The extender must improve coverage and connectivity compared with the router alone-otherwise you’re just adding another device that sits on your network (and you’re wasting money).
