Verdict
Key Specifications
- Review Price: £39.99
What is the BT Dual-Band Wi-Fi Extender 600?
BT has a pretty good recent track record with its networking accessories and it has largely scored another hit with the Dual-Band Wi-Fi Extender 600, though it does have one key annoyance.
Starting with the good stuff, the Extender 600 has one unique and very useful feature which is a set of LEDs that indicate whether the unit is an optimal distance from your router. The idea being, if it’s too close then you’re not going to extend the range much and if it’s too far away you’ll not get a good enough signal.
Useful though this is, it wasn’t entirely reliable as it confidently reported that our test distance was too close, despite readings clearly showing that it and the other extenders boosted performance. When we tested with the newer Extender 1200 it reported our test distance was perfect.
Elsewhere this is a fairly typical dual-band extender with a single Ethernet port on the top for connecting wired devices and both WPS and manual setup.
SEE ALSO: BT 11ac Dual-Band Wi-Fi Extender 600
It’s quite a large unit with an eye catching matt black livery. We quite like the look, though of course it doesn’t exactly merge into the white plastic background of most plug sockets.
We also encountered one major irritation with this unit, which is that the setup process is totally automated and uses the same SSIDs as your existing network. As such it’s difficult to tell whether you’re connecting to it or the existing network.
You can change the extender’s SSIDs once it has connected to a network
but then each time you connect it to another network it then resets
itself. It’s the sort of thing that probably won’t be an issue for most
people – once it’s setup it does just work – but to have it be so
difficult to manually configure the unit is still disappointing.
BT Dual-Band Wi-Fi Extender 600 – Performance
Performance from the Extender 600 is decent though, delivering 21.6Mbps at 7m and at 18.4Mbps at 20m at 2.4GHz. On the 5GHz band it then managed 21.6Mbps and 18.4Mbps.
These aren’t record breaking figures but for a compact unit rated to AC600 they’re about as good as you can get.
Verdict
The Extender 600 offers a good selection of features and performance for its £39.99 price, though we’d be inclined to spend a little more on the Extender 1200 for even better performance.
Next, check out our pick of the Best Wi-Fi Extenders
Trusted Score
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
