Zyxel NWA50BE Pro review: Future-proofed Wi-Fi 7 networks at an incredibly low price

Prices for business Wi-Fi 7 access points (APs) have been falling steadily, and Zyxel makes small businesses a tempting offer as its diminutive NWA50BE Pro costs less than £70. It sweetens the deal further as this dual-band AP is designed to offer future-proofed wireless networks with its BandFlex technology, allowing you to swap from 5GHz to 6GHz operations whenever you want.

This entry-level AP claims speed of up to 688Mbits/sec on the 2.4GHz radio, 4,324Mbits/sec on 5GHz and 5,764Mbps on 6GHz. But bear in mind the top 5GHz speed will drop to 2,880Mbps here in the UK as the 240MHz channels are only certified for the US. If you don't feel a need for the 6GHz band, you can save a few more pounds as Zyxel's NWA50BE Wi-Fi 7 model presents 2.4GHz/5GHz radios and costs only £62.

Zyxel has one of the most diverse ranges of Wi-Fi 7 APs on the market, and it's worth clarifying the differences between its NWA and WBE models. Both support standalone and cloud management, with the NWA APs offering a reduced feature set and aimed at cost-conscious SMBs. The more expensive WBE models target larger businesses, include a 1-year NCC Pro Pack license, and can also be managed by Zyxel's USG Flex WLAN on-premises controller appliances.

Zyxel NWA50BE Pro review: Build quality and features

Measuring only 150mm square and 35mm deep, the NWA50BE Pro is the same size as the non-6GHz NWA50BE model. The chassis is constructed from sturdy high-impact plastic, and the front panel has a single multi-colour LED for at-a-glance status views.

At the rear, you'll find a 2.5GbE multi-Gigabit LAN uplink port which supports a PoE+ source. Worry not if you don't have one, as the AP also has a 12V DC input jack, and the price includes an external power supply with a 3-pin UK plug adapter.

The AP is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm CPU and employs internal aluminium plates that act as RF interference shields and heat dissipaters. They worked well during testing as the back plate did get warm to the touch, but not hot enough to be of concern.

The NWA50BE Pro offers all the Wi-Fi 7 features you'd expect to see, but be careful using MLO as the latest firmware brings it into line with the new 802.11be standard. This mandates WPA3 encryption for devices using MLO, and Zyxel automatically enables it on all SSIDs operating in this mode, meaning legacy devices that only support WPA2 will get kicked off the network.

Zyxel NWA50BE Pro review: Standalone management

The NWA50BE Pro is easy to deploy as a standalone AP, as its web console opens with a quick-start wizard. After selecting standalone mode, we were guided through setting the country of operation, changing the default admin password, and creating our first SSID.

The AP supports up to eight SSIDs, which are created using profiles and objects, although first-time users may find the process isn't very intuitive. Profiles are created for the two radios, and you assign SSID profiles to each one, which sets the active bands and their channel width, along with options such as upload and download rate limits and a time schedule that controls when the SSID is active.

Security profiles are assigned to each SSID to set the encryption scheme. Choices include WPA2 and WPA3, but only the personal versions are available, as unlike the NWA90BE Pro, which is aimed at larger businesses, this AP doesn't support enterprise encryption with external Radius server authentication.

You can start with 5GHz services, and when you feel the time is right, you swap to the 6GHz band just by assigning a new profile to the second radio. Another handy feature is rogue AP detection, as enabling this presents a list of all external SSIDs within range, along with their active wireless bands and encryption type.

Zyxel NWA50BE Pro review: Cloud control

Moving to cloud management is a breeze as we used the Nebula iOS app on an iPad to scan the AP's QR code, and after five minutes, it started broadcasting our cloud-managed SSIDs. The NCC widget-based dashboard is easily customised and tells you everything you need to know about all your cloud-managed APs, wireless networks, switches, firewalls, and routers.

As with standalone mode, it supports up to eight site SSIDs, where you choose your encryption scheme and optionally use tags so they are only broadcast by APs that match them. The NCC portal opens up more features than standalone mode, as its Smart Mesh service creates self-healing meshed wireless networks across multiple APs but the NWA50BE Pro doesn't support captive portals and won't broadcast any SSIDs with these enabled.

The base NCC cloud service is free, but logging is restricted to a rolling 24 hours, with features such as topology views, email alerting, and scheduled firmware updates disabled. These and more are enabled with an NCC Plus pack license, which costs around £10 per year for each device.

Zyxel NWA50BE Pro review: Wireless performance

To test performance, we hooked the AP up to the lab's Zyxel XMG1930-30HP multi-Gig PoE++ switch and used a Lenovo Windows 11 Pro desktop client equipped with a TP-Link Archer TBE550E Wi-Fi 7 PCIe adapter. Starting with a 5GHz 160MHz profile, Microsoft's NTttcp utility reported raw TCP upstream and downstream speeds between the client and a Dell Windows server on the 10GbE LAN of 210MB/sec and 137MB/sec.

Real-world SMB tests using large file copies between the client and server returned averaged close-range speeds of 143MB/sec, dropping to 99MB/sec with the AP moved 10 metres away and into an adjoining room. From the cloud portal, we used the BandFlex feature to swap over to a 6GHz 320MHz profile and watched NTttcp report faster upload and download rates of 225MB/sec and 204MB/sec while our real-world copy tests improved to 158MB/sec and 119MB/sec.

The auto-MLO feature worked fine, as after setting the 2.4GHz radio to 11be mode, our Windows 11 client reported an aggregated link speed of 6,108Mbits/sec across the 2.4GHz and 6GHz bands. Alas, repeating our performance tests showed no speed improvements.

Zyxel NWA50BE Pro: Is it worth it

Available at Broadbandbuyer for £68 excluding VAT, Zyxel's NWA50BE Pro will appeal to smaller businesses that aren't ready to invest in full-strength tri-band Wi-Fi 7 APs. Overall, wireless performance is quite respectable for such a low-cost AP. It supports standalone or cloud management and is ready to go with you when you want to make the jump to the 6GHz spectrum.

Zyxel NWA50BE Pro specifications