Beamforming and MU-MIMO: As the number of Wi-Fi devices grow, router and adapter manufacturers have to come up with ways to compensate for all those signals crossing through your living space.

Smaller adapters won’t snag on cords or pop loose if inadvertently catch them on your arm, but they tend to have smaller antennas and weaker radios.

Good compact case and sturdy build quality: Both will help you enjoy using your USB adapter.

If you’re paying more, you might as well consider upgrading your standalone router, running an Ethernet cable to the PC, or installing a new mesh network in your home. Paying more doesn’t necessarily mean better performance the pricier adapters didn’t win all of our tests.

Good price: This factor is very important-you shouldn’t have to pay more than $40 to $80 for a USB adapter.

Good range: A good Wi-Fi adapter should be able to maintain a strong connection and reasonably quick transfer speeds even when it’s several rooms away from your router.

We tested each adapter to see how it could do in a real home. For example, an AC1200 adapter is rated to provide 300 Mbps (megabits per second) on the 2.4 GHz band and 867 Mbps on the 5 GHz bands, but no adapter can achieve that. We started by looking at each adapter’s AC rating: while those numbers are generally pretty misleading, they do tell you each adapter’s maximum theoretical throughput. You need throughput to download updates and stream videos at the quality you’re paying for.

Good throughput: Think of the tasks you do the most where you’re waiting and watching a spinning pinwheel.

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