After the first batch sold out in a day, Valve announced plans for how it will handle the next wave of sales for the Steam Controller. Rather than a free-for-all, the gaming company is adopting a reservation system. This should ensure more actual customers get their hands on the new gamepad rather than having the hardware get funnelled to bots or resellers.

For anyone interested in throwing their hat in the ring to acquire a Steam Controller, the reservation queue will open on May 8 at 1PM ET/10AM PT. Only one controller will be sold per user, and people who have already bought one will not be eligible to purchase a second gamepad at this stage. Prospective customers will be contacted in order from the queue and will have 72 hours to complete the purchase.

The sales process for the Steam Controller is probably a hint of what's eventually to come when the Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR become available. Hopefully Valve puts this type of system in place before the buying spree begins for those hotly anticipated gaming hardware projects.

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If your Wi-Fi struggles to reach every corner of your house, it's probably not your internet plan that's the problem. A single router can only do so much, especially in larger spaces or homes with thick walls. That's where the best mesh Wi-Fi system comes in, replacing one overworked router with a Wi-Fi mesh network designed to deliver high-speed coverage across your entire home.

A whole home mesh Wi-Fi setup uses multiple nodes that act as shared access points, spreading your connection more evenly and reducing slowdowns as you move from room to room. Compared to basic range extenders, mesh systems handle traffic more intelligently, balance bandwidth between devices and usually offer easy setup through companion apps. Many support dual-band Wi-Fi and newer standards, making them better suited for households full of phones, laptops, TVs and smart home devices.

We've tested today's leading mesh systems to see which ones actually deliver consistent speeds and reliable coverage. Whether you're trying to eliminate dead zones in a small apartment or blanket a large, multi-floor house with fast, stable Wi-Fi, these are the mesh systems worth considering.

Best mesh Wi-Fi systems for 2026

Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget

Best mesh Wi-Fi system for most

TP-Link Deco AXE5400 Wi-Fi 6E Mesh System (Deco XE75)

Wireless band count: 3 | Wireless speed rating: Up to 2,402 Mbps (6GHz band) | Ethernet ports: 3 | USB ports: 0 | Coverage area: Up to 7,200 sq. ft.

Read our full TP-Link Deco XE75 review

There's no single glitzy feature that sets TP-Link's Deco XE75 apart from its competition. Instead, it expertly balances raw power and user friendliness. If you're looking for a no-fuss upgrade from a traditional router to a Wi-Fi mesh network with faster speeds, this is the right option for most people, especially those with for large homes that need consistent coverage across the entire space. It's not perfect, but my biggest gripes are nitpicks: The power cables are too short and the app could do with a polish. This tri-band mesh Wi-Fi system is the best for most people. In my spacious and wireless-hostile home, the $400 three-pack was almost overkill, delivering more bandwidth and coverage than I realistically needed. If the $300 two-pack can cover your home's square footage, then it's a more wallet-friendly proposition than some of its rivals.

Let's address the elephant in the room: TP-Link has a Chinese-owned parent company and, late 2024, the US began asking if there was a potential national security risk. In a statement, TP-Link Systems said it was "no longer affiliated with China-based TP-Link Technologies" and that its products comply with "regional industry security standards and regulations." It added the Chinese government does not have access to or control over "the design and production of our routers," and that it is engaging with the US government to demonstrate its "security practices are fully in line with security standards."

• Excellent performance
• Easy to set up and use
• A good value for the money

• App design lacks polish
• Short power cable

See at Amazon

Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget

Best mesh Wi-Fi system for novice users

Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro 6E

Wireless band count: 3 | Wireless speed rating: Up to 2,402 Mbps (6GHz band) | Ethernet ports: 2 | USB ports: 0 | Coverage area: Up to 6,600 sq. ft.

Read our full Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro review

Nest Wi-Fi Pro offers a simple experience for folks who want easy setup, letting them get a whole home mesh Wi-Fi network running quickly and then forget all about it. It's not as powerful, or customizable, as its competitors, but it should be more than suitable for most everyday needs, with reliable tri-band Wi-Fi that keeps streaming and web browsing smooth across multiple access points. It's quite cheap, so while I have reservations about its long-term potential, it's a great buy for the next few years.

If you're already inside Google's world, then the various integrations Assistant offers, as well as support for Matter and Thread-equipped smart home devices, is a bonus. Plus, Google promises regular software and security updates, letting you concentrate on enjoying the internet, rather than worrying about it.

• Super simple to set up and use
• Relatively affordable
• Integrates nicely with Google services

• Doesn't offer as many customizations as some comeptitors

See at Amazon

Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget

Best mesh Wi-Fi system for power users

ASUS ZenWiFi Pro AXE11000 Wi-Fi 6E Mesh System (ET12)

Wireless band count: 3 | Wireless speed rating: Up to 4,804 Mbps (6GHz band) | Ethernet ports: 2 | USB ports: 0 | Coverage area: Up to 3,000 sq. ft.

ASUS' ZenWiFi Pro ET12 is a "pro" piece of hardware inside and out, with the power (and price) to justify such a name. Each node has the power to act as a high-performance access point, and those extra gigabit and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports let you add fast backhaul or a speedy NAS for improved high-speed performance. I'd say pro users and gamers who need faster speeds will find plenty to love in this package. Hell, it's good enough to support a medium-sized office without too much stress.

That's before you get to ASUS' AiMesh, which will let you add ASUS' powerful standalone routers to the same Wi-Fi mesh network, making it easier to expand coverage without relying on traditional range extenders. You could pick up a ZenWiFi Pro now, and in a year or two bolt on one of its beefy Wi-Fi routers to really boost your speed. Power users will be better equipped to deal with some of its more idiosyncratic control options, and are more likely to take advantage of its support for the 160MHz band.

If I'm honest, I started using this and realized pretty quickly that this was simply too much gear for my needs. It's like needing to buy a blender and coming back from the store with the Large Hadron Collider — lovely, but probably a little too much overkill for a single glass of kale smoothie.

• Superb performance
• Easy to expand system with additional nodes and routers

• Expensive

See at Amazon

What to look for in a mesh Wi-Fi system

Linksys' CEO Jonathan Bettino told Engadget why mesh systems are an "advancement in Wi-Fi technology" over buying a single point router. With one transmitter, the signal can degrade the further away from the router you go, or the local environment isn't ideal. "You can have a small [home], but there's thick walls [...] or things in the way that just interfere with your wireless signal," he said.

Historically, the solution to a home's Wi-Fi dead zone was to buy Wi-Fi range extenders but Bettino said the hardware has both a "terrible user experience" and one of the highest return rates of any consumer electronics product. Mesh Wi-Fi, by comparison, offers "multiple nodes that can be placed anywhere in your home," says Bettino, each acting as an access point that works together as part of a whole home mesh Wi-Fi system.

Rather than having one main router in your home, having a "router in every room" is the biggest selling point for mesh Wi-Fi given how reliant we all are on the internet. Each node is in constant contact with each other, broadcasting a single, seamless network to all of your connected devices. There's no separate network for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, just a single name that you connect to.

It's a good time to buy a mesh Wi-Fi system since the latest standard, Wi-Fi 6E, represents a big leap in the technology. Matt MacPherson, Cisco's Chief Technology Officer for Wireless, said Wi-Fi 6E is a big "inflection point," using much more of the wireless spectrum than its predecessors. "If you're using that spectrum with a Wi-Fi 6 [device]," he said, "you're going to get significant gains [in speed.]"

MacPherson added Wi-Fi 6E will likely "carry you for a long time" thanks to the fact its "top throughputs now typically exceed what people can actually connect their home to." In short, with a top theoretical per-stream speed of 1.2 Gbps, Wi-Fi 6E is fast enough to outrun all but the fastest internet service.

What do all these Wi-Fi numbers and letters mean?

I'm sorry folks, we need to get boringly technical for one paragraph, but I promise you it's worth it.

Wi-Fi is governed by International Standard IEEE 802.11, and every few years a letter gets added onto that name when the technology evolves and improves. Until 2019, routers were sold under their IEEE name, leaving users to pick through the word soup of a product labeled 802.11 b/g/a/n/ac and so on.

Mercifully, wiser heads opted to rebrand the letters as numbers, so rather than 802.11 b/g/a/n/ac, we have Wi-Fi 1, 2, 3 4 and 5. Right now, we're in the middle of one of those Wi-Fi generations, with most of the gear on sale right now supporting either Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E.

What's the difference between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E?

Wi-Fi uses chunks of the radio frequency spectrum, with Wi-Fi 6 using the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands to pump data around. In fact, back in the old days, it was likely your home router would offer you the choice of the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz network, as separate bands to access. These days, all of the spectrums are tied together as one thing, and Wi-Fi 6E has the added ability to use the 6GHz band as well. That's a big chunk of extra wireless real estate that isn't as cluttered up as the 2.4 and 5GHz bands.

You're going to talk about wireless frequencies now, aren't you.

Each Wi-Fi band had tradeoffs, because the slower radio frequencies have greater range but less speed. 2.4GHz signals will travel a long way in your home but aren't quick, while 6GHz is blisteringly fast but can be defeated by a sturdy brick wall. A lot of Wi-Fi-enabled gear you own, like smart home products, only use the 2.4GHz band because the range is better and it's a lot cheaper. But it means that the band is also overcrowded and slow, making it great for your doorbell and robovac, but lackluster for Twitch streaming.

So, what am I looking for?

Right now, the market is full of mature Wi-Fi 6 and 6E devices, and most new systems available to buy are capable of taking advantage of the faster speeds they offer. This guide focuses on Wi-Fi 6E gear since it's what we think it's more than enough to satisfy almost everyone's at-home Wi-Fi needs.

What about Wi-Fi 7?

We're now seeing the first generation of Wi-Fi 7 devices available to buy, but we don't recommend you do so immediately. The Wi-Fi 7 standard is still so new that there's little to no reason for you to rush out and buy one for your home. The hardware is tremendously expensive and while Wi-Fi 7 will, eventually, offer some great benefits over 6E, it's not as transformative an upgrade as 6E. Not to mention, Wi-Fi 7 is so new that almost none of your home's devices will be able to take advantage of its big-ticket features. I'd estimate you won't need to worry about upgrading to Wi-Fi 7 for at least five years, if not longer.

Range and speed

All Wi-Fi routers boast a theoretical broadcast range and a theoretical top speed, and in some cases external antennas to boost signal directionality — but these figures don't mean much. After all, manufacturers can't control your ISP's real speed, the materials and layout of your home or where you put your Wi-Fi gear. Raw speed isn't everything, either, and you likely need less peak speed than your provider advertises. What matters more is consistent bandwidth and stable performance throughout your entire home. After all, Netflix needs just 15 Mbps to push a single 4K video stream to your home. As cool as it is to say you've got all these hundreds of Mbps, factors like latency and reliability are far more crucial to a happy internet life. And unless you have Gigabit internet that can reach speeds of up to 1 Gbps, you won't need a mesh router that offers that spec.

Backhaul

Mesh Wi-Fi systems work by connecting every hardware node to a single wireless network, letting them all communicate with each other. Imagine four people in a busy, noisy restaurant all trying to order their dinner from a weary staff member, all at once. Now imagine, while this is going on, that four more people at that same table are also trying to tell a funny anecdote. It's no surprise that it might take a long time for the right information to reach its intended destination.

To combat this, higher-end mesh routers offer dedicated wireless backhaul, allowing nodes to communicate without eating into the high-speed bandwidth your devices rely on. So rather than everyone talking at once in the same space, the conversations are essentially separated, reducing the invisible clutter in the air. Because there's less confusing cross-chatter, everything moves faster, offering a significant performance boost to those systems.

Connectivity

These days, even your washing machine can have a wireless connection, but that doesn't mean you should ignore the joys of wired internet. No matter how fast Wi-Fi is, a hard line will always be faster, and wired connections can significantly improve Wi-Fi mesh network performance when used for backhaul. Plenty of routers can also use these hard connections as backhaul, eliminating further wireless clutter.

It's convenient for spread-out systems and power users, but it will mean running more wires through your home. The most common standard is Cat 5e, or gigabit ethernet which, unsurprisingly, has a top speed of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). Since Ethernet cables are backward compatible, you should be able to easily find one that works with your system. However, to get the most out of your mesh routers, it's worth investing in an Ethernet cable that meets the standard your router uses — if it's Cat 5e, use a Cat 5e cable. You can check your router's specs via the manufacturer's website to be sure.

Flexibility and scalability

Mesh routers enable you to add (or subtract) modules from your home network to suit your needs. D-Link's Alan Jones said users should "check how scalable the prospective product is" before you buy. This sense of scale doesn't just apply to the number of nodes on the network, but how many simultaneous connections it can handle.

It's also worth looking at ASUS' AiMesh products, which can combine mesh Wi-Fi gear and its standard "spider" Wi-Fi routers. If you've got a tricky part of your home, you can bolt on an ultra-power standalone Wi-Fi router to a compatible mesh.

Placement

Mesh networks replace one big piece of hardware with a series of identical nodes that you scatter around your home, each acting as a shared access point to maintain coverage throughout the entire home. You connect one to your modem (usually over ethernet), and then scatter the rest around the place for the best coverage. A good rule of thumb is to place each node no more than two rooms away from the last one, rather than sticking them at the far ends of your home.

Bear in mind, every physical obstacle between a Wi-Fi node, its siblings and your devices will hurt your overall performance. You should aim to place them, at the very least, at waist height on furniture in open air, without too many obstructions. The reason many mesh Wi-Fi products are designed to look like an inoffensive white doodad is so you don't feel compelled to hide them behind your TV.

Other mesh Wi-Fi router systems we tested

Amazon Eero Pro 7

Eero built its reputation on easy to use yet powerful mesh systems that offer a lot of good in a relatively small and affordable package. Setup is effortless, the app running things is clean and simple, and you get the added benefit of backwards compatibility with older hardware. Sadly, the issue with every Eero system is that so many basic management features, like parental controls, are paywalled behind the company's Eero Plus subscription for $100 a year.

Amazon Eero 6E

Eero Pro 6E is an "easy" device, the sort a total novice can set up on their own and thrive with for years on end. There's little brainwork required to get things set up, and the app has a clean UI with plenty of hand-holding. But, as with the Eero Pro 7, the fact that so many basic management tools are paywalled irks me, especially since you can get plenty of them for free with Google's rival offering.

Netgear Orbi 960

The Orbi 96T0 (RBKE963) is Netgear's flagship mesh Wi-Fi product, which the company calls the "world's most powerful Wi-Fi 6E system." It's also one of the most expensive consumer-level kits on the market, setting you back $1,499.99 for a three pack. It's a fantastic piece of gear, but it's worth saying that the subset of people who could, would or should buy it remains far smaller than you might expect. Ultimately, I feel that if you're paying luxury prices, you should expect a luxury product. There were plenty of times during testing that I went looking for a feature that was either only available via the web client, or behind a paywall. While, yes, much of your cash is going to the superlative hardware, but for this sort of money, the fact you have to pay extra for some table-stakes features is insulting. If you're looking for a new Wi-Fi system and aren't prepared to spend almost $1,500, it's worth considering our other top picks for the best Wi-Fi routers and mesh systems.

How we test Wi-Fi routers

My home covers around 2,200 square feet across three stories with the office on the third floor. It's relatively long and thin, with the living room at the front of the house, the kitchen at the back and the three bedrooms on the first floor. Its age means there are a lot of solid brick walls, old-school lathe and plaster as well as aluminum foil-backed insulation boards to help with energy efficiency. There are two major Wi-Fi dead zones in the house: The bathroom and the third bedroom behind it, since there's lots of old and new pipework in the walls and floors.

For mesh routers with two nodes, I place the first in my living room, connected via ethernet to my cable modem with the second on the first floor landing in the (ostensible) center of the house. For three-node sets, the third goes in my kitchen, which I've found is the optimal layout to get the bulk of my house covered in Wi-Fi. Fundamentally, my home poses enough challenges that if it succeeds here, it stands a very good chance of succeeding in your place.

Each mesh is judged on ease of setup, Wi-Fi coverage, reliability, speed and any additional features that it advertises. I look at how user-friendly each companion app is from the perspective of a novice rather than an expert given you shouldn't need to be a network engineer to do this sort of thing. Tests I do include checking for dead zones, moving from room to room to measure consistency of connectivity and streaming multiple videos at once to replicate common usage patterns.

Mesh Wi-Fi system FAQs

This is the section of our mesh Wi-Fi buyer's guide where we talk about the stuff that most people just glide past. If you're not familiar with technology, it can be intimidating if people talk about these things as if you're expected to already know. So here's a very simple, very basic rundown of some of the stuff you might have missed in very basic terms.

What's the difference between a Wi-Fi router and a mesh router?

A Wi-Fi router is a box that usually sits close to wherever the internet comes into your home and pumps out information over radio waves. A mesh router, meanwhile, is a set of smaller devices, one of which sits next to your internet connection while the rest are scattered around your home. A single Wi-Fi router is great if your home is small, your needs aren't too demanding, or if your home doesn't have many radio-blocking obstructions that mean those signals can't reach every corner of your home. But, much like standing next to a radio transmitter and then walking away from it in a straight line, after a while, the signal will degrade.

That's the problem a mesh system is designed to solve, since it will take the signal from your modem and pump to the other mesh devices, known as nodes, in your home. That way, instead of having one big router in one part of your home, you have several small ones that ensure you have good Wi-Fi connectivity all over. It also helps ensure that there's no risk of dropping your connection as you move around — a mesh router system makes it easy to, for instance, walk from room to room watching Netflix and know you won't miss a single frame.

What's the difference between a Wi-Fi extender and a mesh system?

Oh boy. Wi-Fi extenders, or repeaters, are small devices designed to push Wi-Fi a little further than your Wi-Fi router can stretch. They're cheap, compact and often come in the form of little boxes that sit on your plug sockets with the hope of pushing Wi-Fi to a signal-sparse corner of your home. They are, and I can't put this delicately enough, often a big pile of rubbish and are often not worth your time. Especially since the price of mesh routers has fallen to within most people's budgets.

What is a wireless backhaul?

As we explained above, mesh Wi-Fi systems work by connecting every hardware node to a single wireless network, letting them all communicate with each other. Imagine four people in a busy, noisy restaurant all trying to order their dinner from a weary staff member, all at once. Now imagine, while this is going on, that four more people at that same table are also trying to tell a funny anecdote. It's no surprise that it might take a long time for the right information to reach its intended destination.

To combat this, higher-end mesh routers offer dedicated wireless backhaul; a slice of the spectrum for node-to-node communication. So rather than everyone talking at once in the same space, the conversations are essentially separated, reducing the invisible clutter in the air. Because there's less confusing cross-chatter, everything moves faster, offering a significant performance boost to those systems.

Is it better to hard wire instead of using a mesh Wi-Fi system?

This is a great question that doesn't have a simple answer.

It is (almost) always preferable to connect devices with a wire, in this case Ethernet, than to use Wi-Fi. The speeds are faster, it's more reliable and your data is less vulnerable to the slings and arrows of the laws of physics. Hell, I spent about a year trying to work out how to build an iPhone to Ethernet connector back in the bad old days of Wi-Fi.

But your ability to do so depends on your level of DIY skills and / or how much money you want to spend on contractors. Wiring your home for Ethernet if you don't have the infrastructure already can be a costly and time-consuming process. Particularly if you don't want ugly wires running along your baseboards and under your carpets or across your hardwood floors.

If you're building your own home or can do some serious DIY, then hard wiring is a fantastic thing to have. It goes wonderfully hand-in-glove with mesh networks too, since you'll be able to hook up your nodes to the network for even better speeds.

But if I'm honest, advances in Wi-Fi technology mean I'd only go for hard wiring if I really believed I needed the sort of speed it offers. Unless you're a Twitch streamer running your own 24/7 content studio, it's probably overkill.

When we started renovating our 140-year-old home, I had Ethernet installed in the living room, the master and second bedroom and in my office, all at the front of the house. I can't use it for my mesh since I'd need to put the wiring through the middle of the house. If I ever had the wiring done again, I would do so as I know I'll instantly see a meaningful improvement in both my connection speed and reliability. But I wouldn't spend several thousand pounds to have it done just for the sake of it.

Iam8bit's in-house music group, the Blueshift Big Band, has put together another franchise-specific record with the Persona 30th Anniversary Jazz Album, and pre-orders are live now through June 8. The Persona 30th Anniversary Jazz Album comes in three flavors: a Translucent Purple vinyl exclusive to FYE, or a Blue Butterfly or classic black version from iam8bit and other stores. The purple FYE exclusive costs $40, while the other two cost $32, and copies will start shipping out in the final quarter of 2026.

All versions carry the same eight reimagined songs from the series' storied history, including "Heaven," "Last Surprise" and "Aria of the Soul." You can stream the full album from your preferred service right here, right now.

The album features art by award-winning illustrator Mark Borgions, whose work is filled with mid-century magic. He also does the visuals on the Blueshift Big Band's other albums in the Joystick Jazz series, which presents big-band covers of popular video game songs. There are three Joystick Jazz records and one EP. The first two volumes feature jazzified tracks from The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, Grim Fandango, Kingdom Hearts 3 and other classics, while the third full album is Mario-specific. The Bonus Level vinyl has four songs from Pokémon, Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog, and DuckTales.

Sega and Atlus are celebrating Persona's 30th birthday in various ways this year, including pop-ups at conventions and, fittingly, a big-band concert tour across Asia in the summer (unrelated to iam8bit's efforts). The next mainline Persona game is still in development with no release date in sight. Persona 4 Revival is also in production and hotly anticipated by longtime series fans (like 30 years long), and it's potentially, maybe targeting a release window of late 2026 to early 2027.

As always, iam8bit has a large collection of Persona vinyl and lots of other video game treasures for sale, no waiting necessary.

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If you want to expand the storage of your Nintendo Switch 2, you'll need a microSD Express card. This is not the same as the more traditional microSD cards you may have bought for the original Switch or other gaming handhelds; Express cards are newer, faster and significantly more expensive on average. But they're your only choice, and given how much space certain Switch 2 games chew up, you'll probably have no choice but to get one eventually. Which to buy, though? If you're looking for the best microSD card for the Switch 2 today, we've broken down what you should know before taking the plunge.

The best microSD cards for the Switch 2 (aren't all that important)

Jeff Dunn for Engadget

The Switch 2 is the first mainstream device to require microSD Express for storage expansion, so there aren't many options available to buy just yet. Of the handful of compatible models released thus far, we've now tested seven: the SanDisk microSD Express Card (aka the "SanDisk GamePlay microSD Express Card" at Walmart), the Lexar Play Pro, the Samsung microSD Card for Nintendo Switch 2, the Samsung P9 Express, the PNY microSD Express Card, the GameStop Express microSD Card for Nintendo Switch 2 and the Onn microSD Express Card. The first five are made by genuine storage manufacturers, while the GameStop and Onn cards appear to be rebadged versions of other models. We used the 256GB version of every card except for Lexar Play Pro, which was 1TB.

After timing these microSD Express cards across a range of Switch 2 games, our advice is simple: Get whichever one is in stock for the lowest price in the capacity you want. They aren't identically fast, especially if you want to move a game to the card from the console's internal storage (or vice versa). But the differences in load times and overall performance within actual games are tough to notice unless you have a stopwatch handy.

All five cards loaded up the digital version of Mario Kart World, for instance, between 18 and 20 seconds. Each loaded the first Grand Prix race in about 6.5 seconds. Getting to the start screen of Cyberpunk 2077 took about 38 or 39 seconds in each case. Loading a save in a particularly asset-heavy area (Jig-Jig Street) then took between 26 and 29 seconds, depending on the card. (The one exception was with the Onn card, which averaged closer to 31 seconds with that particular task, though that's also the cheapest choice.)

With Fast Fusion, a smaller native Switch 2 game, the initial load always took six to seven seconds, while each card loaded the first championship race in roughly 4 seconds. It was a similar situation with the Switch 2 upgrade for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (using a Switch 1 cartridge): Each card took just over six seconds to get to the start screen, between 19 and 20 seconds to load a save just before the final boss, about 16 seconds to fast travel between Kakariko Village and Korok Forest, and so on. We saw no significant issues with in-game loads when playing each game, either.

The SanDisk microSD Express Card and Lexar Play Pro.

All of this suggests that the Switch 2 has a relatively specific target for these cards to hit, and that there may not be much room for one model to leap too far out in front of the others. We'll also note that the console's built-in storage was consistently faster than any external option: The gap wasn't always big, but no card truly outpaced it in any of our tests. Loading that demanding area in Cyberpunk, for example, took about 22.5 seconds on average. So if you want the absolute fastest load times, don't put your game on a card at all.

If you need the mental comfort of knowing you technically have the best card available, get the SanDisk microSD Express Card. It had no outliers across our many game loading tests, and it was consistently right near the top when it came to moving games to and from system storage, which means it offers strong sequential read and write performance. Benchmark testing on PC with tools like CrystalDiskMark backed this up, as noted in our broader microSD card buying guide.

Jeff Dunn for Engadget

SanDisk microSD Express Card (256GB)

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Putting Mario Kart (a 21.9GB file) on that card took four minutes and 39 seconds on average, which was only second to the Lexar Play Pro by six seconds. It was the fastest to write Fast Fusion (3.5GB), taking an average of 27 seconds across three runs. Only PNY's card was faster to move games back to the console's storage, but that one was far slower at writing games to the card — getting Mario Kart on there took seven minutes and 11 seconds on average. Just note that the 128GB version of SanDisk's card has slower sequential writes than the larger versions, including much slower sustained write speeds (100 MB/s vs 210-220 MB/s). So transferring a game to that particular model will take much longer. The Onn card was also slower to move games back to system storage, taking about 50 seconds more than the SanDisk with Mario Kart and nearly three minutes longer with Cyberpunk.

Practically speaking, though, speed differences aren't as important in this case as having lots of space to hold games at a price you can live with. To make things easy, we've listed every Express card we've seen at retailers at the time of writing below. Remember: You want microSD Express, not "Extreme," like the branding SanDisk uses for some conventional microSD cards. A microSD Express card will have a big "EX" logo printed on it.

128GB

• SanDisk microSD Express Card ($64 MSRP)

• PNY microSD Express Card ($48 MSRP)

256GB

• Samsung microSD Express Card for Nintendo Switch 2 ($60 MSRP)

• Samsung P9 Express ($55 MSRP)

• SanDisk microSD Express Card ($78 MSRP)

• Lexar Play Pro ($60 MSRP)

• PNY microSD Express Card ($62 MSRP)

• GameStop Express microSD Card for Nintendo Switch 2 ($60 MSRP)

• Onn microSD Express Card ($47 MSRP)

512GB

• Samsung P9 Express ($100 MSRP)

• SanDisk microSD Express Card ($128 MSRP)

• Lexar Play Pro ($120 MSRP)

• PNY microSD Express Card ($124 MSRP)

• GameStop Express microSD Card for Nintendo Switch 2 ($100 MSRP)

• Onn microSD Express Card ($85 MSRP)

1TB

• Lexar Play Pro ($220 MSRP)

• GameStop Express microSD Card for Nintendo Switch 2 ($190 MSRP)

All microSD Express cards will have this "EX" logo printed on them.

As you can see, while the SanDisk card is fast, it's also the most expensive of an already-pricey bunch. Is it worth an extra $10-20 to shave a couple seconds off certain loads in certain games, or a couple minutes when moving a game to external storage? Probably not for most people.

But stock for all of these cards has been a bit patchy since the Switch 2 landed, particularly for the Walmart Onn model, which has typically been the cheapest choice. More recently, the GameStop-branded cards seem to have sold out too. If only one card is actually available by the time you read this — and you must have it today — it's safe to just get it. You won't lose or gain all that much when it comes to real-world performance.

We've recommended holding off on buying a microSD Express card for as long as possible in previous updates to this guide, and ultimately each model above should still come down in price over time. We saw multiple Express card discounts during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, for instance. 

But between President Trump's tariff hikes and the ongoing AI-driven shortages for memory and high-capacity storage, you'd be justified if you wanted to grab the largest card you can reasonably afford sooner rather than later. These things are still pricey compared to traditional microSD cards: The Samsung Pro Plus, for example, costs $17 for 128GB, $27 for 256GB, $50 for 512GB and $95 for 1TB as of this writing. And ideally, we'll see more high-capacity options down the road: Nintendo says the Switch 2 technically supports cards up to 2TB, but so far only a couple even go up to 1TB. You should still try to use all 256GB baked into the Switch 2 first, even if it means having to delete a game or two. But if you absolutely need more space right away, the cards above should be fine today.

What are microSD Express cards?

A microSD Express card like the one on the right has a second row of pins on the back.

Most microSD cards are based on a standard called Ultra High Speed (UHS), of which there are three versions: UHS-I, UHS-II and UHS-III. The vast majority of cards you may have bought in the past utilize UHS-I. These have one row of pins in the back and a theoretical maximum data transfer speed of 104 megabytes per second (MB/s). (Though many cards are able to surpass that limit with proprietary tech and card readers.) The original Switch has a UHS-I microSD slot, as do most other gaming handhelds like Valve's Steam Deck.

UHS-II cards add a second row of pins and can reach up to 312 MB/s. These are pricier and much less common than cards based on UHS-I, but they're supported by some cameras and higher-power handhelds like the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X. UHS-III, meanwhile, is twice as fast as UHS-II in theory (624 MB/s), but no microSD cards have actually used it.

UHS-I cards have held on over the years because they're cheap, widely supported and fast enough for the things most people need them to do: record 4K video, stash photos and so on. But with the Switch 2, Nintendo needs more. The new console is dramatically more powerful, which allows it to run demanding games that may have originally been built for stronger hardware like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X or gaming PCs. The device also uses UFS 3.1 storage internally, which is much speedier than the eMMC storage used by the original Switch. (A custom file decompression engine helps improve load times as well.) So if the Switch 2 is going to accept microSD cards, it needs ones that won't bring a serious drop-off in performance and can hold up with modern games.

The Nintendo Switch 2.

Hence, SD Express. This standard has technically been around since 2018 but mostly went nowhere until the Switch 2 came along. It also uses a second row of pins, but it lets microSD cards take advantage of the PCI Express (PCIe)/NVMe interface, which is the same underlying tech used by modern SSDs. As a result, it can produce considerably faster read and write speeds, with a current theoretical maximum of 985 MB/s.

As noted above, real-world performance won't be quite that fast. Even if it was, the best microSD Express cards would still be much slower than the NVMe SSDs used by the PS5 and Xbox. (Sony recommends SSDs with sequential read speeds of at least 5,500 MB/s.) And they'll fall well below their peak speeds under sustained loads: SanDisk, for instance, says sustained write speeds for its 128GB Express card can drop as low as 100 MB/s.

But they're still a marked improvement over old UHS-I cards, and in theory, they should be quicker than some older SATA-based SSDs when it comes loading game levels, asset streaming, retrieving saves or copying games to external storage. Whereas SanDisk's microSD Express card can produce sequential read speeds around 900 MB/s, Lexar's Professional Silver Plus — the top UHS-I pick in our general microSD card guide — topped out just over 200 MB/s, and that's with a proprietary reader. (On the first Switch, it'd be closer to 100 MB/s.) Sequential writes and random speeds were three to four times better as well, and sometimes even more depending on the benchmark we used.

It remains to be seen how well these Express cards will hold up with years of use, and there's no way to know exactly when their sky-high prices will drop. Non-Switch 2 devices that support microSD Express are still exceedingly rare, and the standard itself isn't backwards compatible with UHS-II, so you'll be limited to UHS-I speeds if you want to use your card with another device (unless you buy a pricey external reader). Still, while the increased costs and limited selection are annoying, the tech itself is worthy of a next-gen Switch.

How we test microSD Express cards

We put our microSD Express cards through a series of tests meant to simulate how people would use each card on the Switch 2 in the real world. We mainly worked with four games: a mid-sized title in Mario Kart World, a small one in Fast Fusion, a relatively large one in Cyberpunk 2077 and a hybrid in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which ran off a Switch 1 cartridge but used a roughly 10GB Switch 2 upgrade pack that was downloaded and installed digitally.

We first timed how long it took to move each game from the system's internal storage to the card in question, and vice versa. We then timed how long it took to load each game when installed to a given card. After that, we measured how quickly the cards could load certain in-game scenarios: the first Grand Prix race in Mario Kart; the first championship race in Fast Fusion; fast traveling between the Jig-Jig Street, Embers and Downtown Central areas in Cyberpunk and fast traveling between the Kakariko Village, Korok Forest and the Hyrule Castle Town Ruins areas in Zelda. (We chose those places in the latter two games because they're more taxing than other regions.) With Cyberpunk and Zelda, we also timed how long it took to load up different save files in those locations.

With each test, we completed three to five runs to account for any irregularities and marked down the average time taken between them. We did each test in airplane mode, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off, to minimize any performance drain that could arise from background downloads. Between each test, we also spent at least an hour playing the games off each card to ensure there were no significant drop-offs compared to the console's built-in storage.

Recent updates

December 2025: We've tested Samsung's P9 Express card, though our general shopping advice for this market remains the same.

November 2025: We've tested the 256GB version of Walmart's Onn microSD Express card and edited our guide accordingly. It's generally slower than most of the other options we've tried, especially when moving games to and from system storage, and in synthetic benchmark tests on a PC. But the performance drop-off isn't particularly noticeable in actual Switch 2 games, so if you see it in stock and just want to pay as little as possible, it's a decent buy.

September 2025: We've taken another pass through this guide to confirm our advice is still accurate. We've also noted a new 512GB version of PNY's microSD Express card and confirmed that a "SanDisk GamePlay" Express card sold at Walmart has the same performance as the standard SanDisk model we recommend above, just with a different name.