@Kimberlin There is always someone who doesn't do close reading, is there?
So, let me clarify:
I didn't say TP-Link was made in China, did I, but that it was a Chinese make, as in it's a Chinese brand. There is nothing wrong with products being made in China, as nearly the whole world is made there (even if it's one part of a product).
Anyway, TP-Link is a budget brand aiming to produce a product quickly with as little support afterwards as possible, as it's costly to do that. This means that firmware upgrades are fewer, if any at all, potentially being a security issue at a later stage. For this reason alone, I do not recommend TP-Link.
If you also care whether it's a European brand, so to support something (relatively) local, then I mentioned Fritz, who have a long history of supporting their oldest products with annual firmware updates, which also introduce new features, hardware-permitting.
UniFi is an American brand and has a very good reputation. DrayTek used to have a good reputation but their focus now is getting products out as quickly as possible with a number of firmware issues being regularly reported. Devolo, which is known for its power line adapters, have recently released a very good and capable router that is worth attention.
All in all, just because Currys sells TP-Link, it doesn't mean that that's the only brand out there. It's a budget brand for a reason, too.
Also, with our homes now being connected to the Internet more than before and relying on that connection big time, I'd personally choose security over price and inflated specs, which TP-Link is good at promoting and taking advantage of - for them, it's all about what the new router's WiFi chip is. But, for your devices to take advantage of the ax standard (for example), they need to be ax, too; so, if most of your devices are in ac standard, there is no point in getting something much better as you won't see the benefits of it at all.
The same applies to WiFi7 - if none of your devices use WiFi7, then there is no point getting that kind of router. Finally, getting a router with a 2.5 gig LAN port so that you can connect to the fibre network, even if your ONT isn't capable of that kind of speed, you won't see the advantages of that.
So, getting a router to be future-proof - who knows what the future will be and what will be become the standard. History shows that it's not always what companies think it will be... Plenty examples of that.
