Librem Minis were sold out so I bought a System76 mini. I ran PureOS on it and so the WiFi didn’t work (it has internal WiFi hardware but it requires nonfree firmware). I was able to get WiFi working by bringing a USB wifi adapter, then asking an LLM to guide me through which proprietary firmware to download for the USB wifi. LLMs might be evil actually, but it worked. ThinkPenguin sells better USB wifi adapters that dont need the firmware/LLM nonsense, and work with libre PCs, last I heard. Would be literal plug-and-play, I assume.
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I believe the Purism Mini v2 Wifi+BT card is the Intel AX200. It also requires proprietary firmware (presumably in Purism’s firmware blob “jail”). The current System 76 minis use either the Intel BE201 or Intel BE202 which, similarly, has FOSS drivers but proprietary firmware.
Of course that depends on what you mean as “better”? If you’re talking about not having/requiring proprietary firmware, then “yes”. If you’re talking about performance features, then “no”. I think that in terms of RYF USB wifi adapters … they only support up to 802.11n (not ac) and are Wifi4 … rather than the more-current Wifi7. Also, most of them use the Atheros chipset and (used to) have lots of issues. Also, if you’re talking about “price” … then also “no”.
In terms of “plug and play”: You might have to do a “sudo apt install firmware-ath9k-htc”.
WiFi 4 modules are still manufactured, especially for cheaper devices. Trying to use WiFi 4 and WiFi 6 devices in a single network gave me an impression that the network can only be as improved as the weakest device participating allows it.