Those are great numbers -- each of them a few hundred Mbps faster than you'll see with pretty much any Wi-Fi 5 router -- but they're not quite as fast as the fastest Wi-Fi 6 router we've tested yet, the TP-Link Archer AX6000. Or maybe it's the router Dark Helmet would use aboard Spaceball One, if only because it could double as a prop during play-time with his Spaceballs action figures. AMD Radeon RX. Netgear CM1000/CM1100/CM1200 Brief Review Netgear has been for a long time one of the best home networking brands. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Netgear Nighthawk CM1100 DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem at Amazon.com. By Brian Nadel 03 February 2021 Comments (1) Read honest and unbiased product reviews … We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read. That said, the Nighthawk saw bigger speed drops than those systems as we increased the distance. Among the ones that support Wi-Fi 6, I like the $450 Asus ZenWiFi AX the best, but you've got a lot of new options this year that are worth a look, too. Download R7000 Nighthawk AC1900 Smart WiFi Router Firmware for Windows to get the latest firmware for your Netgear R7000 Nighthawk AC1900 Smart WiFi Router. With the Nighthawk, you're pretty much limited to Netgear's lineup of plug-in range extenders. Both of those outperformed the Nighthawk in my at-home tests, too, and the same goes for the $379 AmpliFi Alien -- though as of writing this, that router is listed as out of stock on the Ubiquiti website. Black Friday AirPods deals. The yet-to-be-released Asus RT-AX89X, which is one of the next routers I'll review, did even better, with a back bathroom average of 191 Mbps. But then it happened again. There aren't a whole lot of advanced settings to dig through, though -- for that, you'll want to connect with the router via your browser. Read helpful reviews from our customers. If you're looking to fill in dead spots that your router can't reach, the Netgear Nighthawk X4 AC2200 Wi-Fi Range Extender (EX7300) is an excellent choice. With our lab tests finished, it was time to take the Nighthawk home and test it out in a real-world environment -- specifically, my 1,300 sq. If you experience any issues, please contact us at aircardapp_support@netgear.com, as we are unable respond or open tickets based on reviews. You'll have a much better experience with a well-developed mesh system that puts band steering front and center,. The NETGEAR Nighthawk M1 (MR1100) is a versatile portable hotspot router that has long battery life. They're still an appealing upgrade option in 2020 -- particularly if you think you'll be able to get good use out of those multigig connection capabilities. At multiple points during my speed tests, the connection would fall to 2.4GHz speeds even when I was just a room away from the router and still well within 5GHz distance. Boeing 737 Max. The XR500's speed and range are … Speed is important, but stability matters, too. NETGEAR Mobile App is supported by NETGEAR. That did the trick -- after disconnecting from the network and then reconnecting to it, my speeds were back up were they should be, just shy of 300 Mbps. Wi-Fi 6 should prove to be a particularly fine upgrade for mesh routers, and it's encouraging that we're already seeing options that cost less than most Wi-Fi 5 mesh routers were selling for not even a year ago. Netgear's Nighthawk AX8 8-Stream Wi-Fi 6 Router (RAX80) joins the Asus RT-AX88U as the first 802.11ax routers to hit our labs. Showing 11-20 of 110. CNET may get a commission from these offers. In our own lab, where we wire each router to a local server and then download files wirelessly on a 2x2, Wi-Fi 6-equipped laptop from various distances, we clocked the RAX120 with a top-sustained speed of 1,263 Mbps on the 5GHz band. So what was happening here? Still, at the farthest distances we test, the Nighthawk's speeds dropped by about 40% in our lab and by a little less than 30% in my at-home tests. At a distance of just five feet, our average speed rang in at 901 Mbps. It wasn't an issue with my network -- it was the Nighthawk router getting confused by a non-stationary client device. It's a worthy upgrade for power users, but for most of us, the Netgear Nighthawk RAX120 is more router than you need. And don't even think of getting a third band to use as a dedicated backhaul for transmissions between the router and the satellites at this price. All of that makes Netgear's mesh entry to the Nighthawk brand a tough system for me to recommend. It doesn't include a traffic-scanning threat detector, though. As always, combined speed ratings like those are a bit misleading since you can only connect to one band at a time. But then I picked up my laptop and moved to a new spot -- the kitchen. Best Buy has honest and unbiased customer reviews for NETGEAR - Nighthawk 32 x 8 DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem - Black. That's the farthest room from the router and a common dead spot when I'm testing a single-point router like this one. To do so, we move over to the 5,800 sq. Netgear's newest mesh router supports Wi-Fi 6 speeds at the most affordable price yet -- but don't rush out to buy it before reading this. The other half of the time, it chose the 2.4GHz band's stronger signal. That was with the router only a couple of feet away. That multigig port and those aggregate-able LAN ports can also operate in WAN mode, which means that this router will be able to keep up if your incoming internet speeds ever rise past 1Gbps. Netgear CM1000/CM1100/CM1200 Brief Review Netgear has been for a long time one of the best home networking brands. Read honest and unbiased product reviews … Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. I'll also note that it isn't the first time that I've had issues with Netgear's mesh performance. Netgear's Nighthawk brand is a mainstay of the router aisle. The RAX120 delivered fast download speeds throughout my home, but the numbers fell sharply in that back bathroom, the farthest room from the router. Most mesh systems I test are able to hold that drop-off to 30% or less. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion. You won't find many extra bells or whistles in the app, either. In fact, I've run thousands of speed tests in my home over the past several months under the same controlled settings, and the Nighthawk is the only router that's given me this much of a headache. Both the router and the satellite include one spare gigabit Ethernet jack, which lets you wire the two together for faster system performance. Netgear's Nighthawk app walked me through the setup process and my network was up and running within a few minutes. For such a high-end modem, the Netgear Nighthawk C7000 is surprisingly thin and light. This NETGEAR Nighthawk smart WiFi router is fast and easy to use for most people, and it earns many praises and is rated 4.2 out of 5 stars by real life customers … It's good-looking without drawing too much attention to itself, and does a good enough job of blending in that you won't feel embarrassed about keeping both devices out in the open, where they'll perform their best. Compared to the Xfinity modem that we have lying around, it’s a huge … My first few speed tests, conducted from the comfort of my living room couch with the router sitting just a few feet away, were just as fast as you'd expect, essentially maxing out my home's 300 Mbps fiber internet plan. The Nighthawk app offers quick, basic controls for your system, and it does a good job of walking you through the setup process in quick fashion. The signal strength on both the main floor where the router and satellite were located and the basement level below was adequate and slightly stronger than a comparably priced Wi-Fi 5 system like the Nest Wifi, but not nearly as strong as a high-end, triband Wi-Fi 6 system like the Orbi 6 that sells for $700. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. Speeds fell to about 818 Mbps when we increased the distance from 5 feet to 75 feet. Read helpful reviews … That's the router in the background, a few feet away... At first, everything seemed fine. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Other mesh routers I've tested have all done a much better job of optimizing my speeds -- and other surprisingly affordable Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers are coming soon, so you've got alternatives worth waiting for. Both the dual-band Orbi and the triband Orbi Voice Wi-Fi 5 systems dropped my connection on multiple occasions during my at-home tests. Slow speeds in my kitchen one minute, then back to normal as soon as I disconnect and reconnect. That's less than you'll spend for the Nest Wifi, a well-reviewed two-piece mesh system that doesn't support Wi-Fi 6 at all. This year, the company added a new Nighthawk-branded mesh system into the mix, complete with support for Wi-Fi 6 -- the newest, fastest version of Wi-Fi. Netgear Nighthawk free download, and many more programs. We saw faster top speeds in our lab from the $269 TP-Link Archer AX6000 and also from the soon-to-be-released Asus RT-AX89X, which costs a little more at $450. That's a fairly narrow subset of the router-buying populace, though. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for NETGEAR Nighthawk AC2600 Smart WiFi Router (R7450) at Amazon.com. Among Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers, the Netgear Nighthawk averaged the slowest download speeds throughout my home -- but the real issue was the unreliable connection as I moved from room to room. That's potentially a pretty big deal for mesh routers, because the range-extending satellites that pair with the router need to pass a lot of data back and forth as you connect. The "AX" in "AX6000" indicates that it supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), while the "6000" indicates the combined top theoretical speeds of each band. The results were pretty close to what you might expect for an entry-level Wi-Fi 6 system like the Nighthawk. Netgear's R9000 Nighthawk X10 is a needy Wi-Fi router. And that was with me frequently re-connecting in order to give the system its best chance to succeed. In order to experience its superfast local Wi-Fi speed, you first need an 802.11ad-enabled laptop and a high-end … With the router wired to a MacBook acting as a local server, we connected to the Nighthawk's network using a second laptop that supports Wi-Fi 6. That 1,200 Mbps speed claim would indeed be pretty impressive, but keep in mind those ratings come from the manufacturer's own lab, where conditions are designed to be as optimal as possible (and again, the WAN port caps your incoming wired speed at a single gig, or 1,000 Mbps). Devices that do support Wi-Fi 6 are capable of sending and receiving data faster and more efficiently than previous-gen Wi-Fi devices. CNET may get a commission from these offers. You don't get a multigig WAN port on the router like you do with the Netgear Orbi 6, for instance, so your incoming internet speed will be capped at 1 gigabit per second. And, when I see a weirdly slow result like that in my tests, I'll make a note of it in my spreadsheet, then reset the connection. About the size of a coffee-table book, Netgear's Nighthawk X6S is one of the largest routers on the market and is about one-quarter bigger than the Linksys WRT32X router. Those are both low-end results among the Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems I've tested. The best mesh routers in 2021: Asus, Eero, Netgear … If the Nighthawk mesh router looks a little familiar, that's because it's the same basic design as the recent dual-band, budget-priced version of the Netgear Orbi mesh system, which I reviewed a few months ago. Netgear XR500 Nighthawk Pro Gaming Router Netgear and NetDuma teamed up to create a gamer's delight inside a futuristic-looking router. If you're going to spend more than $300 on a new router, then it's fair to expect strong performance, high-end features and fast, future-proofed speeds. It's a relatively small space for a mesh system, but it gives me a good chance to see how these systems actually perform in a home environment. ft., single story house, where I have an AT&T fiber internet connection of 300 Mbps, the RAX120's 5GHz band was able to average speeds well above 250 Mbps in the majority of the space, but speeds fell to 100 Mbps in my back bathroom. Significantly faster than comparable Wi-Fi 5 routers, LAN aggregation and multigig jack options support incoming speeds of up to 5Gpbs, Good VPN option via the Nighthawk web interface, So-so band steering via the SmartConnect feature, Slightly lower top speeds than our fastest-tested Wi-Fi 6 router, which costs less, Discuss: Warp speed from this Wi-Fi 6 router? All the same, my speeds plummeted to well below 100 Mbps. The San Jose, California based company is known for making high performance and reliable cable modems and routers for SOHO networks (home and small office) with a great example being the mesh Orbi series. On the downside, the antennas can neither be r… You'll find system controls and advanced features like a Quality of Service engine and a VPN network in the Nighthawk's web portal. Netgear claims that the 2.4GHz band can hit speeds of up to 600 Mbps, and that the 5GHz band is capable of hitting speeds as high as 1,200 Mbps. With lots of other interesting new mesh routers making their way to market in 2020, that's too much of a compromise. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Credit the Nighthawk for hitting the middle ground between those two, especially given that it costs less than the Nest. ... Trending from CNET.