NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router review

Excellent throughput and range at the 5GHz band, many features (including full VPN)? plus a cool name?all make the Nighthawk during a ll|one amongst|one in every one among the simplest routers we have seen from Netgear in a while, despite a couple of annoyances. Get more in NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router Review.

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Pros & Cons

PROS
Sharp design.
Great throughput at 5GHz.
Excellent range.
Wonderful QoS.
Full VPN capability.

CONS
Less-than-expected throughput at 2.4GHz band.
Painful Bridge mode configuration.
Slow to use settings changes.

The Nighthawk($146.99 at Amazon), is Netgear’s latest router within the company’s premium dual-band 802.11ac router line-up. The router looks as cool as its name suggests, with a trapezoid design and flared sides. the form is like the famed fighter jet of an equivalent name. Yet the Nighthawk (model R7000) isn’t just dressed to impress: Excellent speeds on the 5GHz band when paired with Netgear’s latest mini 11ac A6100 USB adapter and enhanced Quality-of-Service (QoS) that basically shortens the time to buffer and stream video make the Nighthawk one among the highest 802.11ac routers currently on the marketplace for heavy-duty throughput tasks. We cover every details in NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router Review.

It’s not an ideal device, with just okay throughput at 2.4GHz—at least testing during a heavy RF signal environment. It also takes quite a while to use settings changes. However, with 802.11ac, the speed factor is most vital at 5GHz, and therefore the Nighthawk delivers the products not just in rate but in range, too. Bonus for router geeks: Nighthawk are often flashed with open-source firmware.

Specs and style

The R7000 may be a large router. It measures 1.97″ x 11.22″ x 7.26″ (HWD) and weighs a touch over 1.6 pounds. Netgear revamped the planning from its last release of dual-band routers including the Centria($433.99 at Amazon) and therefore the R6300, both of which have an upright design with the devices meant to work vertically in attached bases.

The Nighthawk operates horizontally (although it are often wall-mounted). the planning represents Netgear’s slickest router look yet. The wide base of the R7000 makes it very sturdy, even with cables connected to each port. With its wide base and rubber feet, this big router won’t slip and slide everywhere a surface.

A beefy router certainly deserves beefy specs. Inside the Nighthawk may be a dual-core 1GHz processor—powerful, for a consumer router. The R7000 supports 600Mbps at 2.4GHz and up to 1300Mbps at the 5GHz band. Three external antennas ship with the router and fasten to the rear panel. The R7000 also has 128MB non-volatile storage and 256MB RAM.
There are two USB ports; one on the front of the router and therefore the second on the rear. The front port is USB 3.0 and therefore the back port is USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 port was deliberately placed on the front, faraway from the two .4GHz radio, to scale back Wi-Fi signal interference. Both ports support USB storage and printers.

On the rear panel are Gigabit WAN and 4 Gigabit LAN ports, a push button , and an influence button. LEDs on the highest of the router indicate wireless, Internet, USB device connection, and other network activity status.

I wasn’t surprised that with its hardware specs, the R7000 runs a tad warm. Not hot, just a touch warmer than temperature . i might place it during a location with good air circulation.

One other design aspect to note: The brick on the facility cord is large . it’s thin, though, so you should not have a drag placing it alongside other power adapters during a strip plug.

Setup – NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router

As is that the case with most of the newer routers, the R7000 is straightforward to line up. An installation guide is within the package and descriptions the few steps needed to line the device up. The instructions are clear, concise, and straightforward to follow.

The last step instructs users to launch an internet browser to end configuration. once I did, a page displayed that the router was successfully connected to the web and therefore the pre-configured wireless SSID and passphrase. I had the choice to print this page or click a button “Take me to the web .” Clicking this button redirected the page to Netgear’s external website where I could download management apps for the router, including the Genie desktop or mobile app, the ReadyVault app (for using the router as a part of a backup solution), or access a link for help and support.

I have reviewed the 2 aforementioned apps, and that they haven’t changed significantly since those reviews. you’ll read the provided link to the reviews for more details. The R7000’s setup process is streamlined, well done, and will not present a drag for many users.

QoS

A feature Netgear is highlighting within the Nighthawk is enhanced QoS. I tested it, and am happy to mention that, in my testing, the QoS capability of this router is not just hype. The QoS feature is superb at optimizing video streaming.

Enabling QoS requires configuring a couple of settings within the interface. you’ll activate WMM (Wi-Fi MultiMedia) for either the two .4 or 5GHz signals (or both). WMM, may be a feature which will give priority to multimedia data, like video or audio streams.

Also, you’ll set the router to optimize upstream Internet traffic for gaming or downstream traffic for video streaming.

I tested playing a Netflix movie while wirelessly connected to the R7000, initially with these QoS settings disabled. The time from once I clicked “play” on my movie choice and from once I saw the beginning of the movie was 21 seconds.

After I turned on these QoS features the time from clicking play to viewing was reduced to 4 seconds. i used to be impressed. Typically, performing an equivalent test of other routers’ QoS will yield some performance gains with QoS enabled, but I’ve never seen such a big difference.

QoS has pre-set rules within the interface. These rules include ones that set upstream traffic from widely used services including Xbox applications, popular games, and VPN to “High” priority. Downstream-intensive data from sites like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube also are set to “High.”

Netgear does an honest job of covering most of the common services the standard home user would access. All of the preconfigured settings are often edited. for instance , if your Netflix movie must run despite Junior’s online gaming, you’ll set gaming traffic to low or medium priority and video streaming as high priority.

Advanced users can set their own custom QoS rules. Doing so may be a mixed bag—I found fixing upstream custom rules quite easy and configuring downstream custom rules absolutely confusing. I didn’t see how to specify ports or priority level for upstream rules. Buffalo’s newest 11ac AirStation router, has the sting as far as customizing QoS.
QoS within the R7000 still impressed me, though. It’s one among the highlighted features of the router.

Beamforming + and NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router Performance review

The R7000 isn’t the fastest 802.11ac router we’ve tested, but its throughput at the 5GHz band is among top speeds we have seen . Also, the router’s ability to sustain good throughput at further distance is among the simplest we’ve tested.

The decent range coverage is courtesy of a feature called Beamforming +. Beamforming may be a wireless technology that directs a wireless signal from a router to wireless clients, improving throughput and signal strength. Beamforming + is an enhanced version of this technology that Netgear has baked into the R7000 for the 5GHz band.

At a distance of about 15 feet testing faraway from the R7000, the connection between my test wireless client the router had a mean speed of 174Mbps. This excellent rate (in an environment with many access points) was achieved using Netgear’s latest 11ac USB adapter, the A6100.

This is still not the fastest 802.11ac throughput we’ve tested. Buffalo’s AirStation AC1300/N900 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router WZR-D1800H averaged 187 Mbps conducting an equivalent test, and Trendnet’s AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router (TEW-812DRU)($119.99 at Amazon) averages an unmatched wireless speed (in our lab) of 283Mbps. However, the Nighthawk sustained throughput at greater range better than the Trendnet router, and even as well because the AirStation.

I was surprised at the rather lackluster performance at the two .4GHz band. Now, it’s speedy enough to try to to the tasks you ought to keep relegated to the two .4GHz signal, like web browsing and checking e-mail. I did expect better throughput, though. The Nighthawk averaged 69Mbps at a distance of 15 feet with the router’s 2.4GHz band configured in up 600Mbps mode (equivalent to “Wireless-N only” mode).

In comparison, the Trendnet router mentioned above managed 99 Mbps, and therefore the AirStation clocked 87Mbps in 2.4GHz with comparative configurations.

Netgear plans to release an upcoming firmware update which will add enhanced beamforming to the two .4GHz radio, in order that may help with the speed at 2.4GHz within the near future. Also, truth speed that the Nighthawk can obtain won’t become apparent until we start seeing compatible 3×3 built-in wireless 802.11ac adapters in devices (probably in abother 6 months to a year). The USB adapters available now slow throughput down somewhat due to the limitation of USB speed.

Therefore, I won’t knock the R7000 too hard for this less-than-expected throughput at 2.4GHz. Where you would like the facility during this router is at the 5GHz band, for heavy-duty tasks requiring strong throughput, and that is what you get.

Other Features and Observations – NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router Review

With the USB ports, you get some NAS functionality within the R7000. The NAS capability is Netgear’s ReadyShare technology. I attached a Western Digital My Passport drive to the USB 3.0 port. there’s a neighborhood within the router’s interface for managing attached storage. Drives are often configured to support HTTP/HTTPS or FTP access. you’ll also create network folders via ReadyShare.

I did a file copy of a 1.5GB video clip to the attached My Passport. The Write speed was a touch under 11 MBps. this is often absolutely typical speed for copying an outsized file wirelessly to a USB memory device . you’ll want to use the NAS functionality for smaller file sharing. If you would like to share large files or stream video within your home network, you’re more happy getting a fanatical NAS, or a minimum of , connect your client device via coaxial cable to the Nighthawk once you want to figure with an attached USB drive and enormous files.

The USB ports also support printers using the ReadyShare printer feature and you’ll turn an attached USB drive into a backup solution with Netgear’s ReadyShare Vault app.

The Nighthawk has many of an equivalent features you’d find in other premium dual-band routers, including guest networking, DMZ, NAT filtering, parental controls and other access and content controls. One feature it’s that’s missing during a number for other routers is full-blown VPN capability. you’ll set this up for VPN access into your home network once you are away. we’ll test the capabililty of the VPN service during a dedicated review.

I did notice while making settings changes within the interface, the time to use these changes was rather lengthy; an honest 20-30 seconds in some instances. I also noticed that while it’s beneficial that the R7000 can operate as an access point, bridge, or repeater, but placing it in Bridge mode was a pain.

In other routers, you simple click on the wireless network you would like to bridge the second router to, and therefore the bridging happens just about automatically. within the R7000, I had to first close up security and set a selected channel for the wireless band I wanted to bridge before I could even click the choice to line in bridge mode! Then, I had to manually enter the MAC address of the router with which to bridge. Bridging within the Nighthawk may be a sloppy affair.

NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router customer Review

Best purchase made!!
The only high-speed internet provider I can use is Comcast xFinity and their SB3 & newest SB4 would not allow for a steady connection and would be offline more than online. Read the end to note if you have xFinity Home, which is Comcast’s security system. After 11 tech visits and 3 supervisors came by, countless call ins, I decided to purchase my own modem/router combo to see if I could resolve the inconsistency & it was resolved.
The associate at the local Best Buy suggested this one since I have so much connected with my home being smart and have several Nest Cameras streaming 24/7. Right when I changed out the modem settings with tech support via FB Messanger (as tech support closed at 8pm), my life changed. I now have constant high speed internet connection and it has not once went down in the couple weeks I have owned this brand and model. If I knew it would have resolved my issues since Jan 2019 and it’s June 2019 now, I would have made this purchase much sooner. Comcast employees can’t explain why “using my own modem and router is working but their devices wouldn’t. Not even the newest model on the market, the SB6).
I have Google Home Hub, Brother laser printer, 2 iPhone Max Xs phones, HD xFinity cable box, Samsung TV, 4 Nest Outdoor Cameras, smart defuser, smart doorbell camera, my xFinity Home alarm system, and much more connected at all times and nothing once since changing to this modem/router have had any issues. When I tell Google Hub to stream one of my cameras, it doesn’t have one delay and I can also have it streaming on my phone app and MacBook Pro all at the same time without gang flaws. With the rented devices, it would lag and have the time not work.
It’s literally night and day difference and I recommend this one to everyone. It has a high range which covers far corners of the home I live in which is 3200 total sq feet. Have great signal while outside and on patio far from where it is plugged in, it’s excellent.
Well worth the money spent to have decent internet access and Comcast xFinity has no reason on why, as I stated above, my personally owned modem will work while the two they offer did not, it is pitiful.
Also, saving the extra $15 per month will add up and eventually over time save me monthly rental fees. My neighbor which runs off the same cable line as the house was built in the 1890s and made into two units have their services and while mine was down, theirs remained up and online. They own their own modem and router which worked when mine wouldn’t. Same connection, different results. All cable lines were replaced, the converters changed out to new ones, the pole had MOCHA filters all changed out, they couldn’t resolve the issue whatsoever.
Note: the touchpad for xFinity Home (alarm system) doesn’t recognize this modem as a modem nor router). Home technicians had to come and place a “side car” gateway, which is plugged into the Ethernet port on back of this device to allow touchpad to utilize WiFi for smart functions and notifications while backup 3g still worked but had delays, the WiFi option didn’t recognize it. I even had a tech from India call center try to make the SB6 modem from xFinity act as a gateway and it would not work (I was given tech a temporary access codes to go into tech settings). It was free of charge for technician to place the “side car” which is basically a wireless router with hidden SSDI and password, all secure and unable to access in general for the touchpad to sync properly to WiFi settings. It’s some security protocol which I tried googling yet not able to resolve on my part.
By MattInLouisiana at Best Buy

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NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Modem Router review – how to setup?

Pros & Cons