Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem Router review

While the 2.4GHz band is useful for non-5GHz-compatible devices such as mobile phones and older laptops, the 5GHz band avoids interference with other 2.4GHz devices (such as some DECT cordless phones) so can lead to higher speeds. When testing with our 5GHz-compatible laptop, transfer speeds were impressive. Using the laptop’s built-in Centrino 2 chipset and with 300Mbit/s mode enabled, which uses two 5GHz channels to improve throughput, we transferred files at our 1m ‘near’ test at a huge 54.8Mbit/s. At our 10m ‘far’ range, speeds were still up at 48.4Mbit/s, which makes the N600 router faster than any of the models in our last router test (see Labs, Shopper 280). In our 25m ‘very far’ test, speeds dropped to 9.8Mbit/s, but this is still one of the best results we’ve seen.

With Netgear’s own WNDA3100 USB adaptor (£37) we saw 45.1Mbit/s at 10m, which is similar to our Centrino 2 result, and 17.1Mbit/s at 15m. We managed to improve our 25m result slightly by turning off channel bonding, which pushed transfer speeds up to 18.4Mbit/s – making the N600N overall the fastest router we have tested at 5GHz. The router isn’t quite so impressive in 2.4GHz mode – speeds with our Centrino 2 laptop were only average, and it was slower than most with its own adaptor in this mode.

Netgear’s N600 is a very expensive router, but its comprehensive support for guest networks and superb transfer speeds make it stand out from the rest. If you mainly use 2.4GHz devices on your wireless network the Belkin Play Max N600 HD makes more sense, but if you’re using more modern equipment the fast and fully-featured N600 is an excellent choice.