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Its not often we see a router thats as exciting to look at as its specification, but the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk is one such device. As implied by its name, the R7000 Nighthawk takes its styling inspiration from the F-117 Nighthawk stealth plane, even down to the shape of the aerials at its rear. Normally wed prefer our routers, especially expensive ones, to be discreet and not stand out in our living room. It may be something to do with our inner teenager fighting to get out, but we feel differently about the Nighthawk R7000. Its the kind of design that could look easily look tacky, but it doesnt, and the plastic feels high quality to the touch.
Unlike the sub-sonic F-117 Nighthawk, the R7000 promises to be astoundingly quick, as it uses the 802.11ac standard. This means the R7000 can provide theoretical speeds up to 1,300Mbit/s, but youll need an 802.11ac-compatible Wi-Fi adaptor or mobile device to benefit from 802.11acs higher speeds. Even then, you wont see speeds anywhere near 1,300Mbit/s.
Dont worry if you dont have an 802.11ac device, though, as the R700 is compatible with older standards, such as 802.11n. The R7000 is dual-band, and will work on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously. This means youll have no trouble connecting wirelessly to the R7000 whether youre using an older smartphone or a brand-new tablet.
The R7000 doesnt neglect wired connections, either, and there are four Gigabit Ethernet ports to which you can connect your PC, smart TV or any other equipment that benefits from ultra-fast wired networking. There are also two USB ports to which you can connect USB drives and printers so that you can share them with people on your network. The front USB port is a USB3 port, and although were happy to have a USB3 port wed have preferred the faster USB3 port to be located at the rear. That way we could have a USB drive permanently plugged in without spoiling the look of the R7000s front panel.
SETUP
The R7000 is a breeze to set up, as youd want and expect from such a high-priced router. The R7000s web interface is well organised, well-structured and uncluttered. The web interface is comprised of two tabs, Basic and Advanced, and each category has a set of categories down the left-hand side that let you access the Setup Wizard and USB storage options among many others.
Perhaps more conveniently for many of us in the modern age, you can download the Netgear Genie app for your iOS or Android device and configure the R7000 on a smartphone or tablet from the comfort of your couch. We tested the iOS version of the Netgear Genie app, and found it easy and straightforward to use. You can change the SSID and password of your wireless network, view a map of your network and set up a guest network, among many other options. The Netgear Genie app is free, so its well worth downloading should you decide to buy an R7000.
The Netgear Genie app means you can configure the router from your smartphone
WI-FI PERFORMANCE
As good as the R7000 looks and behaves, its speed that matters. We tested the 802.11ac performance of the R7000 with the Netgear A6200 Wi-Fi adaptor (£41, www.pixmania.co.uk). We recorded speeds of 158Mbit/s at one metre, 149Mbit/s at 10 metres and 119.8Mbit/s at 25 metres. These are mightily impressive scores, especially the 25 metre result. Its faster than the Ultimate award-winning Asus RT-AC68U router in our long distance test and just a little slower in our one metre and 10 metre tests. These are good results.
We recorded speeds that were twice as fast with the excellent Netgear R6300 router, but as the 802.11ac standard was in its infancy we had to use two R6300s in bridge mode to conduct our wireless tests rather than an adaptor. Our lab is a harsh test environment for any router because its heavily congested with Wi-Fi traffic on both bands, and we think that you could get even higher wireless speeds in a home setting.
We also tested the R7000s 2.4GHz band performance with the A6200 adaptor and were pleased to see speeds of 81.3Mbit/s at one metre, 74.1Mbit/s at 10 metres and 19.2Mbit/s at 25 metres. These are excellent speeds , as were the speeds we saw when we used our laptops built-in Wi-Fi adaptor: 46.6Mbit/s at one metre, 40.6Mbit/s at 10 metres and 11.7Mbit/s at 25 metres. Again, this compares well with the Asus RT-AC68U, which produced speeds of 40Mbit/s at one metre, 32.7Mbit/s at 10 metres and 9.7Mbit/s at 25 metres on the 2.4GHz band using our laptops built-in Wi-Fi adaptor.
We like the look, features and performance of the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk, and if you need an exceptionally fast 802.11ac router we have no hesitation in recommending it.
