NETGEAR - Nighthawk AC2600 Dual-Band Wi-Fi Router - Black

So far, So good... my old old router was starting to act up after 8 loyal years, and this nighthawk was on a Black Friday special.... Noticed much improved signal strength, and I tried screen mirroring on My Chromecast with my Samsung phone and noticed that the Lag time was significantly improved...The app I used to set up the Router is nice....I can shut off anybody's internet, even when not at home...So kids----have your grades above a D this year...I also have a old Hp Desktop that only had a Nvidia 10/100 ethernet card ( still running Vista) that would not connect via cord to the router unless I went under The device driver for the ethernet card and used a setting that was not Auto-negotiate.. .

Overall – great speed and range. I had this thing running for a week without any hiccups. Setup is painful, especially if you’re using something like U-verse. The app is clunky and doesn’t allow you to do the things you need to do to get things up and running. I’m sure if you have a normal provider that just brings internet to a box and out to your router, the installation would be easy. I had a ton of trouble with U-verse, which requires you to plug the TV set-top boxes into the special Residential Gateway. To be fair, U-verse seems to make everything a pain, so my challenges are not unexpected. The app seems to have timeouts to allow the R7400 to reboot at certain times, but then you get stuck in an error loop because the R7400 took longer to reboot. When first plugged in, the R7400 created wifi networks on a separate subnet from the Uverse gateway. That may work for other people, but I needed everything on the same subnet. Different subnets meant no talking between devices. Sheesh – ok, so I guess I need to tell the R7400 to not act as a DHCP server. To do that, you have to log in through a browser (it’s not possible in the app). It took multiple restarts to get things working. My iPhone won’t stay connected to a network without internet access, so had to pull out an old Android tablet to take care of things. Once it was going, things were great. Range was pretty good. I used to use a range extender to get some smart home devices on the network. This seems to have solved that problem. Range was good enough to reach the far corner of the garage where the sprinkler controller sits, so I can get rid of the range extender. Speeds are better than the wireless built in to the Uverse gateway, so that is definitely a plus. I used to have an issue when someone else was video chatting and I wanted to watch a movie. That problem is gone now. I believe that has to do with the MU-MIMO capabilities. It’s a little thing, but that ends a huge annoyance for me. The guest network is sort of expected these days, but is a very useful tool. I don’t want others to be able to see all the devices on my network, so the idea of an easy way to give a second SSID that sits isolated on the network is great. I had no problems using it or giving the network credentials to others. Changing it is just as easy and doesn’t impact all my smart home devices. The parental controls seem helpful. They work, but I don’t have a kid in the house to control. I already have other devices I can access through ReadyCloud. This is huge. I was able to easily add a USB 3.0 device and get good speeds. I can access inside the network and now I can access from anywhere through my Netgear account. That is pretty important to me because it allows me to avoid the high fees from other hosting services like Google or Amazon. I used to run an extender to provide service to some smart home switches in the far end of the house, but that isn’t necessary anymore. If your current setup just needs a little bit more range, this might be the solution for you. One router and wifi network is infinitely easier than having the extender. So to summarize, this will be a challenge to set up if you’re using with U-verse. Once you get there, the price is worth it. This thing will keep you up and running, and it provides extra features like the ability to plug in a USB hard drive for network (or remote) access.

Works great Very easy setup Started working right away with no glitches

Fast and work well, I got full strength wifi. My whole family enjoy it. Work well and price is good

Got this router yesterday at a great price. It was easy to setup and both bands have strong signal throughout my 2 story house. Just what I was looking for.

The router itself has performed flawlessly and the app certainly is an intriguing feature. I did have some initial issues getting the router setup. Once I rebooted a few times and attempted a reset of my ip address, things were smooth! The range is what I love most about this particular router. I am able to walk completely around my home (inside and out) and even to the mailbox while remaining connected. It's awesome not feeling restricted! I certainly appreciate being part of NETGEAR’s First Look Review Program. They have allowed me to test this product and it has been an honor.

I recently received this router as part of Netgear's First Look Review Program and have very much enjoyed it. Setup is very simple and the app is easy to use. The speeds are much higher than my previous router and the distance spreads much farther than any router I've owned. This router is great for streaming tv and gaming and I would recommend this to anybody. The only downside is that it is a little more expensive than some routers but the benefits are worth it.