NETGEAR - Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router - Black

Forgive the unoriginal title, but this router truly left me speechless. As a system administrator, I'm always using the latest and greatest technology, so I can keep up to date and be current with the trends. I had a Netgear Nighthawk X6, but noticed that it started slowing down when I added more smart devices to my network (I currently have > 50 wifi-enabled devices connected to my router at a given moment). This router answered my prayers - I was truly taken aback by the performance of this router. Plugging it in, I was amazed to see an amazing boost in performance, reliability, and range. I have a 3000sqft home, and I previously designed a mesh network to cover the entire house. With this router in my basement, the entire house has a strong wifi signal (Even outside in my front yard). Performance-wise, this blows the X6 out of the water. I have a few 4K TV's, and noticed slow-downs when trying to run multiple streams at once from Netflix (Even though my Internet is > 200mbps). When I installed this, I could watch 4K streams on all of my TV's at the same time, while using my smart phone and tablet to check up on my other devices/read the news - all without running into lag (MU-MIMO is most likely to thank for this). Streaming 4K content from my NAS drive is a piece of cake with this - the included USB 3.0 ports are also great for when I need to share content across the entire network (Eg. Family photos from a vacation, or movies on a hard-drive). By far, my favorite feature is the built-in Plex server. My Plex library has > 5tb of content (1080p & 4K, DTS-HD-MA) that I use to stream to my home theater system. I was previously using my custom built work computer, but even my i7 processor was sweating a bit when it came to transcoding videos in real-time. From my observations, the X10 can handle two simultaneous Plex streams at the same time without slowing down (Thanks to its quad-core design). Being able to shift the responsibility of transcoding videos to my router was a godsend that I didn't know I needed until I tried it out for the first time. Last point - 802.11ad. 802.11ad isn't supported by many devices yet, and has its shortcomings (Mainly range/penetration through materials). By VR ready, Netgear is saying that this router is capable of supporting 802.11ad VR headsets when companies start releasing them. At the moment, I can't gauge how the 802.11ad performs (As I don't have devices that support 802.11ad), but I'll be very excited to see how this beast handles wireless VR gaming. Be warned though, this router is huge, and will take up a lot of space on your desk (It's about 25-40% bigger than the X6), but that's to accommodate the massive heatsink that's needed to keep everything cool. If you have $500 to spare, and you're a media/technology enthusiast like myself, get this router - you won't regret it!

I've been using Netgear products for many years, and in general I find them pretty sturdy and reliable. This particular router is pretty much in line with my expectations with several pretty significant flaws that I hope will be corrected over time with Firmware updates. If you are pretty technically inclined or you are an I.T. Specialist or Security Professional I think you'll be pretty happy with the features and configuration options of this device. However, there are some things about it that really frustrated me. I'll just list the pros and cons as I have experienced them. CONS: 1). QoS - Doesn't seem to work properly over time. I noticed that my throughput absolutely cratered over about 12 hours. With QoS turned on my throughput went from 300Mbps to 20Mbps. My suspicion is this feature as presently implemented eats up buffers over time. When this is turned off, my throughput remains a little more consistent. I am also suspicious this feature caused the router to reboot at least once and I have it disabled at the moment and haven't done additional troubleshooting. 2). 60GHz band - I have also disabled this feature since nothing presently supports it and I suspect leaving it on creates additional demand on the processors and eats RAM unnecessarily and could also be contributing to the rebooting and possibly overheating issue, but I haven't tracked the temperature over time. PROS: Too many to list. This router has almost every geeky feature you could want. I haven't used ALL of them so I can't vouch for things like the media server capabilities, cloud storage capabilities, or cloud backup (to Amazon). I will eventually try these features out, but right now I don't have a lot of use for them. This device has some good logging information for troubleshooting, monitoring Firewall hits, etc, and even has an alerting feature for sending various logs to a specific Email address for Firewall events, blocked site attempts, etc. Very cool. I also like the very powerful port forwarding capabilities that are highly customizable. You can open a specific inbound port, and forward that to an entirely different port on an internal device. I haven't tested the VPN capabilities, but that's also a gigantic plus, however I don't think you can do certificate based VPN, which would be really great. Another fantastic feature is port mirroring the WAN (Internet) port to LAN1 port. For the really geeky/security nerds this allows you to set up a packet sniffer and watch the traffic flows in and out of your local network. This feature is HUGE. There is apparently a web-based debugging screen built into this router as well for the UBER mega-nerd and I suspect useful for tech support. There are some great options on this page for troubleshooting and other cool stuff like built-in packet capture. There is a telnet feature, but I haven't been able to get the device to response to telnet, so I'm not sure if it's really implemented. I struggled with whether to keep this router or not for 2 weeks due to the apparent QoS problems, but with my home bandwidth (300Mbps) and the fact that I work from home using a Cisco VoIP phone with QoS disabled I've had no problems at all. I fell in love with the router so I did purchase the extended service plan as a protection against any future unsolvable issues or failures. I hope Netgear continues to refine and tweak the firmware on this device because they've done a pretty good job so far. I'd REALLY like to have command-line access to the device but I can understand why the manufacturer would lock people out of that feature. I'm going to recommend this router conditionally... you should really have a fairly high level of technical skill if you want to get the most out of it and be willing to deal with some issues.

This Nighthawk X10 – AD7200 Smart WiFi Router (R9000) is simply incredible. It has everything you could ask for in a router, including the newest wireless standard 802.11ad. From the moment you begin to take it out of the box, it becomes very evident that NETGEAR put a lot of thought into this router. Setup and installation was a breeze with the NETGEAR UP installation app. I downloaded it to my iPhone from the Apple app store and the app began walking me through the installation process. Within a few minutes, the router was up and running smoothly. Subsequently, I spent a good amount of time walking through the numerous configuration options with this router, to ensure I set it up exactly how the way I wanted. During the installation process, the installation wizard will ask if you would like to install the NETGEAR “genie” application. This genie application assists you with configuring the router and allows you to access certain features of the router including the ReadyShare options and AirPrint (the ability to wirelessly print documents). Although I installed the genie application and looked through it, I am accustomed to using the traditional routerlogin.net admin screen and preferred to adjust the configuration settings using this method. It is nice that NETGEAR provides you with multiple avenues to configure your router, in order to optimize the experience. The router comes with three bands (2.4GHz b/g/n, 5GHz 802.11a/n/ac and the new 60GHz 802.11ad). The new 60GHz band works great and provides you with blazing speed but it does have a few downsides. It has a fairly limited range and requires that your devices have line of sight to the router. This is due to how the band functions and not a deficiency of the router. The router performs outstanding on the 60 GHz ad band. If you are close to the router, can see the router from your device and your device supports the 60 GHz ad band, I strongly recommend utilizing this band as you will likely get the fastest speeds. If you aren’t able to use the 60GHz band, the 5GHz band is more than sufficient. We have a 2,600+ square foot office and I was able to get the maximum speeds that our ISP provides throughout the entire office, no matter where I was. The WiFi signal strength indicator showed the maximum strength on all the devices I used, everywhere in the office. This router has fantastic range and is even better than the R8500 model it is replacing. The X10 comes with a 1.7 Quad Core processor, which is faster that most computers produced a few years ago! It also comes with PLEX media server built-in to allow you to store all of your media (music, videos and pictures) and access it from anywhere you have an internet connection. If you are utilizing this router for personal use, having PLEX media server built-in is an incredible feature, allowing you to view your movies in a manner that is congruent to Amazon Prime video or Netflix. The PLEX premium feature was included for free for the first 3 months. The X10 also comes with 6 gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports and a 10G LAN SFP+ port so you can connect several devices. It also possesses MU-MIMO technology which allows multiple devices to connect up simultaneously without decreasing the performance of the network. During our initial tests, we had ~20 devices simultaneously working on the network and did not experience any performance degradation. From the administration screen, you can configure a number of features to make your router your own. You can setup a guest network, enable parental controls to ensure your kids aren’t accessing content they shouldn’t and even setup a schedule for when your network is available. You can even go so far as to grant and block access by the specific device, if you want to get that granular. The admin screen also allows you to setup a ReadySHARE Printer, allowing you to print wirelessly while on the network. In addition to the wireless printing option, you have the ability to setup ReadySHARE storage in multiple ways. You can use the ReadySHARE Vault, which lets you automatically back up your files to a USB device (external HDD) for local access. You can also use ReadyCLOUD, which allows you automatically backup your files to a USB device (external HDD) and access the content remotely (anywhere you have an internet connection). There is even an app that allows you to access and manage the content from your tablet or phone. Finally, you can automatically setup your backups in the cloud with Amazon Cloud Drive, which is free for the first six months. We currently use a Network Access Storage (NAS) device to house the content for our office and collaborate on projects. With the X10, we have already seen a significant increase in performance with regards to the general storage of documents/media and with our daily backups. The speed and efficiency that this device affords us makes it an easy recommendation to users who frequently stream content and transfer or share large files. I would also highly recommend it for small businesses that need to share documents frequently between employees. I received the Nighthawk X10 from NETGEAR for free as part of NETGEAR’s First Look Review Program.

I own numerous Netgear products and recommend them all the time. 2 years ago I replaced my Nighthawk R7000 with an Asus AC88u router. Very nice improvement on speed and coverage. Software wise it was noticeably better than the netgear (Netgear is more intuitive but Asus is more powerful). Well I was ready for something bigger and better and decided to get back into Netgear Nighthawk routers so hear is my review.... Build quality is superb, best I have ever seen in a router, even best the Asus. Setup was super easy and included the AC adapter with one 3 foot Cat5 cable. This gets another nod because you dont need to attach the antennas. So here come the big negatives. The netgear software is the same on this router as it is on the $50 router. They have still done nothing special with the nighthawk series. I'm definitely stepping down a lot when compared to the Asus. It will get the job done but it doesn't have any real graphical information or data on the ram and CPU usage. I love that visibility on the Asus. Another step down was only 6 nic ports for devices vs 8 on my old one. Performance, this is where the real disappointment kicks in. I live in a small 860 sqft apartment and this was installed on one side of that so I know ideal would be middle placement. This was where I install all my routers. Signal and dBm strength was the same as the Asus ( a little disappointing but not the end of the world). The network speed was terrible. I tried numerous configurations (made sure router was running the latest firmware), QOS on/off, meshed the 2.4 & 5GHz ssid on/off, turned off the new AD 60GHz band, tried different signal bands to find the best one. Devices used in testing. Galaxy S9+, Macbook Pro 2017 Touch bar, Razer Blade 2018, PS4 Pro. I'm considering a mesh or range extender for the other room (on other side of apartment but the Asus was getting 80ish down and the Netgear is around 40Mbps on 2.4. 5Ghz was 35Mbps on the Asus vs 4-5Mbps on the Netgear. I know the 5Ghz doesn't penetrate walls very well but that is a drastic drop in speed when compared to the old router. Summery. Do I regret buy this? Yes, I don't believe it's worth the money when compared a router at half the price. Consider that this does have the new AD band so it will have more longevity but not helping the current tech. Would I still buy Netgear and recommend their products in the future? Yes. While I dont think this product is worth the money they do make very reliable items. They really need to update the phone app and make the router software more modern. Maybe firmware will help this router in the future but as it stands it's worth maybe $200 in my book based on the competition. I dont think I will return it (undecided) but I may switch back to my Asus. Note on using as a Plex media server. This is a great option if you dont already have one (I have a i7 QNAP Plex server already). So if you need a new router and dont have an existing Plex server this router is a better choice.

I had the ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 for almost a year which I purchased from Best Buy. I can honestly tell you that was my favorite wifi router. It had everything I wanted and was looking for. Unfortunately it developed problems which caused me to use my extended warranty I purchased from Best Buy. I now have the Nighthawk X10 AD7200 and have been using it for a little over a month now. It has been pretty solid with the exception of a few times I have had to reboot the unit. For some reason it locked up and I found it to be a DNS issue both times. I'm thinking the firmware may have some DNS issues so I did let Netgear know about my issue and what I found in my troubleshooting. I love the PLEX server built into the router. That is a simple A+ in my opinion. You can't go wrong with that addition to a router. It is not perfect but PLEX appears to be constantly updating the firmware and working on issues that seem to pop up and resolve them really quick. I think they are really listening to feedback if you ask me. As for running any sort of torrent downloads I did notice this router does not really like it much. I seem to get lock ups and have to reboot the router after letting it run for extended torrent downloads times. Yes I do run a VPN for my torrent downloads and did verify the issue is not with the VPN it all points to the Nighthawk X10 AD7200. It just does not like torrent downloading I guess. The Nighthawk X10 AD7200 makes onel of the best video streamers for all your streaming subscription services. No complaints or issues at all that I can find. Remote access from my phone, table or work to my Nighthawk X10 AD7200 seem to be flawless. No lock ups no problems at all that I can think of. I have had something like four firmware updates from Netgear so I can tell you they are constantly working to improve how the Nighthawk X10 AD7200 functions. Now yes... All gamers want to know how it works for gaming. I have to tell you that it works very well. I'm a Twitch streamer and do play on PS4, Xbox One and PC. I have had not lag or problems with online Twitch streaming or just gaming online in general. This is a well rounded wifi router in my opinion. The reason for the not giving five stars is because of the few lockups and torrent downloading issues. I'm not going to get rid of the Nighthawk X10 AD7200 anytime soon but I am on the look out for the best of the best when it comes to wifi routers.

** I received this router for free as part of the NETGEAR review program in exchange for my honest evaluation of the product which is below ** Overall, when compared to the other routers I've owned and used, this router is as performant as any. It can easily serve my entire 2 story home, which is great as I've never been a fan of splitting access across multiple access points. Even when using the same setup on both to allow auto-switching, many of our devices tend to hang on to the poor connections. All that to say, this thing is a beast as a home router. That said, this device is not priced in the range of a typical home router. If it didn't perform better, the price would be impossible to justify. As it is, it is a great router, but it still may not be worth the premium to everybody. I would definitely recommend it to a small business owner who was looking for a stronger setup without wanting to go into a more full blown enterprise setup. When the package first arrives, you can tell that a ton of time and effort was put into the packaging. From the outer box to the way the items are packed, it feels like a premium device. The weight of the device itself is impressive and you can certainly tell that it has more to it than a typical router. This is certainly not an item that you can just throw in to an existing setup without any consideration of the footprint, so keep that in mind. One HUGE plus to this model versus some of Netgear's previous models is the bulid quality and attachment mechanism for their antenna. In the past, no matter how much I tried to tighten down the antenna bars, they would inevitably become loose and fall down. These antenna are much more rigid and much more substantial in size. They adjust easily, but there is enough pressured required that you can tell they are secure when you let go of them and they stay put. While the device is substantial, as I mentioned, I love the fact that it has a shorter front which houses all of the indicator lights. This works well for our home as we can stowe it behind our television, which is a couple inches off of the table on legs, and slide the front of the router under the bottom of the teleivsion. This keeps the bulk of the device hidden away, but makes it easy to glance at and tell if anything is going on (i.e. has somebody accidentally turned off WIFI). The setup app is very nice and makes it much easier than it otherwise would be. That said, I wish you could administer the device from the app. Once the device is setup, the app is still useful, but only to see what devices are connected along with the SSID/PW setup for the 3 WIFI bands. One note on the Plex Media Server - I was very excited about this router in part because our family heavily uses a local Plex setup. Unfortunately, this router can only be used for this purpose if you attach a HD. Our current digital library is already housed in a rack mounted RAID and I have no interest in changing that physical setup. The router does not allow you to point to a network location as the source for the material Plex serves, as far as I can tell and from what I've read online, which means that we're sticking with our current setup which offloads the PLEX handling to a NAS. It would have nice to be able to benefit from the transcoding power of the router, as our NAS cannot handle that load, but we only use PLEX locally so it isn't a game changer for us - certainly not worth purchasing additional drives and an additional housing to attach them to the device, which - as mentioned previously - already takes up a nice chunk of real estate itself. I do NOT have any devices that take advantage of the 802.11ad standard, which, in my opinion, WOULD be a potential game changer if making a decision for or against this device. I think that is important to note because much of the price on this device is going to be in things like AD and the PLEX server, neither of which served to benefit me personally at this time. I've never loved the software interface NETGEAR uses and that is still the case. I find that it is overly cumbersome, and in many cases it is hard to pin down exactly what I'm looking for. I LOVE the ASUS interface, by comparison. That said, there are plenty of solutions to this problem if somebody is interested in running separate software on top of their router. As for my recommendation - If you are looking for a router at home and don't need all the power or bells and whistles this device offers, the price point is probably not worth it - at that point, you're buying a very expensive router and not using it to its full power. I would say if you have the money to spend, want to make use of AD or PLEX or just want to make sure you have one of the most powerful consumer level routers around, this item is definitely the one to buy. It would also likely be a good choice for somebody that wants/needs a bit more power out of their router, but isn't ready to jump into a more robust infrastructure setup. ** I received this router for free as part of the NETGEAR review program in exchange for my honest evaluation of the product which is above **

When I opened up the box, my first thought was, this thing has a heatsink fan on it. When NetGear built this router, they were not fooling around. I first heard of the X10 from a Plex e-mail. I have a large Plex library and was keen to try this router out. I came from the Netgear X4 (pretty good router) and then the Orbi. This time I was replacing the X4. The X10 is just bigger in every respect. After opening the box, I found that I had just enough space to place it in the computer room. I took the X4 out of band, put the X10 in - changed a few network settings, and everything was up and happy again. My network is not a normal network, so I as pleasantly surprised. As an additional plus, NetGear also prints in a big font, for you to upgrade the firmware. I did this twice, and it makes the admin experience so much more enjoyable. So - After the router up and running, it was time for be to kick the tires. Like I said previously, I have a big Plex environment. I was able to get this router up and running with a small USB drive, but my current environment leverages a NAS and some other x86 systems. I was looking around, but could not find a way to NFS mount the storage. Right now the router wants you to hook up the drives to router itself, not something I'm too jazzed about. I'm really hoping as Plex and Netgear keep on pushing out code updates, that this will be something I can change. Gaming, Video streaming, a HUGE IoT setup (I have multiple devices), a Satellite receiver, this router is currently handling them all without sweating. The MU-MIMO works like a dream, and the Amazon Drive functionality, though I just set it up, seems to be working just fine as well. I'm very pleased with this router so far. There are some elements that I can't test right now (10G interface, 802.11ad) which is the only reason I'm giving the X10 a 4 star review. If I can get some of that tech in my home, I'll revise this review. Overall, if you want to lower your computer footprint at home, and want to have a fast router, with the ability to transcode your Plex library I would recommend that your buy this router. It collapses a lot of different pieces of what you would need laying around your house. With the power, ease of setup and ease of use, this router can't be beat.

Installed it last night ,I have the Netgear CM600 modem as well Docsis 3.0 cable Modem,excellent modem btw.The Router is big in size has a giant heat sink with fan,you can see through the vent/grill,no you can't hear the fan run even when you put your head close to it..The antenna's were already mounted to the router.The install was a breeze,just plug and play comes with six gigabit ports and one ten Gig port as well.I took full advantage of all of the ports except the 10 gig.That was nice the extra ports, old router only had 4 ports.I have over 25 devices connected in house hard wired/wireless ect,,xbox's, ps-4's, ipads, phones,lap tops, and so on. The antenna's light up blue and there not bright good thing , and the info lights in front can be easily turned off with a switch on back nice feature to have so you dont have to see all those flashing lights in your room/living room.I replaced a two year old router that was rated top router at the time,ASUS model,at times it would not stand up to the task with everything in house running,(causing lag game play and movies not running smooth.Not the case with this new beast!!! OMG is all i can say it is laughing at what we are throwing at it,wireless speeds are great from basement to second floor and signals strong everywhere even out side in driveway and back deck.The kids are gaming happy and all devices are doing great,yes I am very pleased with this router, complaints only that its 500 bucks oh well guess you get what you pay for and this so far seems to be worth every penny it better be for the price!!.If your paying for 200-300 mbps internet speeds take advantage of it with this router.