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!

Let me just say, the X10 is the router I never expected to be able to buy. It supports VLANS, has a GBIC port for direct Fiber connection, port aggregation for a home SAN setup... I mean wow.... thats before even getting to the wifi. I am really into smart home technology. I am coming from an older Nighthawk, the AC1900 (which is a great device in its own right), but as you would expect, like all routers, the more devices connected to it, the more lagged it would get. (It never really got lagged, but you could see tell the difference between a few devices and the 80 I had connected to it)... The X10 has taken the 60-80 devices I have on my home network (mixed between wired, and wireless) and not broken a sweat. I HIGHLY recommend this router to anyone wanting to have the ultimate smart home. A good infrastructure is vital to having the best experience with all of your IOT devices throughout your home. 500 bucks for a router may seem excessive to a lot of people.. but here is what to keep in mind. The bandwidth needs of your home devices is doing anything but decreasing... this will be the only router you would need to buy for at least 3 to 5 years. It is fantastic.

Powerful wireless! On the 2.4 Ghz band, using professional wireless analytics software to help peak the performance I was able to bond channels 4+8 at a channel width of 40 to produce the maximum rate of 600 Mbps for 802.11 b, g, n. On the 5.2 Band at a channel width of 80, I was able to bond channels 28+32+36+40+44+48+52+56 or channels 149+153+157+161 for a max rate of 1733.4 Mbps for 802.11 a, n ,ac or load-up channel 153 at a channel width of 160 for 802.11 just on n,ac to achieve max rate of 3466.8. Loading up channel 153 produced the greatest throughput handsdown at 50 feet. At 75+ feet channel width of 80 and 802.11 a,n,ac produced the greatest throughput and at a distance of 200ft. the 2.4 Ghz band 'TRUMPED' them all. NOTE: If you are semi-technological very patient and have 2+ hours to burn, you can download a free app supplied by Netgear to measure, peak, and tweak, performance. Simply, the powerful residential router on the market. Additionally, it uses between 40 and 80 watts of electricity depending on type of usage therefore, take close look at your UPS specs...

This router has been running fine for the past few weeks. I'm mostly pleased with it. This router is more of a "prosumer" product with a lot of bells and whistles. It has a ton of features that most users will probably never touch. This NETGEAR Nighthawk X10 is probably overkill for most networks. It is also quite expensive. My reason for purchasing this router is that it supports IEEE 802.3ad LACP link aggregation. This allows a device that has 2 or more Gigabit NICs to share network traffic and i enjoy an increase in bandwidth and availability. My server's network interfaces were getting saturated and Link Aggregation has remediated the issue. It also has a 10GB LAN SFP+ Fiber Connection port for future that will allow for growing my network. One of the caveats of this device is that it has a wireless band that hasn't seen a lot of wide adoption. It is the 60 GHz 802.11ad radio. It's supposed to get up to 6GB per second, but there are very few devices that support this standard. The 60GHz radio also requires line of sight to actually maintain speeds and the device needs to be in the same room. This wireless standard has already been superseded by 802.11ax. The file server functionality of this router is a little on the hinky side as far as Time Machine support is concerned. It will corrupt HFS+ volumes. Otherwise, it works okay with ExFAT and Ext4 volumes. The LED's are also bright. They light up the room. They can be turned off with the exception of the power light. That light is also somewhat bright, but tolerable.

This Netgear router was expensive, but so worth it! I have 17 devices connected to it (6 on LAN & 11 WiFi) and not one has any problems with signal strength or dropped connections. I also have a 5 port smart switch, and a Netgear server connected to this router. The Plex media server is a nice feature. (I use the Plex software that is built into my server) Having the 60GHz WiFi ready and the 10G LAN available for the future is a good move on Netgear's part. This router also has a lot of safety features built in. The My Genie interface is very similar to the older style. It could use an update, but it does allow you to control and make changes to the modem. Pair the X10 to Ready Cloud and now your talking! I look forward to many years of trouble free performance!

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.

I probably would not have bought this if I did not have a gift card to subsidize the purchase. But I thought what the heck ! My direct connect speed is 200mbs and just now my iPhone speed test was 197mbs. Previously my WiFi speeds were never above 150 with iPad and my iphoneX was slower, but no device close to connect speed. Now all devices are very close to direct connect even upstairs.

Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router is FAST and long distance range!! Netgear X10 keep All my smart devices running!! Its play Plex media server too. Yes I do recommend to buy it !! =)