Customer Ratings & Reviews

I received this product as part of Netgear's First Look program. Let me firs say that I live in a very old home where wireless signal tends to struggle to reach all areas of my home. I have high expectations for coverage and performance, so this review is based on those expectations. Setup of a new router can be a tricky process, particularly for those without a strong technical background. While the Netgear Up App is far from perfect, it provided an easy and clear way to setup and manage your router. I prefer to configure the router through direct access, which is easy to obtain, but having multiple avenues makes this product great. As mentioned before, I have high expectations for performance, and at this price point, that premium is even higher. While it did not serve a perfect signal all over my home (no router ever has), it has a reach as far as any high-end router I've ever used. The speeds were optimal and I never noticed any lag when streaming on multiple devices at the same time. I suspect that MU-MIMO technology can aid with the multiple device performance, but for the average user, this feature is probably not a requirement. At this price point, I would expect all aspects of a high-end router to function well, and this router is no exception. For the average, small-home user, it may not be required, but for someone with high-performance needs and a long range, this router would be perfect for you. Netgear tends to consistently put out reliable products and this one is one I would refer to family and friends that have high-end needs.

Disclaimer: I received my R7000P from NETGEAR as part of a review and test program. In terms of hardware, there isn't much else to ask for. It's a gigabit router with the latest in wifi technology, including MU-MIMO which is very useful when you have multiple devices connecting simultaneously over wifi. The wifi is fast and reaches a fairly large area. Unless you have a pretty big house it should be plenty on its own, and only the most expensive mesh network systems are really going to offer you an improvement for wifi connectivity and speed. The software the router is using for the admin interface looks like it hasn't been updated in many years. It was an interesting throwback to see "Quake II & III" listed under the services for port forwarding, considering Quake III was released in 1999. That said, pretty much all the functions and settings you need are there, if a bit cumbersome to get to. Control over the LEDs on the router is nice to have if you happen to have the router in the room you sleep, because this thing is bright. It handles my 300/20 mbps internet connection just fine, which is to be expected from this router or any of its direct competitors. In a few months I should be upgrading to a gigabit fiber internet connection, I'll update my review if it has any struggles with that but I don't expect it to.

I love this router. I has great coverage and responsiveness

I definitely noticed a very fast speed and excellent range so I loved it right away. Setup was a bit confusing, but I still got it to work. Within the next day or 2, we frequently lost signal in the 5ghz band, maybe twice a day. Less than 1 month later, I'm returning it due to the inconsistent connectivity, lags, and 5ghz failures.

We've got 3 computers, an XBox One, PS4 and a Nintendo Switch. When we have friends over that number can grow to even more devices. And even still I can max out my internet speed of 300 mbps without fail. The NightHawk is a demon built for speed! Another big plus for me is the Nighthawk Genie feature which allows you to easily change your router settings remotely via browser or mobile phone. It's so convenient to not have to log in to a computer in order to let friends on to my network! Great job on the NightHawk, for the price and the value it's definitely lived up to my expectations! I would like to point out that I got this product for free from NETGEAR as part of a test and review program.

I received this router as part of Netgear's review and test program. I could not be happier with this product. I live in a three story home and have placed the router at the front of the second floor. Setup is extremely easy as it is basically a "plug and play". The most time consuming part was fitting the router into the small space I had allotted it along with getting the antennas positioned (which was next to nothing). There is almost no drop off in signal whether I am in the same room as the router or the opposite side of the house on a floor above or below the router. The signal the Nighthawk produces is extremely powerful. I also tested it by streaming video on an ipad, two computers, and netflix on three different cable boxes all at the same time. The video quality and stream was completely uninterrupted on all devices and there was practically no load time. I will say that I do pay for a "blast" internet upgrade through Xfinity which gives me a higher bandwidth, but without the Nighthawk's capability, I would not be able to realize the full potential of that upgrade. While the $200 current price tag is a bit steep in my opinion, I would happily pay it knowing how well this router covers my entire home. I would say the only draw back to this router is that it is on the larger end of sizing and the antennas require more space above the unit as well. Once I reconfigured the space I was putting it in though, this issue was resolved. Definitely not something worth passing on the router for though, more of a minor inconvenience. I would highly recommend this router to anyone in the market with a larger home. The Nighthawk has plenty of power to cover large spaces without compromising signal strength. I look forward to utilizing the nighthawk in my home for many years to come.

Great product for a smaller 3 level home. No lagging issues and no buffering with multiple devices conected and streaming at the same time.

This is my second router (I have two as they are in two separate homes) and both work great! High performance and strong WiFi signal.

This product comes without a manual, and the instructions for getting started that are provided are sketchy at best. One is urged to download an app. But of course the reason I am buying a new router is because the old one is DEAD and thus I have no wireless access to the internet, and my phone will not access the app store. DUH. You can get a manual if you can access have a computer with an ethernet connection that you can use to download the thing. Even the steps in the manual are not clear, seeming at one point to say "just plug everything in" and then later on telling you that some plugging should be done in a specific order. Good grief. The good news is that getting things set up is not very difficult. And for at least the first couple of hours everything has run just fine. I managed to bring back to use a range extender that i had thought was dead--when the dead thing was my old router. The system will provide you with two different networks, one the 5G and the other the 2.4G--both have to be logged into separately. So any notion that the router will help you automatically get the fastest available speed seems to be NOT true. I have subsequently learned that this system is called a "selectable dual band" and not a "simultaneous dual band" which I had naively thought I was getting. The box says it is "simultaneous dual band" but that seems to be falsified by the existence of two different network connections. WHY?? The thing works (so far), which makes it a big improvement over a dead router. But I'm not sure at all that I've gotten what I paid (quite a bit) for. For sure I could take it back, but then many valuable hours of work would be lost. Caveat Emptor.

We upgraded to a faster internet and needed to upgrade our router. We needed one for WiFi that could reach the whole house as the computer room is the back bedroom. This router delivers on its promised range for WiFi. It was easy to install and I like being able to access with an app rather than having to memorize a website if I have to make changes to my router. It was also very easy to set with my previous network name and password so there was no interruption on our devices.

I purchased this router after reading countless positive reviews and only some negative. I am in IT and have a background in networking, and wanted to upgrade my router after starting to work from home full time. What attracted me to the router were the Quality of Service (QoS) settings, so that I could prioritize traffic on my home network to give my work data the priority. I got the router, set it up using the app (outdated info in router package saying to use Genie app, they've switched to the Nighthawk app). Everything seemed good initially. I setup the Smart Connect feature to use the same SSID on both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks, setup the guest network, and enabled the QoS settings. I ran the router's built in speed test that showed proper traffic (300/30 Mbps) and left the QoS settings defaulted. My wife and I both showed intermittent network problems on both our desktops and phones (android and iPhone) during the first couple of days. I tried disabling QoS, changed DNS providers to Google and Cloudflare, changed other settings in WiFi, and tried several restarts. Nothing seemed to help, and speedtests from my laptop and phone were now showing a reduced 30/20 Mbps speed. After researching many forums, it seems the router's CPU may not be fast enough to handle QoS settings, or there is a bug in the firmware. After I performed a factory reset, and left everything default other than passwords and WiFi SSIDs, my speed is back and connections are more stable. If you're looking for a router to just setup with minimal configurations and no QoS, this would not be the worst choice. But for the price, and if you want to enable any advance features, I would stay away. I was 2 days outside the return/exchange window, otherwise I would have returned it and went with another brand like ASUS. Due to the cost, I'll likely try to keep this and deal with the lack of usable features. But I will likely not buy or recommend another Netgear product after being a proponent for over a decade.

Some days it works really well and other days it struggles to keep working. Our router has trouble reconnecting to our Wi-Fi and it takes a couple of hours for it to reconnect after several reboots.

Bought this brand new last month. At first it was great on 2.4 ghz band but the 5ghz band has been useless because it is so slow, and I get constant Wifi drops throughout the day on the 2.4 ghz frequency band. My computers constantly filcker on and off a wifi connection and my FireStick flickers between slow and good connection. some days are fine but it has been getting progressively worse. Additionally, the parental controls are absolutely worthless on this unit. I had to disable everything on a laptop to get it to work but if the settings are changed by family or even guests on their own devices they could view any content they want.

Poor Firmware product support. Buggy firmware releases. Firmware is “as is” and “as available”. Looking in Community forums you will see that for the most reliable operation there are only certain levels of firmware that work with the fewest problems. So if I ever purchase another new Netgear product: Within the store return period. Immediately update to latest level and if there are problems , Return it immediately. Remember that firmware is “as is” and “as available” I am using this product as an AP and DFS apparently will not work in AP mode without a firmware fix. ( I WAITED TO LONG AND TRUSTED TO MUCH ) WHY? DO I SAY THIS. See Netgear response in the following: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/Netgear-s-wireless-bridge-DFS-CHANNEL-blunder/m-p/1848647#M146720 “as is” and “as available”. support is why I am doing this review..

WiFi 6 for 199.99??? No way! But yes it's true. Fast Through put. 16 devices or less? This is your best router value!

There is a known Firmware issue in which the current version of the Firmware consistently turns off the connectivity. Articles I've read indicate that Netgear is aware of this and instead of issuing a new update, they simply reap the benefits of folks having to frequently make support calls. When the router was up it was magnificent. It is too bad that it wouldn't stay up without requiring frequent reboots. It makes it impossible to do work, or stream movies and games when the signal is not just dropping but actually turning off completely. What a shame.

This works great for the internet and I don't have to pay a fee.

Router turned on with all the appropriate lights. When I plugged in internet connection It seemed to be fine but then my phone wi-fi could not find the router. Rebooted router and was left with a single orange light on the far left. Done! Took it back to Best Buy and the Sales guy said he's seen nothing but problems with the AC2300. The other models, both up and down the line, are great but stay away from the AC2300... That was sad to hear!!

Review was written while on firmware build : V1.3.1.44_10.1.23 I will say that before this firmware build the router would have been given a higher score. The connections were reliable with hard restarts only occurring monthly to keep PLEX server performance running smoothly. This router struggles to keep up with the demand of a multi wireless device home. If you are taxing the router performance via multiple device at the same time you are likely to experience reliability issues and connection drops. The long short would be for almost $200 you could opt to purchase a AC2900 from TP Link or a ASUS.

I'm done with Netgear products. I had an AC1900 (R7000) router that I started having issues with after about 5 years (no major complaints with that one, other than the Smart Connect never worked as expected - was better to just make assigned band selections). I decided to upgrade to this model and had nothing but problems from day one: had to shut off the MU-MIMO feature to resolve video disconnects when using two laptops on the same band in close proximity to each other, the router constantly rebooted itself (sometimes coming back online, sometimes not (support claimed that it was auto updating the firmware, but I confirmed that was not the case) and finally there was a compatibility issue with my Ring Alarm system (constant intermittent base station disconnects). I may have tried to hang in longer with their tech support, but I didn't want to take a chance with Best Buy's limited 15 day return policy (you can't effectively test/troubleshoot this kind of equipment with these kinds of issues in 15 days - come on Best Buy, this should be at least 30 days!). I ended up returning this unit and switching brands to a Linksys MR9000 (AC3000) which has been solid and trouble-free after a somewhat cumbersome initial setup (after over an hour trying to setup through the mobile app, as they instruct, had to call support to setup/configure through a direct pc connection and the browser interface).