Customer Ratings & Reviews

The Nighthawk AX6000 we purchased has been one of our best buys at Best Buy. We live in a large house and our cable access is unfortunately in one corner, in spite of that location, the router has the range to cover the entire house including the upper floor and basement. It is fast, handles a terrific amount of traffic (Christmas had seven of us on iPhones, AppleTV, Playstation5, and multiple ipads and no issues with speed or signal). Easy to set up and I am not great with electronics and love the app and ability to access performance and use information.

I will start by stating that for the last 4 or so years I have been using an older nighthawk router, up to about 2 months ago. I then switched over to the 3 pack Google Mesh (GM) wifi system. I have been using the AX12 for about 1.5 weeks now. The only reason for the switch to the GM system was because our household was hitting, or coming very close to our 1TB comcast data cap. I wanted better software (companion app), that could break down data usage per device over a given period. The GM system doesn’t let you set a date range, but it gives you 4 options. 1, see current data usage. 2, see usage in last 24 hours. 3, see data usage this week. 4, see data usage in the last 30 or 31 days. Each of those options shows the total data used in that range as well as a break down by each device. That’s how I learned 4k video streaming eats more data then I could have possibly imagined. You can blame it on gaming…. That’s one of the lower data hogs. Since I brought up the app/software lets talk about that first. I do like that I can still log into the routers interface just like most other routers by logging into its IP address. (you can NOT log into the GM interface through a web page/IP address). Though, the software/page you log into is pretty much exactly like every other netgear product for the last 5 years. It does have a makeover in terms of its façade but feature wise is the same. This is good if you love their current/older offerings. But for me, I want more tools in tracking data usage. Or just an interface that says “dang, that’s a 2020 interface right there”. Now this latest router also offers their netgear mobile app, which you can set to connect to even when not home. This is a great step, but the app is lacking compared to GM. I can see the currently connected devices, I can see if they are wired or on wifi, and I can see their link rate (if on wifi, hardwired is assumed gigabit link rate). But that’s it. The only other option I have is to disconnect the device from the network. Though that could be a nice tool for a parent to block a childs xbox/pc/ps4. The app does have a speed test app, its nice, but more time making more meaningful tools would have been better. It also will let me enable/disable the guest wifi from the app, though personally I won’t need that tool. The last feature is the traffic meter. Again, this is a great start to what can be an awesome tool, but it is lacking in features. It only shows the raw data amount used in “today”, “yesterday”, “this week”, “this month”, and “last month”. That is a great start, but I also want to know how much each device used, and I would like to set a specific date range; for example to see how much data was used over the last weekend. In comparison to the GM system, its falls short, though the GM system is not perfect either since I cant set a custom range. Though GM lets me see total data used per device. I also noticed GM picked up host names a bit better. In the netgear app I had a few more devices titled “n/a”. gm seem to find more device names, though it too would show some generic devices as “android device”. I like knowing as much info about device since I live with roommates and we all have MULTIPLE devices. It wouldn’t make sense for me to have each of them turn on 1 device at a time so I can manually update every device I see connect. I used 2 android apps to test wifi, using a Samsung Note 8. One called “network tester” its logo is a globe with a green check mark. And the ookla speed test, which to be honest I don’t trust as a reliable consistent tool. But I figured people might want to see the numbers anyway. For reference. I live in a 2 story house. The router was placed in the back of the house, bottom of the 2nd floor (aka top of the first floor), just above the stairs. I tested in 2 location, the backyard (which is close, but through closed doors and in the open. And in the downstairs living room which is in the front of the house (furthest you can get from the router while being inside). The GM system has 3 routers, the main being in the same location. Another placed on a wall in the front downstairs living room and another upstairs towards the front of the house. The GM app said the 2 secondary routers had a “great” connection to the main one. Below you can see they went back and forth in higher scores, though the mesh system seem to maybe be a hair better in average. I want to add that these tests were only ran once each. And this test really isn’t fair since to truly see the advantage of an AX router you NEED AX devices. I hope to do more testing when I get the Note 10, I hope it has a better wifi antenna (AX preferred) for more drastic results with the netgear router. Additionally, this router will also shine if the comparison would have been using 5+ devices all transferring data at once. I don’t have the man power to test that in depth and consistent. But if you are like me and have a NAS in your home, with multiple people transferring files, streaming movies and gaming at once, this should keep that data moving without a hiccup. Its hard for me to do standardized testing for something like that. I will say when I had my older nighthawk I would get complaints from roommates about wifi devices seeming to have bad connections, even when in the same room as the router. I have NOT had one complaint about that issue with this beast. Having this router makes me want to upgrade my internet to the unlimited Gigabit package…. Just not sure if it’s worth the extra $100 or so a month it would cost. If we keep hitting our cap, I guess we will have to. And if I do, I will try to add more to this review. In the end I will keep the AX system in place because I am trying to future proof my network a bit. This router also has a 5gb ethernet port, and I run my gaming PC’s and consoles hardwired. I would also need a 5GB or 10gb (5) port switch, which I don’t think exist yet in consumer grade. My PC’s only have gigabit ports, for now. I build a new PC roughly every 2 years, I just built one this year. Hopefully by the time my PC itch comes back, there will be consumer motherboards with 5GB or 10GB ports built in. Aesthetically, this thing looks awesome. I want to stick some lego star wars guys in it and fly it around my house! Its pretty large and possibly the heaviest router I have ever held. Maybe one physical feature that would have been nice would have been mounting holes. Google Mesh Backyard Network Tester: Host resolv: 14 then 4 ms TCP connect: 22 then 26ms 10kb d/l = Infinity KB/sec 100kb d/l = 282.76 KB/Sec 1MB d/l = 898.37KB/sec Netgear AX Backyard Network Tester: Host resolv: 5 then 3ms TCP connect: 23 then19ms 10kb d/l = 3081.71 KB/sec 100kb d/l = 288.51 KB/sec 1MB d/l = 640KB/sec Google Mesh Down Stairs Living Room Network Tester: Host resolv: 3 then 4ms TCP connect: 19 then 22ms 10KB d/l = infinity KB/sec 100KB d/l = 291.90 KB/sec 1MB d/l = 998.29 KB/sec Ookla: Down = 26.7Mbps Up = 6.29Mbps Ping = 15ms Jitter = 5ms Netgear AX Down Stairs Living Room Network Tester: Host resolv: 54 then 44ms TCP connect: 42 then 28ms 10KB d/l = 9245.12 KB/sec 100KB d/l = 255.13 KB/sec 1MB d/l = 484.95 KB/sec Ookla: Down = 7.95Mbps Up = 2.23Mbps Ping = 14ms Jitter = 2.23ms I attached an image of the Network Tester app so you can see how it gave me the data. This screen shot was from when I tested the downstairs living room using the netgear router

TL;DR Recommend this for non-enthusiasts. Recommend ASUS routers with Merlin support (AX86U, AX88U, etc.) for enthusiasts. Pro: * Speed and signal are top-tier * Easy to setup * Good looking * Cheaper than the ASUS model with the same chip * Can automatically upgrade firmware without people intervening Con: * Bad QoS system * No free network protection, and Netgear Armor is buggy and annoying * No DNS over TLS/HTTPS support (ASUS Merlin supports DoT) * Not Wi-Fi 6 certified (ASUS RT-AX88U is certified). Indicates it may lack some features such as Target Wake Time. I upgraded from ASUS RT-AC86U, which is already a very good router. However, it's underdelivering my 1G fiber network. I originally wanted to get either RT-AX86U or RT-AX88U, but they weren't in stock. After doing some research, I concluded that Qualcomm-powered 802.11ax routers would offer more performance. I chose RAX120v2 over ASUS's RT-AX89X because the ASUS model is about $70 more expensive, and there's no indication that it is using the latest Qualcomm chip that supports UL OFDMA. Moreover, there's no Merlin support for RT-AX89X, unlike AX86U/AX88U. I'm very happy that I got the v2 version which supports UL OFDMA and possibly Target Wake Time. The router is very easy to setup, and the performance is extremely good. As you can see, with three walls in between, the signal was still very strong, and I achieved > 900Mbps on the 5G band. However, I found the QoS support and customizability more disappointing than I thought. ASUS offers way more customizable options, a much better QoS system and a free life-time network protection provided by Trend Micro. Netgear Armor is not polished and buggy. You'd be better off by setting the default DNS in the router to Cloudflare's Malware blocking DNS and buy bitdefender yourself.

I may have written on other review in my life. So that’s how impressed I am with the purchase. It would be five stars if the box contained a little more info for a not so standard hook up. Besides that I can’t believe the speed and the range. Setup was simple and quick for basic connection. The app really helps and has good information on it. I have had zero issues after about a month of use. I almost didn’t purchase this due to price. Today I would buy it again in a heartbeat now that I see the light! It’s more than worth while.

Replaced a much older router because we needed the streaming capability and speed. Very impressed with the improved performance. Installation was quick and easy and we were up and running in minutes. The performance is awesome. Much higher speeds for all devices, multiple vides streams at once are no problem. It also has much better range than the old linksys it replaced. All was great for about 2 weeks. Not exactly sure why, but after about two weeks, the router suddenly and completely lost its configuration - it effectively did a factory reset and went back to its out of the box defaults. A bit frustrated, I reconfigured it and within an hour, it did it again! Coincidentally, I had also just received an email that a new firmware version was available. Now somewhat suspicious, I went ahead and installed the new version, reconfigured and everything worked perfectly again. I have since turned off auto updates and everything has been fine for about 3 weeks. I am not sure, but I suspect the router was trying to auto-update and failing - somewhat miserably. I have had no issues since. I did do a bit of searching and it does sound like some may have had similar issues. Fingers crossed at this point, but as long as it does not make a habit of factory resetting itself, we are very happy with this router.

This router looks like a spaceship out of a Star Wars movie. The antennas are built into slick wings that lock into the ideal angle for best performance. The good... this router is made of high quality material and includes the latest wireless technology. The AX standard will boost performance substantially once devices come out that support it. WPA3 encryption is also supported for future security. The big advantage is bandwidth. Most routers on the market can provide good speed and range. However, as more devices are connected most routers degrade in performance. Not this beast, it is designed to be able to handle multiple streams of data intensive traffic at one time. I have over 30 devices connected to it and have not had a hiccup once in streaming multiple programs or having several gaming systems going at one time. The mobile app is rather simple and easy to navigate. The bad, the mobile is rather simple. The router does not support the mobile Genie application that allows for ‘tweaking’ of advanced settings such as QOS. You will have to download it to a PC to access all the router settings. I could not get the router to configure using my iPhone. It would not let me get past the step to create an Admin password. I contacted Netgear support and that was a nightmare. You can tell the technicians are outsourced and read from scripts when troubleshooting. They tried to tell me my network had been “corrupted” and it would cost me $100 for them to fix it. Really, I paid $400, on sale, for the product and they expected me dish out another hundred bucks to get it to work? Of course I hung up and troubleshooted myself. All it took was connecting my PC wired directly to the router and finishing the setup. I received no guidance from Netgear on why their mobile app would not work. I almost returned it at this point, but it worked fine after initial configuration using a hardwired connection. Don’t bother with their parental control. It is difficult to locate the setting and would not work saying the firmware needs updating. I had already updated the firmware and the app said no updates available. Definitely purchase the Geek Squad Protection so you don’t have to go through dealing with Netgear’s terrible support. The only thing that made me keep from returning it is how good and smooth it has been running. Bottom line, it is one of the best routers out there for the latest current and future data intensive household needs. $500 is a little steep, but if you get it on sale for $400 it is a good investment.

Replaced an old flaky Orbi's with this router. I was a little pricey, but it's been a great router, easily provides the coverage the Orbi did, but is faster, newer, and more reliable.

This is an upgrade from my old netgear nighthawk r7800 which is still a great router but is lacking the streams that the new ax routers have. This router is very easy to setup. I was up and running within 10 minutes due to a firmware update after setup. I do like that netgear actually gives you updates. The router overall is nicely made. The wings feel a bit flimsy but once you set it up it’s not like I’m messing with it. The performance is better than my current old router. I currently have over 25 devices connected at all times. Under heavy load, two Netflix videos running in HD, two YouTube videos running also in HD, 3 difference gaming systems and downloading updates and games this router didn’t skip a beat. I will say it does have a fan on it that you can’t access within the GUI but a quick look on the netgear forums you will get a debug login where you can turn the fan on low and always run. I’m a big fan, no pun intended, of keeping electronics cool. It just makes them perform petter and you extend the life of the produce. I only have 100 mbs down and 25 mbs up currently but this router handles that little internet better than my last router. I’m WFH and lots of meetings so having a good router is a must. The QoS isn’t as granular as some others but honestly with 8 streams on the 5ghz and 4 streams on the 2.4 ghz I’ve experienced no lag or slowness. Would recommend this only to those who have a lot of devices and have a lot of streaming going on. I’m a gamer as well and I’ve had no issues even with QoS turned off. Overall great product if you can get your hands on one.

First off, I want to give a shoutout to Best Buy and their employees. I have never depended on a store like I have Best Buy during this Covid-19. Their curbside pickup has been a model of efficiency like no other store. I wish other stores would take notes. From online order to pickup in about a half hour EVERY TIME! Bravo! Had to get get rid of the crap equipment from Comcast. Just about everything in our home needs WiFi from our phones, tablets, and streaming devices, to computers, home automation, and security services. The range has been excellent. I’m seeing near the speeds I’m paying for. No dropped signals. Everyone retreats to their own rooms at night and are either working on tablets or streaming 4K and there has been no interruption of service. My CM1200 should be here in a day or 2 and that will eliminate all the Xfinity equipment in the house. I’m hoping to see a long run of good service at Gig speeds with this router and modem setup. When I have the time I’ll setup the QOS and look harder at the settings, but for now I’m extremely happy with the purchase.

Great router with great speeds. I have ATT 1gig internet and setup passthrough on their router/modem to get this to work. Covers our 3 story home, 1300 sqft each floor. Router located in back rear corner on second floor. I have two arlo hubs, small NAS, desktop and a couple of other hard wired things. I use Vonage VOIP. We stream videos on at atleast two TV simultaneously, while 4 children are on their ipads and kindles and 2 adults as well. I am hitting 450mbps to 600mbps upload and about the same download. When I test point to point from the router admin page I get about 980mbps both ways. 3 Stars...... All that is great, so why the 3 stars? Well, for the last 3 weeks I have had to reboot this thing to reconnect some wireless devices. Sometimes all devices will connect wirelessly while the kindles won't. Or, Ipads won't connect, or laptop, or the wifi on cellphones. Today, 8/19/2019, I had to reboot it because nothing would connect. It is not dropping the 2.5 or 5g signal. You can see them but when you attempt connect or login you get an authentication error until it is rebooted. Then you can log on.

Having Xfinity with voice, the only options for cable modem were Motorola MT8733 and Netgear CM2050V. As I chose Netgear because it allows separation of modem and router, I looked for a Netgear router with 2.5 Gbps network interface. I was hoping for a better integration between both modem and router, but aside from the interface speed, it is largely irrelevant. The RAX120 was a reasonable choice, giving a nice balance in terms of performance and cost. It has good coverage and great performance. I consistently get 1300 Mbps on a Macbook Pro with Wi-Fi 5 in the same room, and in excess of 700 Mbps upstairs. However, there are some annoyances. It provides no way to disable WPS or change the username. I would recommend this, but only if you don't care much about the configuration details.

This router is replacing a Netgear AC1750. I was hoping for an increase in speed, however i was getting to handle all my devices. Had been having some connection/buffering lately since everyone in my house is either streaming something or playing games online. My speedtests for the wired computers had been in the 150-200mps range. Now im getting over 300mps! My wireless connection on tablets also had a large increase, from around 50-75mps to over 175mps. It is rather pricey, but if you are a cord cutter, like myself, this will greatly improve your connections amd worth it in my opinion. I got it on sale so it wasnt too bad. Also want to mention the setup was super easy. Only reason its not 5 stars is because the antennas are a little loose when mounted vertically on the wall.

Replaced NETGEAR R9000 AD7200 ROUTER after 18 Months use. The R900 was effective and stable for about 1 year. Then it started to fail and required frequent reboots. I replaced it with Netgear's newest high end RAX120 Router. Stability improvements where immediately noticeable for streaming to multiple ROKU TVs throughout my house. Also better support for multiple SONOS Units. The router also has better and stronger WiFi connections I can now pick up strong signals out side the house for security cameras and no longer require extenders. In Summary: 1. Strong Signals, 2. Better Streaming, 3. Better-Distance-WiFi coverage (Compared to Previous High R9000 Router from Netgear). However, no look for support from Netgear. I have had several brands of routers. Netgear support is the worse that I ever experienced. Also based on my experience with Netgear Router Stability ( I expect it to last from 1 to 2 years (may be true for other brands as well).

This beast is fast but pricey. With a laptop that has the Intel AX200 Wi-Fi card I get near gigabit bit speed over Wi-Fi. Setting it up is easy. But the latency is quite high, 300 milliseconds or more in a home environment. I expected the latency to be 10 milliseconds.

This thing is incredibly powerful. It has a great range, and I've been able to feed tons of data at great speeds to a smart device cluttered house, 4k streaming, and 4 people working remotely with no problems. Setup went well, the Nighthawk app was able to retrieve configs from my previous Nighthawk and get this up and running with minimal work on my part. Had to use the web browser for this feature to happen though. Also, able to get my full fiber speeds from my ISP finally, two other routers I've used had not been able to do this.

So far this router has been pretty good! The speeds are fast, the set up was fast, the only issue we have is it hard resets everynight around midnight ish. Not sure why though ;(

This is presently a top notch wifi router. Honestly it is overkill for what most people need, but the main advantage of this is the future proofing it will give you. You have the latest Wifi AX standard (for fast speeds and many simultaneous connections) and WPA 3 (for better network security). The router claims the ability to support 12 simultaneous high bandwidth streams. Quite impressive! Although very few Wifi AX/WPA 3 devices exist at present they will come, and you will be ready (although WPA3 has some security issues of its own which needs to be resolved). Yet the main thing i like about it is the range extension it gives. Due to the beam forming, the router shapes the wifi beam to improve your signal no matter where you are. This gives you excellent coverage in large homes, most noticeable on the 5GHz band. Previously a distance of about 40 ft from our router, i had 2 bars on 5G with my laptop. Now i routinely have a full signal. This is also bolstered by the multi-gig connection and port aggregation, the router is capable of which is useful if you are streaming from a media server (NAS). Again, likely overkill for most users but a nice feature for power users. However as a power user, i am not as happy with some of the advanced configuration features of the router (thus the 4 star rating). Compared to other companies, the router is not as customizable. For example, you cannot force router admin login using HTTPS (turning of HTTP access) and always on access through the web-based mobile app (e.g. opens some management to internet). There are a few other things with i have used previously on my Asus routers that i have missed. Hopefully these will be added with firmware updates. However, i've worked around them. The router also does not have any baked in network protection. Several other routers in this price range have trend micro or other types of network traffic protection to eliminate viruses and such before they even reach your PC. For a top end router like this, it would be nice to have this feature.

I like this router. It looks like one of Kylo Ren's ships (Star Wars) and delivers fast wireless speeds. I don't get to my max download speed of 1000 mbps, but I get kinda close (around 700-800 mbps). I don't really have a need for super fast download speeds, but the upload speeds are great (around 50mbps). It's wifi 6 so devices that have that tech can take advantage. Long range yes, but the farther you go, the slower the speeds will be. I like the Nighthawk app. I can change wifi name/password & check exactly how fast my internet is to the router, among other things. If you have gigabit internet and need something with good range, I recommend this router.

For the longest while I was most disappointed with my routers. I went to Best Buy and a customer service rep explained how this router is so phenomenal. Well, that was an understatement. I have had it now for almost a month, and I am now able to get service all over my two acres. This an excellent product. If you are looking for a fast, reliable router, look no further. You have found it. It is located above my mantle.

This router was relatively easy to set up however it has no control software for a wired Mac other than using the IP address to directly access the router. There are phone and I-Pad apps that are primarily used to set the router up. I was dreading getting it set up since I have over 15 WiFi devices on last count and was worried I'd have to re-establish connections with each one. This was not the case as most were recognized using the previous passwords. The only problem I had during the setup was the App automatically finishes by updating the firmware in the router. This did not close out properly and hung. I rebooted the router manually after about a 1/2 hr and everything came up with the latest firmware so I think I lucked out. Firmware updates have been a problem with my previous Netgear router so I think they need to get their software straightened out. Other than that, I had set up my previous router with different IDs for the two frequencies. If you use the automatic frequency selection on this router, it will assign the same name and password to both frequencies. This caused some problems with some of my devices not connecting because of different IDs in the setups. Turning off the automatic frequency selection and renaming the frequencies fixed the problem. On the surface the Apps look pretty basic but if you dig in a bit you can do quite a bit of fine tuning on this router. Overall, I'm happy with the performance so far and hope this router won't become obsolete as fast as the last one.