This is somewhat surprising, given the major addition touted by the R8500: powered antennas. The R8500 can do that at least as well as previous Nighthawks, but I'm not sure how much farther it will reach in real-world scenarios. But the Nighthawk line has proven popular with users who have multi-level houses or larger properties that traditional routers have struggled to cover. I'm not likely to work in my apartment's courtyard, so this is unlikely to adversely affect me. I'm sure there are many reasons for such fluctuations, but the fact remains that it's not something I'd want to count on. In fact, in multiple tests on the powered 5 GHz band outside, I routinely pulled different results on Verizon's FiOS bandwidth test. While the X8 did provide a major speed increase outside, you can see the massive fluctuations in connection speed and reliability present in the wavering graph. But the signal strength was extremely variable - enough to make me question how viable the connection would be for day-to-day use.
#NETGEAR R8500 NIGHTHAWK X8 REVIEW DOWNLOAD#
The maximum download speeds I found outside were higher on the R8500, to be sure. After doing controlled tests to determine performance up close - where both the R7500 and R8500 maxed out my 300/30 Mbps internet connection on 802.11ac - I moved outside and started running the same bandwidth tests. And to be honest, this was the only real litmus test I felt like I could throw at the R8500 to determine whether or not it offered a demonstrable improvement in wireless coverage. However, while the R7500 allowed me to gain internet access in the courtyard in my apartment complex, speeds out there weren't what I would call great. The R7500 was even better in this regard, with faster coverage even farther from the device, though my different devices often had to be switched from the faster 5 GHz 802.11ac network to the slower (but better ranged) 2.4 GHz 802.11n network. The R7000 was the first router that provided reliable coverage in my apartment, which was an achievement given the dozens of wireless networks bombarding it from every direction. We all love Wi-Fi and can't live without it, but it presents different challenges regarding transfer speeds and wireless coverage: mainly that both are terrible in almost any router you'll buy. In my time with the X8, there are two main reasons people might want to pay that price: powered antennas and dual-gigabit backup support. Over the last six weeks, I've seen the price fluctuate on Amazon, at one point dropping almost a hundred dollars for the holiday shopping season, but it seems to be hovering around $350 now. You can take a moment to process that if you like. And now comes the X8/R8500, with a suggested retail price of around $400. In addition to the comparatively conservative R7500, Netgear launched the six-antenna X6/R8000 in 2014 for a few hundred bucks. With good, expensive-but-not-unreasonable options like that, Netgear is in an awkward position trying to introduce newer versions of its Nighthawk router, but that hasn't stopped the company from going even bigger. Setup is easy, even when connecting it to a home gateway device that would typically cause headaches with "dumber" routers - I haven't yet had to disable DHCP on a Nighthawk to prevent gateway conflicts, for example, and if you've ever had to do this, you should understand why that's a relief. I have happily been using an R7500 for a year, and will vouch for it justifying an approximately $200 price tag (if not the $279 MSRP). The second-generation version, the R7500, features even better range and performance for multiple devices, for just $20-30 more. I think that the base Nighthawk model, the R7000, is a great option for most people. It was an impressive introduction, and since then, I've become something of an evangelist for Nighthawks, talking them up at the slightest hint of provocation. I'm just not sure if, at an MSRP of $399.99, it's better enough than other routers available at half the price - some of which share the Nighthawk name.īack in late 2013, I wrote up my initial impressions of Netgear's first Nighthawk router, which signaled the company's foray into premium, performance devices. The Netgear Nighthawk X8 is the best router I've ever used.