By Samara Lynn The Nighthawk, is Netgear's latest router in the company's premium dual-band 802.11ac router line-up. The router looks as cool as its name suggests, with a trapezoid design and flared sides. The shape is reminiscent of the famed fighter jet of the same name. Yet the Nighthawk (model R7000) is not just dressed to impress: Excellent speeds on the 5GHz band when paired with Netgear's latest mini 11ac A6100 USB adapter and enhanced Quality-of-Service (QoS) that really shortens the time to buffer and stream video make the Nighthawk one of the top 802.11ac routers currently on the market for heavy-duty throughput tasks.
It's not a perfect device, with just okay throughput at 2.4GHz—at least testing in a heavy RF signal environment. It also takes quite some time to apply settings changes. However, with 802.11ac, the speed factor is most important at 5GHz, and the Nighthawk delivers the goods not just in data rate but in range, too. Bonus for router geeks: Nighthawk can be flashed with open-source firmware.
Specs and Design
The R7000 is a large router. It measures 1.97" x 11.22" x 7.26" (HWD) and weighs a little over 1.6 pounds. Netgear revamped the design from its last release of dual-band routers including the Centria and the R6300, both of which have an upright design with the devices meant to operate vertically in attached bases.
The Nighthawk operates horizontally (although it can be wall-mounted). The design represents Netgear's slickest router look yet. The wide base of the R7000 makes it very sturdy, even with cables connected to every port. With its wide base and rubber feet, this big router won't slip and slide all over a surface.
A beefy router certainly deserves beefy specs. Inside the Nighthawk is a dual-core 1GHz processor—powerful, for a consumer router. The R7000 supports 600Mbps at 2.4GHz and up to 1300Mbps at the 5GHz band. Three external antennas ship with the router and attach to the back panel. The R7000 also has 128MB flash memory and 256MB RAM.
There are two USB ports; one on the front of the router and the second on the rear. The front port is USB 3.0 and the back port is USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 port was deliberately placed on the front, away from the 2.4GHz radio, to reduce Wi-Fi signal interference. Both ports support USB storage and printers.
On the back panel are Gigabit WAN and four Gigabit LAN ports, a reset button, and a power button. LEDs on the top of the router indicate wireless, Internet, USB device connection, and other network activity status.
I wasn't surprised that with its hardware specs, the R7000 runs a tad warm. Not hot, just a little warmer than room temperature. I would place it in a location with good air circulation.
One other design aspect to note: The brick on the power cord is huge. It is thin, though, so you shouldn't have a problem placing it alongside other power adapters in a strip plug.
Setup
As is the case with most of the newer routers, the R7000 is easy to set up. An installation guide is in the package and outlines the few steps needed to set the device up. The instructions are clear, concise, and easy to follow.
The last step instructs users to launch a Web browser to finish configuration. When I did, a page displayed that the router was successfully connected to the Internet and the pre-configured wireless SSID and passphrase. I had the option to print this page or click a button "Take me to the internet." Clicking this button redirected the page to Netgear's external website where I could download management apps for the router, including the Genie desktop or mobile app, the ReadyVault app (for using the router as part of a backup solution), or access a link for help and support.
I have reviewed the two aforementioned apps, and they have not changed significantly since those reviews. You can read the provided link to the reviews for more details. The R7000's setup process is streamlined, well done, and should not present a problem for most users.
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