Netgear Nighthawk X4 AC2350 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R7500) (R7500-100NAS) (R7500-100NAS)

What a little beast!Ordered/purchased this router Sunday, 6 March. It was delivered on Tuesday. Setup was very easy in addition to upgrading the firmware that is almost always recommended immediately before placing the item into production. The process was very easy since I already have a fast internet connection to the outside world @ 90 Mbps. I did have a small issue after completing the setup which was discovered by testing my network for security vulnerabilities. After reviewing all firewall logs, in addition to the router logs, the vulnerability being reported turned out to be a false reading from the router. I notified Netgear and within 24 hours they provided me with an upgraded firmware version (V1.0.2.4) to correct the false report. The network security software now reports the entire network and all devices are secure after loading the new firmware. The speed on the primary floor is remarkable. The Trendnet 680MB wireless bridge used in the living room now connects to the router at 405 Mbps TX and 450 Mbps RX. With the HP laptop sitting almost 40 feet away and down the hall from the computer room and office I typically connect at 300 Mbps and connection strength a solid 100 percent. That is a 8 year old wireless card which only goes up to an "n" connection on the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz bands. I believe 300 Mbps is the maximum connection speed for that type of card. The laptop connection dropped to 269 Mbps when I had every IP device in the house connected and moving data packets across the network. The slowest devices were the iPad mini and my wife's ASUS tablet and iPhone 5s. My wife's phone packed away in her purse in the living room shows 54 Mbps connection speed according to the Netgear Genie app used on my iPad mini. I admit the connection priorities for her devices and my iPhone 6S are set to "low" on the router config because we honestly do not move much data through our phones and tablets.I was hoping the signal was a bit stronger down in the basement. However, I must say the tests were made with the laptop connected around 60-70 feet away, one floor down, two walls to go through and a few other devices in the house using the wireless network. This router spoils you but with the speed downstairs of 81 Mbps and signal strength less in the 30 percent range, it is more than acceptable in the far corner of my basement with the laptop. Definitely speedy enough to surf the net and check email or make a remote desktop connection to the PC upstairs or the media server upstairs at the router by the PC.An AC class wireless range extender or CAT 5 cable to a managed switch may be needed when the home theater is built out and functioning down there. It's possible a better/cheaper solution might be to move the new router downstairs and then run a CAT 5 cable to a small 4 port switch upstairs for connection to the PC and printer via a 1 Gbps Ethernet CAT 5 cable. Still have more testing to do before I decide how the hardware will be setup for the best results at the 4K big screen with AV receiver pushing the sounds.The primary point with all of the jibber-jabber is this router has serious speed and is strong enough with good range to have more than acceptable wireless network speed at a very reasonable price.It has an external SATA port for connection to a very fast external SATA III disk drive. This feature would make the router a very good media server for the price of an external powered SATA III disk drive. 2 addition USB 3.0 ports for external disks or other devices to be used for file/system backup locations or media "shares" are also strong selling points. A total of 5 each 1 Gbps Ethernet ports, one for the WAN and 4 LAN connections provides multiple very fast Ethernet connections.BTW, this router in recent tests with one of the later firmware upgrades bested the leading AC2600 class router in features, range, speed and price. This isn't even an AC2600 class router but an AC2350 with two bands and a total of 7 possible wireless data streams (Quad stream on the 5Ghz and 3 on the 2.4Ghz). Details are available at: [...]Can you tell I'm very pleased with the performance of this device? For the purchase price of $163 delivered from Amazon, it might be difficult to locate something as good for anything close to that price. Maybe... Lots of new tech coming out and prices are going down. Heck, if I can get 4 or more solid years of use it would be well worth the small expense.

Fast, easy to use, very efficient router that's great for gamer's and the media connected household contingent you have wireless devices that can use what the router is capable of. This is a quad channel router that is capable of 1.7gbps with 5Ghz and it certainly got that in my tests.FIRST - I was shipped the v2 of this router which uses different firmware than the v1 that got so many complaints. Do not get them mixed up because its easy to on Netgears website when you do a firmware update.I've had the router for 3 days and have had up's and down's (almost thought it was defective) but after getting it setup now its working great. I am very proficient with wireless devices and thoroughly tested The r7500 v2 and its associated apps. I personally got the router because I have so many point-to-point media devices and multiple media servers running locally. So I was more interested in the local traffic and overall bandwidth the router was capable of. Im going to keep the review short but there was a major issue after updating the firmware to 1.0.2.2. I have 7 wireless 5Ghz devices all at least averaging between 250mbps - 1.3gbps link speed (from ipads, android cell phones, computers ect). As well as wired gigabit devices. Initially (pre firmware update) the router was doing really well. I could max the network out transferring large files (movies 10+GB each). Then after about 2 hours of working great the network came to a screeching halt. All wireless devices link speed dropped to 54mbps (basically wireless G) - and the wired gigabit network; file transfers to slowed (wired or wireless) dropped to around 4MBps. How was this affecting the wireless or wired network? Rebooting the router didnt fix anything. I updated the firmware to 1.0.2.2 -- same thing. My local AC network was slower than my internet LOLAfter about an hour of rebooting, unplugging waiting ect.... I factory reset the router... with the new firmware already installed. I didn't want to do a full reset since I had to re-configure everything. But it fixed everything. So I would suggest upgrading the firmware right away and doing a factory reset on it before you begin the setup of your home network. I think the OS and drivers for the CPU's (memory offloading controller) are getting hung up and the router is going into a 'fail safe' hence the 54mbps super slow local speeds wired AND wireless. To be very specific I have a USB 3.0 'powered' (it has its own power source) full size SEAGATE backup hard drive directly connected to the routers USB 3.0 ports and it was transferring files even on a local drive around 4MBps. (yes mega-bytes a second). Now the same drive is hitting the 90MBps which is about peak for the drive. So just be forwarned if yours acts up - firmware then reset - then setup. But its working fantastic now.RANGE? I live on an acre and can see the router from inside my living room (its mounted up high on the wall next to a window). Now I used a Nexus 6 with a dual channel antenna that is capable of 768mbps link rate (I tried the ipad/iphone but they couldn't exceed single channel 300mbps too bad though) and I didn't see any significant drop in speed until I was about 150'-200' away outside the link rate dropped to about 24mbps using the 5GHz frequency. I don't use the 2.4GHz spectrum because its too polluted with other radios I have but if greater range is needed the 2.4GHz spectrum is preferred (twice the range for the same output power at lower speeds). So as far as range goes from a router - this is as good as I could expect - fantastic! These routers really dont go much further BUT you can buy HIGH-GAIN antennas and the router will accept them SIGNIFICANTLY increasing its range (just a thought).Would I buy again - yes! It is working great. It has fantastic range (no router is perfect but this is working fantastic for my needs) ITS FAST! Not just transfer rates but the CPU on this thing screams. I tried to over load the router by transferring very very large files from many points to each other and maxing out the wireless and the CPU never buckled. I am very impressed with this. Then I put Amazon Prime HD movies on a laptop, Netflix HD on an ipad, YoutUbe 4K videos on the TV - NOTHING stuttered or buffered (granted my internet screams) but this was while I was transferring files. The QOS on the router managed high priority traffic better than any router Ive ever used. It wouldnt let the media that was playing drop for low priority nonsense traffic I deliberately tortured it with.