NETGEARNighthawk 5-Stream AX3600 Dual-Band WiFi 6 Router (up to 3.45Gbps) - RAX41

Update: 3.9.35My previous review of the NETGEAR Nighthawk RAXE 300 was not as accurate as it should have been to properly exhibit its awesome ability to blast Wi-Fi signals as they were meant to be. Unfortunately, my internet provider, provided me with a modem that was not the right one for my setup as explained to me by a recent service technician coming to my house for a different problem. Apparently, the modem I had at the time was wasting a significant amount of my bandwidth. He switched it out with the right one and I retested the wireless speeds with the Oolkla Internet Speed Test app. Now, it turns out my speeds are consistently in the 900's (see inset picture) instead of the low 700's (see the earlier posted inset picture compliments of my previously poorly trained IP tech). (My modem is a 1Gig download and 20 Mbps upload.) Since using the right modem, the NETGEAR RAXE 300, has no problem broadcasting and maintaining the faster speeds. There's no signal drop, just solid WIFI. I'm using the RAXE300 as an access point and it is connected to a NETGEAR RAXE600 with 100 feet of CAT 6 Ethernet cable and to now be getting almost maximum modem speeds at that distance is a tremendous tribute to NETGEAR's engineering. My highest recommendations are for this NETGEAR RAXE300 Router for reasonable cost, excellent design and unbelievable consistent range and speeds.A while back I had purchased a NETGEAR Nighthawk RAXE500 router because I couldn't get decent speeds at the other end of the house where I spend the majority of my time with previous routers and had even tried an extender without much improvement. Still not satisfied with the modest improvement with the RAXE500 because of too many barriers throughout the house, I made the decision to buy this NETGEAR RAXE300 and set it up as an Access Point after running one hundred feet of CAT 6e ethernet cable to connect the two. I called NETGEAR Tech Support just to make sure I had a clean install from the beginning and I'm really glad I did, they were excellent to work with and what was once only a dream, now is a reality because as you can see by the inset picture, I'm getting a solid 700 plus Wi-Fi download speeds from my 1 Gbps download, 20 Gbps upload modem at the other end of the house. The router was simple to set up, no hiccups from start to finish. I get consistent speeds all day long and the app you can download for your phone makes it easy to log on from anywhere to check on it or make changes. The router itself is a very cool looking piece of electronic wizardry and has 6 strategically placed antennas placed throughout the wings. I give this NETGEAR RAXE300 5 Stars for cool design, consistency of speeds, ease of setup and cost to emotional value.

This RAXE300 replaces my 9-year old Lynksis 2500, and is much more powerful and much faster. I was concerned when I read a review somewhere that said the Netgear wouldn;t have as much customization in the settings, but I see now that isn't true. It has at least as much or more than my old router, using the routerlogin on the internet. Very happy and I see now I won;t need any extenders for my house to reach the back area and outside.

I have been looking at home mesh systems for months and not purchasing due to wifi7 not being a finalized standard as I write. I started looking at wifi6E routers for one I could use as an access point and the Netgear RAXE500 looked like an excellent choice due to the AXE11000 tri-band feature that includes the 6GHz band. All my Android devices support wifi6E on 6GHz and the band looks pretty quiet versus 2.4GHz and even 5GHz on-air around my home for now.Since this is a model that's a few years old I ordered used in condition described as "good" which Amazon reports indicates some evidence that it has been in use but is fully functional. While the box suggested it had been used the router, PSU and ethernet cable look to be in excellent condition wth no evidence I could see that it had previously been in use, so a great bargain.The Netgear app for configuration is really a pain to use if you want more than a simple wifi router connected to your Internet link, if you want an Access Point the Netgear Nighthawk app seemed useless to me. Fortunately the router has a web interface for configuration, so I plugged the Internet connection into my existing ethernet network, started it, configured it as an access point rather than a router and rebooted it once to get it on my local network.I also bought a multi-gigabit NIC for my PC, linux router and connect the RAXE500's multi-gigabit port direct to that and use the RAXE500's built-in switch to hook my home 1G ethernet to it. My Internet link is also only 1Gbps but I might as well use the best performance links where I can. I made other configuration changes on the RAXE500 but they were just to make it my home configuration. The ultimate goal was to move my cheap Chinese "smart" lightbulbs and power sockets to their own wifi on one of my old 2.4GHz access point on their own wifi/ethernet /ip network segment. I feel suspicious of their ability to see all hosts on my home network.The end result is a cheap, excellent condition, used RAXE500 giving me working wifi6E tri-band while I wait for a finalized wifi7 standard before considering a purchase something of that type.

I used to work in IT years ago so I know how to set up a router. This thing didn't seem to like that 1) I hadn't connected it yet to the Internet and 2) I wanted to enter my own settings. It paused for about a minute while searching for an internet connection after I clicked the thing that said I wanted to configure it myself. These routers are 'built' for the average user who don't know a thing about setting up a router so the interface is very simplistic. That actually makes things more difficult for people like me that were taught to set up a router BEFORE you connect it to the internet. And for some reason, it didn't like that I did that so it locked up twice in a matter of minutes, thus forcing a reset. After the second time I called tech support and was on hold for a half hour before someone picked up and then when I told them the model number, he said there was a special team that handles these high-end devices and I needed to be transferred to them, and be put on hold for an addition hour. I hung up, packed it up and sent it back. I don't have time to deal with this kind of junk, not when I spend $300 on a router that's normally a $600 router.I ended up buying a refurbished R7000 for less than 1/3rd the price and swapped the OS with DD-DWT and I was up and running in less than 20 minutes.