It’s finally here! After a long anticipated wait, Netgear has finally brought the D7000 Nighthawk to the UK. It was first released in the USA about five months ago. So yay! Thanks Netgear. Oh and also, cool name right? We’re going to explore whether it was worth the wait not.
First off the Netgear D7000 Nighthawk looks beautiful. It would definitely fit with modern home decor, much better than the standard BT, Sky, Virgin, or any other provider will send. It’s covered in a matte black surface, with three black aerials coming out the back of it. But more on those later. It has a USB 3.0 port at the front for easy access for things like network storage drives. Netgear is generally known to have plain, boring looking routers which do the job. This is a totally different direction Netgear has gone in, and I welcome it, with open arms. There are also a collection of sleek looking activity lights on the front, so you can tell what your router is doing at a glance.
The Netgear D7000 Nighthawk is fitted with a Broadcom BCM4708A chipset, which brings Turbo QAM to the table. In a nutshell and the easiest way to explain, this router will give you a faster connection between it and your computer. It’s the first router to also beat competitors as well as itself in terms of its speeds by being able to boost a 802.11n 2.6GHz speed from a previous maximum of 450Mbps to 600Mbps. Combine it with the 1300Mbps maximum of 802.11ac you will get 1900Mbps. This is the only router at the moment than can claim these types of speed.
The Nighthawk can also use its Beamforming technology which enables the router to detect where connected devices are located and boost the signal in that direction. Much better if you’re in a home like mine with thick walls. We’ve come from a BT Infinity router and have noticed a complete difference straight away.
Netgear’s aim is simple. They wanted the Nighthawk to be the fastest router on the market, and they’re currently succeeding.
For those of you familiar with Netgear you will automatically remember the Netgear Genie setup software. It’s good, although a bit time consuming. It was easy-ish to set the router up. You need to set the software up before you go such as the SSIDs, but this isn’t a huge issue, and commonplace for routers outside of Internet Service Providers.
The USB speed absolutely kicked ass. Moving gigabyte sized files between computers and laptops seemed seamless.
If you’re a house with thick walls, and need a bit of range, then the Netgear D7000 Nighthawk is definitely one of the best routers on the market, only being rivaled by Asus and Linkseys options. However, the Nighthawk does come at a price of around £189.99 so it’s a bit of a bank breaker considering the Linkseys router can be found for around £140 now. However, this looks better, and performs better at closer ranges.
