NETGEAR unveils Nighthawk X6S AC4000 Tri-Band Gigabit MU-MIMO WiFi Router (R8000P)
I can't say this enough -- never go cheap on a wireless router. Whether for your home or business, a flaky connection can be absolutely maddening. Not to mention, if you opt for a model from a lesser-known company, you could get left with poor update support. In other words, there could be unpatched vulnerabilities. What you want to do is target a reputable brand that has historically offered plenty of updates. Then, select a model that meets your needs.
Despite some fairly overblown concerns about data collection, one such reputable company is NETGEAR. The company not only offers routers with great features and reliability, but excellent support too. Today, the company refreshes its aging Nighthawk X6 (R8000). The new "S" model -- which replaces its predecessor -- is called "X6S (R8000P)." This new router still has six antennas, but moves from AC3200 to AC4000 (750+1625+1625 Mbps). The new model gets multi-user MIMO and has a better processor, going from a dual-core 1GHz to a dual-core 64-bit 1.8GHz CPU. Like the prior model, the X6S also has Amazon Alexa support.
"The Nighthawk X6S Router with breakthrough tri-band WiFi and MU-MIMO is designed with gaming, streaming, and mobile devices in mind, making it ideal for simultaneous streaming too many WiFi devices in your home. Nighthawk X6S offers the fastest combined WiFi speed up to 4Gbps and is powered by a next-generation 64-bit 1.8GHz dual core processor with three offload processors. The X6S is built to support gigabit WAN-to-LAN speeds for you to enjoy the fastest wired and WiFi speeds throughout your home with less lag and less buffering as you game, stream and surf," says NETGEAR.
The company also says, "The powerful combination of innovative features in Nighthawk X6S ensures that every device is assigned to the WiFi band where it can connect at its maximum possible speed. With SmartConnect, intelligent selection of the fastest WiFi band is completed for every device, ensuring that your devices are automatically connected to the best available band. The result is that faster devices perform unhindered by slower ones, perfect for today’s homes with their combination of new and old WiFi devices. This network load balancing and segmentation enables the X6S to mitigate interference, especially useful as Internet of Things (IoT) devices become more widespread in smart homes."
As you can see below, the router has 5 total Ethernet ports -- four LAN and one WAN. Ports one and two can be aggregated for greater than 1Gbps speed. There are two USB Type-A ports, which is rather standard nowadays. One is 2.0 speed, while the other is 3.0. If you don't want any distracting flashing LED lights, they can be turned off by flipping a switch.
While the NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S AC4000 Tri-Band Gigabit MU-MIMO WiFi Router (R8000P) doesn't launch until June 30, you can pre-order it from Amazon now. The cost is $299.99, which is the same launch price the X6 had 3 years ago, which seems fair enough.
What do you think of the Nighthawk X6S? Please sound off in the comments below.