4th October 2024

Wi-Fi 7 help remains to be comparatively uncommon in in the present day’s wi-fi router market, however producers are slowly introducing new fashions for lovers who need to be on the bleeding edge. One such newcomer is the Netgear Nighthawk RS700, which leverages all of the efficiency and reliability advantages of Wi-Fi 7 and is expandable with mesh networking.

Netgear tried to make the Nighthawk RS700 as “future proof” as attainable, giving it 4 1 Gbps LAN ports, one 10 Gbps LAN port, and one 10 Gbps WAN port. The latter will probably be useful for in the present day’s quickest residential web companies, together with Comcast Xfinity (as much as 10 Gbps) and Google Fiber (as much as eight Gbps).

Upgrading to Wi-Fi 7 isn’t low-cost, because the Nighthawk RS700 prices $699. You’ll double that value if you wish to add mesh networking into the combo with a second node. At these costs,we’ll see if the Nighthawk RS700 is price pursuing this early within the sport when Wi-Fi 7 shoppers are few and much between.

Design of the Netgear Nighthawk RS700

Netgear determined to design the Nighthawk RS700 round a tower type issue with built-in antennas. I choose this clear look over in the present day’s gaming routers with their quite a few antennas protruding like a sore thumb. Its black, monolith-like look is engaging, with low-sheen plastic and silver vent fins which are seen on the prime and backside of the router.

The entrance of the router is dominated by a big, vertical translucent panel that homes standing LEDs. Ranging from prime, there are LEDs for Energy, Web, 10G LAN standing, Ethernet ports 1-4, the USB 3.zero port, together with 2.4-GHz, 5-GHz, and 6-GHz radio standing. Under the grouping of LEDs are two buttons: Sync/WPS and an LED on/off button, which turns off all LEDs aside from Energy.

The enterprise finish of the router – the again panel – is the place you’ll discover all of the important ports. On the prime is a pinhole for resetting the router, adopted by the facility button. Subsequent, you’ll discover the 10 Gbps LAN port adopted by 4 1 Gbps LAN ports. There’s additionally a USB 3.zero port, which lets you join a storage gadget to the router after which the 10 Gbps WAN port.

It ought to be famous that LAN ports 1 and a couple of (1 Gbps) help port aggregation, and port aggregation can be supported by way of the 10 Gbps WAN port and LAN port 4.

Netgear Nighthawk RS700 Router Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Wi-Fi Commonplace Wi-Fi 7
Wi-Fi Bands 2.4-GHz BE: 4×4 (Tx/Rx) 4096-QAM 20/40MHz, as much as 1.4Gbps
5-GHz BE: 4×4 (Tx/Rx) 4096-QAM 20/40/80/160MHz, as much as 5.8Gbps
6-GHz BE: 4×4 (Tx/Rx) 4096-QAM 20/40/80/160/320MHz, as much as 11.5Gbps
Pace 19 Gbps (1.Four Gbps + 5.eight Gbps + 11.5 Gbps)
Wi-Fi Protection 3,500 sq. toes
CPU Quad-Core 2.6GHz VPU
Reminiscence 512MB Flash, 1GB RAM
Ports 4x Gigabit port for LAN, 1x 10 Gigabit port for LAN, 1x 10 Gigabit port for WAN
Dimensions 11.09 x 4.88 x 5.59 inches (H x W x D)
Weight 3.61 kilos

Organising the Netgear Nighthawk RS700

Netgear gives two strategies of establishing and configuring the Nighthawk RS700. You need to use the Netgear Nighthawk app for a comparatively easy and painless setup or the tried-and-true internet browser technique. I opted to make use of the Nighthawk app on my smartphone, which allowed me to stand up and operating in round 5 minutes.

After downloading and putting in the app, I scanned the QR code on the highest of the router, which auto-populated the fields for the SSID and password. I then verified my WAN connection in setup and created a brand new SSID/password for the brand new community. The method was easy, with no surprises or mishaps.

Netgear Nighthawk RS700 Software program

In case you don’t plan on making intricate community setting tweaks, the Netgear Nighthawk app may be ample. You may have entry to fundamental Wi-Fi settings, parental controls, a site visitors meter, Netgear Armor (365-day trial), entry management for all linked units, visitor community management (for all 2.4-GHz, 5-GHz and 6-GHz bands), and the built-in SpeedTest utility to watch community speeds (add/obtain).

(Picture credit score: Tom’s {Hardware})

Nonetheless, if you would like full granular management, you’ll need to entry the WebUI from a browser. The Eero Max 7 mesh Wi-Fi 7 router that I just lately examined had app-exclusive entry; it is a non-starter for many energy customers, as a result of it means that you would be able to’t attain the management panel from a PC. Fortunately, Netgear nonetheless gives a complete backend for making minute changes to your wi-fi community.

The net interface ought to be acquainted for those who’ve used different current Netgear networking merchandise. I’ve a first-generation Orbi Wi-Fi 5 mesh routing system at dwelling, and the interface seems to be the identical, minus the odd black-and-white shade scheme for the Nighthawk RS700. Whereas I’m certain this scheme suits in with the “Nighthawk” branding, I discover it a bit too stark for my tastes.

With that stated, the essential dwelling display screen tells you the web standing, shows your present SSID and password, lists the variety of units at present hooked up to the router, an indicator to let you already know if a tool is plugged into the USB 3.zero port, the standing of the visitor community and the standing of Netgear Armor safety suite.

Tinkerers, nonetheless, will need to head straight over to the Superior tab, the place you may fine-tune your WAN, LAN, and QoS settings, amongst others. You even have full management over the USB storage settings and might entry the complete suite of security measures, together with entry management and web site/service blocks. It’s also possible to take a look at the administration options, which embrace logging information, entry to backing up and restoring router settings, and performing firmware updates.

It may be a bit overwhelming trying to plow by all of the out there settings in Netgear’s internet interface, however we admire that the corporate has this selection for superior customers. If having full management over your wi-fi router isn’t a precedence, the Nighthawk app is completely serviceable.

Netgear Nighthawk RS700 Efficiency

Testing wi-fi routers will be tough. Efficiency can fluctuate, and a router received’t carry out the identical in each home. Relying on your private home’s sq. footage, age, development supplies, and variety of flooring, it may be difficult to assemble constant outcomes.

I examined the Nighthawk RS700 throughout a number of units at brief (6 toes) and longer distances (25 toes).

For testing throughput, I used iPerf3 with an Intel Hades Canyon NUC with a 2.5 Gbps USB-C Ethernet adapter linked to the 10 GbE port on the Nighthawk RS700 because the

server. I then carried out Wi-Fi throughput and ping exams at six toes and 25 toes. To check the Nighthawk RS700, I used an Acer Swift Edge 16 Home windows 11 laptop computer with a Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7 wi-fi adapter.

The Nighthawk RS700 helps SmartConnect, which mixes the two.4-GHz, 5-GHz, and 6-GHz bands below a single SSID and permits units to hook up with the suitable band as wanted. Nonetheless, for my testing, I turned off this function in order that units might join to every particular band once I requested.

The Swift Edge 16 maxed out the two.5 Gbps between the server and the Nighthawk RS700 (bearing in mind community overhead) at six toes. I constantly noticed over 2.2 Gbps at this distance when the community was uncongested. It’s theoretically attainable that we’d have seen even greater throughput if our server had a 10 Gbe interface.

At 25 toes, efficiency fell by roughly 70 % to 654 Mbps. Efficiency in iPerf on the 5-GHz band was comparatively sturdy, coming in at 806 Mbps at 6 toes, whereas efficiency on the two.4-GHz band hit 172 Mbps at six toes. Extending the testing vary out to 25 toes noticed these figures drop to 202 Mbps and 83.5 Mbps, respectively.

With heavy site visitors, the Swift Edge 16 barely misplaced a step (throughout the margin of error) at 6-GHz in comparison with uncongested efficiency at six toes. 5-GHz efficiency fell by roughly 12 %, whereas 2.4-GHz efficiency was throughout the margin of error. Transferring out to 25 toes, 6-GHz, 5-GHz, and a couple of.5-GHz iPerf throughput fell by 11 %, 46 %, and 11 %, respectively.

We measured sub-10ms ping throughout our latency exams at six toes with uncongested and congested site visitors. Nonetheless, those self same exams at 25 toes noticed the ping double to round 12 to 16 ms.

Backside Line

You probably have a Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 gadget, you received’t be disillusioned with the efficiency of the Nighthawk RS700, as we noticed with the numbers from the Acer Swift Edge 16. I noticed minimal efficiency degradation with a congested community. Nonetheless, the most important impression on efficiency got here when operating exams at 25 toes from the router. However even on the distance, iPerf efficiency on the 6-GHz channel exceeded 500 Mbps throughput that my web connection can deal with.

With that stated, the Nighthawk RS700 is poised to ship glorious efficiency for 6GHz Wi-Fi 7 shoppers as they arrive in the marketplace in 2024 and past.

Netgear is interesting to informal and superior customers by providing an app and a conventional internet interface for establishing and servicing the Nighthawk RS700. I arrange the router utilizing the app, adjusted extra superior settings utilizing the online interface, after which returned to utilizing the app primarily as soon as I had all the pieces adjusted to my liking.

The Nighthawk RS700 comes with a one-year subscription to Netgear Armor, which Bitdefender powers. It displays your community for malicious exercise and is a good value-add. Nonetheless, that also can’t detract from the truth that it is a $700 router needing Wi-Fi 7 shoppers to really shine. You received’t get the complete advantages of the Nighthawk RS700 with a Wi-Fi 6E consumer, so that you would possibly need to proceed with warning earlier than paying $700 to be an early adopter on the Wi-Fi 7 prepare.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.