Netgear Nighthawk AC2300 (R7000P)

amazon Netgear Nighthawk AC2300 (R7000P) reviews

The Netgear Nighthawk AC2300 R7000P Smart Wi-Fi Router is the first to offer Netgear Armor, a cloud-based network security solution powered by Bitdefender. Armor is designed to protect all your connected customers, including smart home devices like smart door locks, thermostats, and home security systems. It also offers rich parental controls, powered by Circle With Disney, allowing you to filter site access based on age and content. One note, however: Netgear Armor requires a paid subscription, as does the Circle With Disney Premium plan. The R7000P delivers high scores in our short-range transfer rate tests, but its long-range performance isn’t as impressive.

Nighthawk

The Nighthawk R7000P looks similar to the Nighthawk R7000 we reviewed in 2016. The black cabinet measures 1.9 x 11.2 x 7.2 inches (HWD) and has three detachable antennas, adjustable. The back panel houses four gigabit LAN ports, a WAN port, a USB 2.0 port, a reset button, and a power button. A USB 3.0 port sits on the front edge of the Router, just below the panoramic LED indicators for power, LAN (four of them), WAN, and 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi. A Wi-Fi connects them on/off button and a WPS button.

Underneath is a 1GHz dual-core CPU, 128MB of flash memory, and 256MB of RAM. The R7000P is a 3×3 AC2300 Router that can achieve a maximum theoretical transfer rate of 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 1,625Mbps on the 5GHz band using 1024 QAM. It supports all the latest 802.11ac technologies, including MU-MIMO, which transmits data concurrently instead of sequentially, and beamforming, which sends data as a signal directly to a client instead of over a network broader spectrum.

As I mentioned above, the R7000P is the first Netgear Router to offer Bitdefender-backed Netgear Armor anti-malware security. Armor protects your network and all connected devices from malware threats like viruses, spyware, and ransomware. It also performs periodic scans on all connected clients, including smart home devices, and it sends out alerts when a threat has been blocked. However, the ongoing billing aspect of this service is a key takeaway: While the Router comes with a 90-day free trial, once it ends, you’ll have to pay an annual fee of $69.99 to stay protected.

The R7000P also comes with Circle With Disney parental controls. The free Basic plan lets you filter content by age and category, pause the internet, and view a history of web pages visited. The Premium plan will cost you $4.99 per month; it offers everything in the Basic plan and lets you see how much time your kids spend online, set time limits, and create OffTime and BedTime hours when there’s no Internet access. It also has a Rewards option that allows you to temporarily grant more Internet time when completing chores or doing homework early.

The web interface and mobile application provide a variety of management settings. In addition to the basic Wireless, Internet, and Guest Network settings, you can view a list of devices attached to their IP addresses and their current status and disable wireless access for one or all devices. The Dynamic QoS setting allows you to define your internet upload and download bandwidth rates. Still, it cannot assign bandwidth to specific gaming devices and applications that you get with Asus RT- AC86U.

In the Parental Controls menu, you can use the Circle With Disney controls or the standard OpenDNS parental controls that provide site filtering for each device. The SHARE Ready setting allows you to set up cloud sharing for connected storage devices and configure printer sharing settings. The Netgear Armor setting is where you can activate Armor, check Rate vulnerabilities, and see how many threats were blocked. Advanced Settings include Setup Wizard, Security Settings (access control, site blocking, scheduling), Administrative Settings (system logs, password changes, firmware updates) facility) and settings for Port Forwarding, Static Routing, Web Services Management, VPN, and Internet Services Traffic Statistics and Measurements.

Nighthawk Test: Setup and Speed

Installation is a breeze thanks to the web-based Netgear Genie Setup wizard. The wizard launches when I connect the R7000P to my modem and power it on. I selected Router mode (you can also configure the R7000P as an access point), created an SSID and password for each band, and created a Router admin name and password. That also requires filling in two security questions to use in case you forget your name or password. After a quick firmware update, the installation is complete.

The R7000P scored impressively on our close-range transfer rate performance tests. Its score was 103Mbps in the (same room) 2.4GHz close test, only 1Mbps slower than the Asus RT-AC86U and slightly faster than the TP-Link Archer C2300 and D-Link DIR-822. At 30 feet away, however, the R7000P’s 47Mbps score was only half as fast as the Asus RT-AC86U (86Mbps) and 10Mbps slower than the D-Link DIR-822. TP-Link Archer C2300 reached 42Mbps speed.

Similar results in the 5GHz transfer rate tests. The R7000P’s top score of 568Mbps on the close-range test beat the Asus RT-AC86U and D-Link DIR-822, but it was only slower than the TP-Link Archer C2300. On the 30-foot test, the R7000P’s 151Mbps score was half as fast as the Asus RT-AC86U (300Mbps) and right behind the D-Link DIR-822 and TP-Link Archer C2300.

We test MU-MIMO performance using three identical Acer Aspire R13 laptops equipped with Qualcomm’s QCA61x4A MU-MIMO circuit. The R7000P clocked in at 166Mbps in the MU-MIMO test at close range, beating the TP-Link Archer C2300 by just 9Mbps and trailing the D-Link DIR-822 by a beard. Asus RT-AC86U leads with 178Mbps. At 30 feet, the R7000P hit 65Mbps, again beating the TP-Link Archer C2300 but not the D-Link DIR822. The Asus RT-AC86U leaves others in the dust with its impressive display 150Mbps.

To test file-transfer performance, we calculate the read and write speeds of the hard drive while moving a 1.5 GB folder containing a mixture of photos, videos, music, and other files between a connected USB 3.0 drive and desktop computers, both wired to the Router. The R7000P recorded a write speed of 34MBps and a read speed of 38MBps. That’s better than what we’ve seen with the TP-Link Archer C2300, D-Link DIR-822.

A case for strong parenting

If you are looking for a router capable of strong parents’ control, bring speed in close range while keeping your network safe from the onslaught of malware and viruses, then the Netgear Nighthawk AC2300 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R7000P) has you covered. It is very easy to install using the web user interface Netgear Genie, and it comes with a user-friendly mobile application, allowing you to manage your network from anywhere. It also comes with a 90-day trial of the Netgear Armor network security suite and a free Basic subscription to Circle With Disney parental controls. But you will have to pay for ongoing subscriptions to each of these to unlock their continued services or full potential.

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