Netgear R8000P Nighthawk X6S Wireless Router

12 reviews for Netgear R8000P Nighthawk X6S Wireless Router

1. Rated 5 out of 5

   Attila C. – January 26, 2015

   The best router out there, WIFI everywhere now,m this is the best period
2. Rated 4 out of 5

   J.Lewis – April 13, 2016

   I purchased this router after having a ton of issues with older Linksys and Cisco Valet routers. Specifically I purchased this router due to its stated expanded coverage area (I have a two story home and coverage has always been an issue) as well as their support for VPN.

   The first thing I noticed about setting up this router was that, from a user standpoint, it is probably easier to set up than any other brand of router I’ve ever used. This is both good and bad, as the Netgear Genie app (probably the primary method most users will use to configure said router) is overly simplistic in its configurability. One must actually use the IP address of the router in a browser window to gain access to ‘Advanced mode’ which isn’t a deal breaker, just something that took me a second to figure out.

   This router boasts 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and also allows for guest networks on both bands…both a plus. The Netgear Genie app is pretty cool too with network mapping that allows you to label and name all your devices. This is extremely handy to identify devices that do not belong among other things.

   The reason I give this router four stars instead of five is because of their claim to support VPN. What they do not tell you in the promotional materials is that they only support windows VPN and nothing else. I pay for Private Internet Access’ VPN service and previously, using DD-WRT, was able to access the VPN from the router so that all devices connected to it were behind the tunnel (inside the tunnel?). Here you won’t find anything like that. Instead you have the option of turning on Windows VPN which isn’t what I’d hoped for. If they’d make it more clear that the VPN support is limited to this service, at least users wouldn’t be surprised when they purchase it.

   My old routers were 10/100 so the Gigabit ports on this router were a welcome change. I am now consistently getting exactly the throughput I pay for from my ISP from any device on the network. Aside from a couple of times where I had to look for particular settings I wanted to change (hello default password!), this router was very easy to configure.

   I’ve had it up and running for a few days and it seems to be performing quite well, even under heavy load.
3. Rated 5 out of 5

   Katkiller13 – February 7, 2017

   I had an old tplink wireless router, and after it would disconnect a lot I needed to get another one. I did a lot of research and after looking into my max speeds and range needed this one was the best choice for me. It maximizes all my speeds on 2ghz and 5ghz never fails, strong connections, has great protection, and I got it with a $20 coupon! Remember if ur looking at the higher models, check out wether ur internet speed is fulfilled with the right one. Don’t buy one that has a capacity u can’t touch.
4. Rated 1 out of 5

   jedi008 – December 28, 2017

   I tried – I honestly tried to get this router to work. I adjusted the channels on both bands, I tried “auto”, I moved the router, updated the firmware (which made it worse….) – everything and devices would drop off intermittently. Not sure if the router could not handle Echo and other devices such as Logitech Harmony, Nest and iHome switches, or if neighboring households have similar routers and were causing interference but I got tired of flashing red LED’s on my devices and dropped connections when using VPN to dial into work. I bought a Google Mesh wireless network and that instantly fixed everything. It is a shame – I really was hoping this router would meet my expectations, but now I am outside the return period and stuck with this “anchor”.
5. Rated 5 out of 5

   RJ – January 6, 2018

   This review is for the R6700 which I purchased in Feb of 2017. The unit worked GREAT for the first 10 months and then started having problems requiring me to reset it several times a week due to not being able to attach to either the 2.4Ghz or the 5Ghz band wirelessly, although the wired connection never failed. With phones, tablets, games and TVs I typically have 15 to 20 devices using the router at any one time but this unit should be able to handle that many with ease. After trying several fixes (firmware upgrade, assigning IP addresses, changing channels, etc), I finally reached out to Netgear at netgearteam@netgear.com – and they are AMAZING!! They called me at a time I chose and I gave them permission to log into my computer to check my router and network. After about 15 to 20 minutes, the level 2 tech decided that my router had a hardware problem and they expedited a new unit (R6700v2) to my door, sent along a return label so I wouldn’t have to pay to ship back my old unit and are still keeping in contact with me to make sure all is well. I put the new unit in service on 1/4/2018 and, of course, we are back to working GREAT. I know it could fail again in 10 months, but I am confident that the Netgear Team will stand behind their product after experiencing how well I have been treated so far. If you are having problems after your 90 day “phone support” window, I urge you to reach out to the Netgear Team at netgearteam@netgear.com and you won’t be disappointed.
6. Rated 5 out of 5

   Matt Sayar – February 22, 2018

   When I moved in with my wife, she brought with her a router that was better than mine, so we kept hers. After a while, more and more of our house became smarter. Smart devices were chatting across our house more and more every month. So I decided to upgrade to a TP-Link Router . I grew to regret that mistake every day over the course of a month.

   Over the course of the next month, the smart devices grew angry. They couldn’t chat freely and with reckless abandon. Sometimes they wouldn’t ever hear each other. The Chromecast cried in solace. The smart lightbulbs faded to dark. Our guests grew angry with our unreliable network as Game of Thrones struggled to stream. We lost friends. Made enemies. At a certain point we decided enough is enough: it is time to throw more money at this problem.

   That’s how we ended up with this spaceship. I spent twenty minutes going through all the advanced settings to make sure it was set up well enough to satisfy my inner geek, then I unleashed it upon the internet. Game of Thrones streamed quickly. Netflix couldn’t feed my router fast enough. My smart devices snapped to attention. The Chromecast wept, this time with tears of joy.

   I am a hero. And all it took was a lot of money.
7. Rated 2 out of 5

   Crosscheck67 – April 15, 2018

   Here’s how I know. I bought this router based on the Engadget article “Best Wireless Router for most people”. Worked great for 2 days, then started producing 7 Mbps (out of 100) downloads on every device in the house – hard-wired and wireless. Did all the typical troubleshooting (I’ve been doing this since the 90s), and relented to calling Netgear support in hopes they knew of a setting or config I wasn’t aware of or had forgotten about. All they had me do was flash the router and set it up again.

   They refused to escalate me to tier II by stating – and I quote – “The settings we made today take 24 hours to take effect”, as if we were making changes to a domain and have to wait for propagation. I explained how the basic settings we made and how routers work, and that those things take effect instantly. They stood their ground, insisting that this is part of their training. So I’m looking at other brands.
8. Rated 4 out of 5

   Erik – May 29, 2018

   This review is for the Netgear R7000 router. Be careful that the seller does not ship you a R6900P that is a different model and looks similar! I am using two of these routers. One is my main wireless router for my home and the other is an Ethernet bridge on the second story used for my desktop PC and other devices.

   My ISP provides about 300 Megabits of broadband download capacity through a cable modem. I wanted a router and wireless Ethernet bridge to give me better than the 50 to 60 Megabits of my previous wireless equipment. I wasn’t disappointed and my download speeds over wireless have increased to about 250 Megabits with two of these routers. The standard firmware from Netgear provides excellent performance.

   The router firmware has been working continuously without the need to restart the router or having firmware crashes. The bridge function of the firmware does not crash, but it has one flaw that caused me to install open source firmware. I use a Voice Over IP device and the Ethernet bridge function of the router does not stay connected. I have to reconnect it using the web configuration or power cycle the router to reconnect the Ethernet bridge. Otherwise my VOIP device stops receiving incoming calls.

   I installed Tomato firmware without any problems and now the Ethernet bridge stays connected all the time. There might be a way to solve the problem with the standard Netgear firmware but I haven’t seen any obvious setting to do that. I am still using the Netgear firmware for the main router because I saw no reason to fix what was working.

   The mechanical design and cooling of this router is decent. Although the case and connectors are mostly plastic, they are sturdy enough to last. The connectors and switches are conveniently located. You do have to examine the legend on the LEDs to make any sense of them. The spacing and colors give no indication about their function. I don’t view that as a big problem, but I prefer to have the LEDs for the switch ports, wireless and Internet in separate groupings. The circuit board is mounted to the top of the case, and that makes sense with the sloped top and air vents in the bottom and sides. Hopefully that will prevent overheating because of the unrestricted air flow. The three detachable antennas are solidly built and can swivel or tilt to position them in almost any direction including sticking straight out the back of the router in a horizontal position. The antennas are detachable, and one can easily connect some other kind of custom antennas.

   Some Netgear products have disappointed me in the past, but so far this router seems to be a winner. Only time will tell how well it lasts and if it develops overheating problems. All home routers end up being a bit of a gamble, since different models from the same manufacturer may be like night and day (or chalk and cheese if you like). The Netgear R7000 is worth considering for use as a router, repeater or Ethernet bridge. Support for open source Tomato firmware increases the flexibility and allows use as a Virtual Private Network server.

   I haven’t explored the network file server capabilities, but those may be appealing too.
9. Rated 4 out of 5

   Greg Price – August 16, 2018

   A fine router for our home. At least 10 very media heavy devices were handled with ease. Coverage was very good across a 2100sf home. My wife also liked the circle app which, with the paid monthly subscription, provided a great filtering interface that allowed us to set time limits, schedule times for kids to browse and monitor their histories.
   Until the dreaded firmware update.
   The update ran well enough until it said my connection was reset. Then came the blinking amber power light. And now now functionality whatsoever. I tried the factory reset, loading the firmware via TFTP; all to no avail. Netgear support said that they could restore my router(requiring them to access my router online) and even though it’s under warranty, they would charge me for extended support. I was having none of that.
   Amazon helped me to secure a replacement for which they have my continued loyalty and the bulk of these 4 stars. I have high praise on the router, save for the firmware debacle. Your luck on the update may vary. I, however, will skip this round and wait for the next firmware update.
10. Rated 5 out of 5

    Jairaj A. Kumar – October 8, 2018

    Worth every paisa you invest on this product – Netgear AC3200 Nighthawk X6 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router. I have been using this for close to 1.5 years now and thought I should write a review of this product.
    Advantages
    1) Initially I used to have a single Wifi router and multiple wifi extenders to cover my 3 bed room flat and still used to get compliant from my kids or from my wife. They used to get slow data transfer speeds. I used to have an ACT Fibre 75 MBps line and still it used to be slow
    2) Future of 1 Gbps data transfer is already available on this router, yes that is correct, with the 5 GHZ data transmission option on two channels – Channel 36 and Channel 141 you get a higher data transfer throughput rather than a 2.4 GHZ data transmission mode. Recently ACT Fiber upgraded to 150 Mbps and my router was already having upto 1 Gbps data transfer through put.
    3) Beam forming and support to ensure that all the nooks and corner is covered and also upto 30 devices, with multiple work loads e.g. primary TV, secondary TV, multiple phone, tablets, laptop etc.
    4) It allows to connect one USB 2 GB HDD external hard drive that you can access from anywhere, so media sharing is already available
    5) Remote access to printers is available also by installing a driver on your remote desktop, again awesome
    Disadvantages
    1) Bit pricey, but as stated top of the line wifi router (Netgear AC3200 Nighthawk X6 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router) worth every paise.
11. Rated 1 out of 5

    Sander K. – March 13, 2019

    As of September 2018 NETGEAR has revised this model and made it nearly impossible to install 3rd party firmware like Tomato and DD-WRT. Since I want to flash my router with Tomato to enable enhanced settings, and more importantly activating the built-in adblocker, this router is completely useless to me. Unless you want to open up the router, and connect a USB-TTL cable to the Serial Console on the motherboard to flash the router with 3rd party Firmware, I would stay far away from it.
12. Rated 2 out of 5

    Luisa Murphy – August 7, 2019

    NightHawk R6700v3 (AC1750)
    [Updated after getting a replacement]

    I got this because I upgraded my internet to gigabit speed (1000mbps), but after connecting to the router my PC, setting it up and updating the firmware, I would only get ~200mbps. This is the same case for all devices. After two days of troubleshooting with my ISP, we found out it was the router throttling the connection speed. All the QoS and connection metering settings were turned off. It was factory reset multiple times. It still gave this problem. I contacted Netgear’s “complementary customer support” which patched me over to a confused Indian IT-outsource office. I wasted an hour on the phone with a tech who clearly had no idea what a router even is, and offered no useful advice other than to return it.

    The throttled connection speed persists over both wired and wireless (5.0Ghz) connections. That 1300mbps WiFi speed is an outright lie. Same with the 4 “gigabit” ports. There are a lot of things that can hinder a high speed internet connection, but this router is clearly faulty. Perhaps that’s why Amazon is selling it for cheap.

    I went through Amazon and replaced it for a new one, but this time I tested the speed before updating the firmware (V1.0.2.62_10.0.46 to V1.0.4.78_10.0.55). Suddenly I got 700-800mbps! Then I figured perhaps it is the most recent firmware that throttled the connection. I updated the firmware on the new one (to V1.0.4.78_10.0.55), and sure enough, the connection capped at 200-300mpbs, just like the old one! Then I downgraded the firmware back to V1.0.2.62_10.0.46, and it jumped back up to 500-800mps.

    So Netgear essentially released a firmware update somewhere between V1.02 and V1.04 that completely ruined this router, giving it 20-30% the normal speed. Imagine if Windows released an update that made your computer 4-5x slower, didn’t tell you about it, and then their tech support told you to replace your computer to fix it, only for you to find out it was a Windows update. That is what Netgear has done with this router.

    Considering the router is ~6 years old, I am skeptical whether or not they will ever fix this, so I am stuck with outdated firmware to get the speed I paid for.

    If you are reading this, thinking the cheap R6700v3 AC1750 router is a good deal, do yourself a favor and pay the extra cash for a better one that works. If you are on a tight budget for a gigabit router, then maybe you can take a gamble with this Night Hawk router, but DO NOT update the firmware! You’ll loose your gigabit speed.