Netgear Nighthawk AX6 (RAX50) review
Our Finding of fact
An excellent way to feed data to devices close to the router, the Netgear Nighthawk AX6 (RAX50) combines 802.11AX high-velocity trading operations with the best security enhancements that any home networking device includes. Unfortunately, it costs a lot Thomas More than other AX routers to get and use.
For
- Excellent close-upbound performance
- Security upgrade
- Quick setup
- Customization electric potential
Against
- Expensive
- Security measures subscription lasts one month
- Support lasts 90-days
Tom's Guide Verdict
An excellent way to feed data to devices ungenerous to the router, the Netgear Nighthawk AX6 (RAX50) combines 802.11AX high-speed trading operations with the first security enhancements that any abode networking device includes. Unfortunately, it costs a lot more than other Axe routers to puzzle over and use.
Pros
- + Fantabulous close-up performance
- + Security upgrade
- + Quick setup
- + Customization potential
Cons
- - Expensive
- - Security measures subscription lasts one month
- - Support lasts 90-years
Netgear Nighthawk AX6 RAX50: Specs
Wi-Fi spec: 802.11ax/dual-band
Turn of antennas/removable: 4/Yes
Ports: 1 WAN, 4 LAN, USB 3.0
Processor: triple-center 1.5 Gigahertz
Remembering/storehouse: 512MB/256MB
Wi-Fi Saratoga chip: Broadcom BCM6750
Size: 14.0 x 8.6 x 2.7 inches
Peak 802.11ac performance: 1.38Gbps (at 15 feet)
Range: 85 feet
Estimated Annual Electricity Cost: $8.50
Price: $250
The Netgear Night owl RAX50 shows that high-speed Cyberspace can be utilized safely, pairing best-in-class home meshwork security with speeds that crack the 1 Gbps roadblock. Goodish for anything from online gamers to high-end media consumers, the RAX50's second generation Armour software can help make your network and devices more airtight by stopping malware before it does any damage and keeping your personal data from leaking out. Quick and easy to pitch, the RAX50 offers a wide diverseness of customization options equally well as the choice between using a visually appealing mobile app Beaver State a Thomas More thorough connected web browser.
On the downside, the RAX50 is unitary of the most expensive traditionalistic routers you can suffer and IT doesn't diaphragm with the purchase price. That's because the included Armor 2.0 security software package is a subscription service with a 30-day trial and the support only lasts 90-years, potentially costing more than for these subscriptions than the initial outlay over the router's life.
Still, our Netgear Nighthawk RAX50 review shows that top speed and top security measur go hand down in hand with the RAX50, making it one of the best routers for security-minded homes.
Netgear Bullbat AX6 review: Cost and what's enclosed
The Netgear Nightbird RAX50 has a list Mary Leontyne Pric of $300 merely if you shop around, IT backside live had for $250. This is about what the TP-Radio link Sagittarius the Archer AX6000 costs. Unfortunately, that's twice what the lower-performing Linksys MR7350 goes for.
In addition to the expected router, AC adapter, Cat 6 cable and a start-high card, the RAX50 comes fit to securely fill a home with radio set information victimization Netgear's Armor 2.0 security software. On the downside, the included service is actually a 30-day trial of the subscription serving (more on that below).
Netgear Mosquito hawk AX6 RAX50 review: Design
The jet black Nighthawk RAX50 has a angulate event, incurvate top and several gem-like facets. At 14.0 x 8.6 x 2.7, it should be competent to fit connected a desk, window sill or countertop. IT's in between the bigger Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500 and slimly smaller TP-Link Archer AX6000. With its quartet adaptable antennas decorated the device is 5.5 inches taller.
A "V" shaped ventilating system grillwork on top and the router's passive cooling stand in contrast to the Netegar RAXE500's temperature reduction fan and the TP-Link AX6000's aggressive slat vents. That said, the RAX50 never broke a sweat at a tip temperature of 99 degrees Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, much cooler than the Netgear RAXE500's 112 degrees F.
With individual LED lights for power, Net, 2.4- and 5GHz activity, Ethernet and its USB 3.0 porthole, the RAX50 can light up like a Flame tree when active. By contrast, the Linksys MR7350 has a single, discreet light bar that shows its overall position but inferior elaborated information. By dig into the setup screens, I was able to turn the LEDs sour.
Inside, the RAX50's dual-band invention uses the up-to-the-minute 802.11AX (Wi-Fi 6) protocol to push data to the limit. Its abilities range from MU-MIMO (for servicing many devices) to beamforming (for tailoring the betoken to suit the device) to full 1024QAM operations (for top speed operations). The router force out support several 160MHz high-performance information channels and can go out 600Mbps all over its 2.4GHz band also Eastern Samoa 4.8Gbps over the 5GHz band. It adds up to an AX5400 rating. That blows away the TP-Link MR7350's AX1800 throughput military rank merely is bottom the Netgear RAXE500's AX1100 rating.
IT's all shapely around Broadcom's BCM6750 Wisconsin-Fi chipset that can service up to 25 devices at once. Resourceful of moving six individual streams of data, the router has a 1.5GHz three-bagger-core processor, 512MB of RAM and 256MB of flash storage for the arrangement's settings and microcode. Unlike several of its competitors, the RAX50 can't be set up in an Orbi mesh arrangement but can control as a pumped up access point.
The RAX50's connection instrument panel has more than the basics with an input Pallid port adequate to of using 5Gbps streams from a broadband modem. In that respect are quatern downstream Ethernet ports that derriere deliver gigabit per instant data, but none tush be aggregated for high performance. The TP-Link MR7350, by equivalence, can pair any two of its Ethernet ports for top hurry.
If you want to bring outside computer memory to the mix, the RAX50 has a USB 3.0 port. Just fire hydrant in an external hard force back or a flash drive to divvy up its contents across the network using Netgear's ReadyShare software.
In addition to buttons for power and resetting the router to its factory settings in the backmost, the RAX50 has keys up straw man for turn the router's Badger State-Fi transmissions on or off and starting the Wi-Fi Moated Setup (WPS) process for speedily adding devices.
Netgear Nighthawk AX6 (RAX50) review: Security
While the RAX50 matches to the highest degree recent Wi-Fi routers with the ability to use WPA2 or WPA3 encryption, two-factor authentication and Apple's Touch ID, it goes various steps farther with its second-generation Armour packet of certificate enhancements. The Armor 2.0 package pushes more of the malware detection and eradication to the cloud piece providing a layered set about to defensive a family's computers.
Armor's defenses chain from behavioral monitoring and machine learning to local scanning for malware with apps for Windows, Macs and Android systems. IT can tied protect against attacks on smart devices throughout the house, the likes of thermostats and video cameras.
No other router accompany offers this all-inclusive array of security but information technology doesn't come cheap. The RAX 50's Armour 2.0 software is a 30-day trial. After that, the subscription costs $100 a year, but Netgear won't leave you high and dry if you don't pay up. The Armor software leave continue to provide protection against Web attacks simply won't defend against things like Brute Force and Denial of Service attacks as well Eastern Samoa safety your individualized information.
It adds up quickly, with the be of maintaining Armour 2.0 surpassing the first cost of the router sometime in its third year. Even so, IT provides malware protection for an unlimited number of devices, making it a steal.
The Armor subscription besides provides access to Bitdefender's VPN service. On the downside, the basic service is modest to 200MB a day of data fall per twist. Upgrading to unlimited VPN use of goods and services costs an additive $50 a twelvemonth.
In addition to an boilers suit security score and assistance raising it, Armor now has enhanced protection with anomaly detection that looks for abnormal device demeanor. It protects against wildcat force attacks from bots and fight back against new exploits as well as denial of Robert William Service attacks.
Perhaps the biggest upgrade is Armor 2.0's security of your sensitive data. The software monitors the data entry and leaving the router for indications your Social Security number, deferred payment card accounts and other personal data are leaking extinct. This can potentially save your online individuality from being compromised.
Netgear Nightbird AX6 (RAX50) review: Performance
The Netgear Nighthawk RAX50 is one of the first AX routers to make the most of the superior Wi-Fi 6 protocol. Concluded a calendar week of daily purpose, information technology was dependable for things teeny (email and online shopping) and big (distributing 4K videos and online gambling).
In my 100 twelvemonth old house, the RAX50 excelled at delivering lots of data when it was familiar to the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro examination system. Using Ixia's ixChariot network bench mark software, the test organisation registered 1.38Gbps of data flux with the software simulating 10 data hungry clients. That might not be able to touch the 2.39Gbps that its elderly brother, the 802.11AXE-based Netgear RAXE500 router accomplished by adding a 6GHz link to its 2.4- and 5GHz bands.
Still, the RAX50's throughput was one-third more the TP-Link Archer AX-6000 (884.4Mbps) and the Asus RT-AX86U (929.7Mbps). It's also nearly three times the 478.3Mbps that the Axe-based Linksys MR7350 achieved.
The router's available bandwidth fell off sharply when I touched it to a distance of 50-feet. At this breaker point, its throughput dropped to 133.2Mbps, putting it easily behind the RT-AX86U (285.3Mbps) and the Linksys MR7350 (167.2Mbps). This makes the RAX50 more useful for same-room OR adjacent-room coverage.
With the distance raised to 75-feet, the RAX50 could move merely 9.79Mbps. That's compared to the likes of the RT-86U's 250.1Mbps and the TP-Tie Archer AX6000's 149.9Mbps. The Linksys MR7350's 15.3Mbps was closer to the RAX50's mark. The RAX50 had a range of 85 feet, matching that of the TP-Link but short of the Linksys's power to crowd a signal to 90 feet.
A WI-Fi bawler, the RAX50 pushed 1.01Gbps through a fence in 20 feet from the router. This was one-fourth part better than the TP-Connexion Archer AX6000 (744.7Mbps) and 60 percent ahead of the Linksys MR7350 (408.8Mbps). When it came to copulative the router with the test machine set up a story above, the RAX50 moved 748.1Mbps of data, more than double the Linksys's 312.3Mbps and ahead of the TP-Link's 671.4Mbps.
The RAX50 passed our informal intensity test where the router diffuse data to support viewing videos on an iPad In favor, listening to an Internet radio post on a Samsung Galaxy S7+ tablet while streaming a 4K picture show on a Dell XPS 15 as data was being read and saved to a RAID file server with a Lenovo ThinkPad T470. The video and sound were hop on free with neither freeze-up, drop-outs or artifacts.
At 7.4 watts of power, the RAX50 is a miser but still uses more than the Linksys MR7350's 5 Watts of power. If information technology's left along 24/7 and you pay the national medium of 13 cents per kW hour, the RAX50 should cost about $8.50 a year. Others, like the TP-Link Archer AX6000 and Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500 can cost as much as $11.30 and $13.70, respectively, per class to use.
Netgear Nighthawk AX6 RAX50 review: Setup
Getting the Nighthawk RAX50 online can be accomplished either with the Nighthawk app for iPhones and iPads or Androids or with a attached web browser. I chose the latter option. The function started with me screwing in the unit's four antennas, connecting the router to my broadband modem and plugging in the Actinium adaptor.
After creating a Netgear account, I connected my quiz system with the router using the irregular Wi-Fi name and password printed underneath. Before any configuration took place, the router insisted on changing its IP address to 10.0.0.1.
Information technology then checked the Cyberspace connectedness and asked me to enter an body password. Then, I answered two substantiation questions if I lost the password.
At long last, I renamed the router and added a personalized passcode and registered the computer hardware online. IT connected on the first try and yielded 181Mbps of data from my 200Mbps link and took all of 5 proceedings to go from a plastered box to a fully operating dual-band interior meshwork.
My succeeding task was to set up the Armour security system. Exploitation my iPad Pro, the process started with me activating the cardinal-calendar month Armor trial.
At one time the software was live, Armour gave me an embarrassing security evaluation of 77 tabu of 100. It listed the items that needed to be changed, like installing the included Bitdefender security software package on my devices.
Future up, I created profiles for my children to screen out the worst the Web could throw at them. Then, I set limits on their screen time.
Netgear Nighthawk AX6 (RAX50) review: Configuration
Like other Nighthawk routers, the RAX50 can be configured using a affiliated browser for lots of options OR via its Android or iOS apps, which is Thomas More visual just less complete.
Either way, the main pages offering a good overview of the router's setup and current duties. While the web browser go about shows the Internet status, how many devices are connected and a ticker of the network's name and passcode, the apps add how much time clay along the Armor subscription and the status of the Genitor Controls.
Some offer a speed reading of the network's carrying out and there's a Traffic Meter that shows the overall data hang for help in reduction interference. At any point, limits can be placed on downloads, uploads operating theatre both.
Then again, the web browser let you customise a variety of performance parameters non enclosed with the app, such as Fragmentation Length, Long-acting or Curt Preamble and the ability to turn the Wireless local area network transmissions on Beaver State off according to a schedule.
[[rax50 preamble]]
Like its competitors, the RAX50 comes with a indefinite-year warrant simply information technology can be doubled for a intelligent $30. Netgear provides 90-years of personalized support, although the Web land site has lots of self-serve items along the product support page. Ii years of bear out and a warranty extension sells for $80.
The downloadable manual is a must-register because the RAX50 can do so practically to turbocharge a menage network.
Netgear Bullbat AX6 RAX50 review: Verdict
Aside compounding a fast Badger State-Fi 6 router with some of the most effective security software, Netgear has created one of the topper routers happening the market. The Night owl RAX50 can non only gratify a crime syndicate's thirstiness for data but keep them safe at the same time. It is also unity of the most customizable routers on the market so that it can live tempered to the environs and use up.
With a suggested Leontyne Price of $300, the RAX50 can atomic number 4 had for $250 if you shop around. That's twice the price tag of the lower-performing Linksys MR7350 but fractional that of the Linksys Hydra 6E operating theatre Netgear Night owl RAXE500, which use the newer Wi-Fi 6e protocol that pushes performance by adding 6GHz transmissions. IT's the router to get if you care as very much like online refuge arsenic you do about Wisconsin-Fi performance. The RAX50 checks both boxes.
Brian Nadel is a freelance writer and editor WHO specializes in technology reporting and reviewing. He works out of the suburban New York City area and has covered topics from atomic power plants and Wi-Fi routers to cars and tablets. The other editor-in-important of Mobile Computation and Communications, Nadel is the recipient of the TransPacific Writing Prize.
Netgear Nighthawk AX6 (RAX50) review
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/netgear-nighthawk-ax6-rax50
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