One the right side of the router is a small access door which covers the USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports. While that sounds plausible, it may also just be the way Netgear wanted to design it to avoid the more common square box format. Some have said that this was a way to prevent people putting other devices on top of the router, thus providing maximum air circulation and cooling. The router has an interesting wave design across the top. But a router like this will ensure that it will be able to accommodate newer technology as it is developed. It’s doubtful that you can attain these transfer speeds given today’s technologies. The router is a simultaneous tri-band MU-MIMO (“Multi-User – Multiple Input, Multiple Output”) router with one 2.4GHz band rated at 1,000Mbps and dual 5 GHz bands rated at 2,166 Mbps each. The router is powered by a 1.4GHz dual core processor and has 128MB of Flash memory and 512MB of RAM. Granted, if plugged directly into a wall it will be off to the side and leave the other plug exposed but we suspect most people are using a power strip and like us, will need to reconfigure whatever else is plugged in to make it be at or near the very end of the strip. While it’s bad enough that the transformer is at the end of the chord that plugs in, it is designed in such a way that it covers two or three outlets if you are using a power strip. If people like the fact that the Airport Extreme has an internal power supply and therefore only needs a chord to connect it to the AC outlet, you will probably have a strong reaction to the X8’s power supple as we do. In the box is the Netgear Nighthawk X8 router, the power adapter, an Ethernet cable and a Quick Start Guide. But its more traditional shape gives you the feeling that it is not as large as some of its competitors.
Apple Tech Talk Scorecard Prosįeature rich router with granular control.Īnyone who is familiar with the Netgear Nighthawk X8 (Model # R8500) router always describes it in the same way, big! Measuring 12.44” x 10.39” x 2.4”, and weighing in at 3.7 lbs., it is very similar in size to the D-Link AC3200. So today, we’ll look at the Netgear Nighthawk X8, 802.11ac router, which provides yet another option for even the most loyal of Apple enthusiast. We recently looked at the D-Link AC3200 router (read the review here), and it made us realize that there are router options other than the Airport Extreme Base Station (read our review here).