Netgear R6300 802.11ac Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router

I got this as I was fed up with poor performance and features of Virgin Superhub.

I use a network in a largish house with 13 devices (with mixture of 2.4GHz and 5GHz devices so had to have to access point) and wanted also to be able to access some files while out (via NAS). Using this device (combined with modem mode on virgin superhub) I have been able to quickly put together an excellent performing setup.

Routing/LAN functions are excellent, for low requirements users looks quite simple and does all the advanced features that I needed such as fixed IP assignments, port forwarding, reliable DDNS, QoS.
Wireless: performance is excellent on both bands and for g and n devices. Works well in throughout our house (and with n even into the garden). Also seems very effective in crowded areas.

Performance is excellent, compared to just using superhub speeds are better overall and it is much more responsive.

Obviously full speeds will not be available to most of us yet as there are very few devices using the ac standard but this is a very worthwhile router for anyone needing good features and performance and is ready for next generation of devices.

I did have a couple of issues that I was able to resolve with some trial and error. A couple of devices (Wii and mobile phones) could not connect to the wireless initially - I dropped the max speed (under Mode in wireless setup) to 600 and they were fine. Also, unlike some routers, when setting up MAC filtering on wireless it does not show MACs that are trying to connect but not allowed yet to be easily added. You can, however, try to connect then go to the logs and find the one that was refused and copy the MAC from there.

I originally purchased a Linksys EA6500 a few weeks ago, of the two its probably a slightly better looking model and is wall mounable. However, i havd huge problems with the gateway configuration - it routes traffic through cisco's own servers, which means if their servers are down, you cannot configure your wireless network. This seemed to be a stupendous flaw. Suffice to say i had almost 48 hours last week where their servers were down. i can initially configure my network through the (poor) cd installer but no further config is possible. I checked online and this wasn't the first outage (i cannot believe they don't have resilierncy to ensure continuous operation) I also had a few problems with signal dropout in the 2.4gig channel.

I ended up swapping it for the Netgear R6300. The user interface is much more easy on the eye and (albeit subjectively) the toolbars are much more logically laid out. It is easy to find your way around if you want to set static IPs or port forwarding etc.

The router contains 4 gigabit ports. De rigeur for the price range, but still good. Setup takes 2 minutes, all very straightforward even for novices. NO CD is required which is handy as these are less common. Install, plug in a cable and type an address into a browser.

Build quality is very good. i would have liked to see the stand allowing it to be laid flat, and slots for wall mounting, but these are pretty minor issues.

Performance is exceptional. I have a NAS, a few virtual servers on a dev box all wired up through the on board ports at full gig speeds, and a household full of various laptops, phones, tablets et al. Previously streaming full HD videos either from iPlayer or from the NAS drive was impossible from upstairs, now performance is excellent. The 2.4ghz range provides excellent coverage (most existing devices use this). The 5 Ghz however is phenomenal. It probably helps that i don't have much local interference on these channels yet but i can walk to the newsagents 100 yards away from my house and pick up a signal almost all the way there. Suffice to say the signal in my small garden is excellent, even behind obstacles.

If you're planning to purchase a wireless router to last you a few years this is an excellent suggestion. If you have or will be getting a laptop or phone with 5ghz support (Nexus 4 for me, but also Iphone 5, etc) then i simply cannot recommend this product highly enough. I've shopped online with Amazon for a decade yet never felt as compelled to write a review.

My original review for this is retained below as some of the comments may be of interest since there are still likely to be relatively few devices which support the 802.11ac standard. However I have now got one the Linksys WUMC710 Wireless Universal Media Connector so can comment on the future proof features. And the result is that I can now happily give the Netgear 6300 a 5 star rating. I connected it to the Linksys media centre without any difficulty, using the buttons on each device to do so. I then connected the media centre to a Humax PVR and copied a file from that over the network. I had previously got miserable speeds but this was blazingly fast at around 10mbps. The media centre is fairly close to the Netgear so range isn't an issue. The connection to all the other wireless devices from the Netgear is rock solid. I have now turned off the wireless on the BT Home Hub, connected that to the Netgear router and let the Netgear do the wireless broadcast. So this is a great product.

ORIGINAL REVIEW - LEFT FOR INFORMATION

This is an interesting product. It is at the cutting edge of wi-fi and one of the first on the market to use the new wi-fi standard of 802.11ac. This standard will enable transfers over wi-fi networks to be much quicker than they are now.

The first thing to observe is that this is "just" a router. It is now so commonplace for Internet Service Providers to supply a box which is actually a combined modem and router that there is probably an expectation that a box called a router would be one of those. It's not. If you want to be able to access the internet then you need to connect this to your modem. And if your current modem incorporates a router then you probably need to have a least some networking knowledge. Of course, because it is solely a router you could use it to build a local area network without bothering that it was not connected to the internet but I suspect that won't be what most people want it for.

The second point is that the new faster data transfer is dependent upon both the transmitting device (this router) and the receiving device (PC, Laptop, Phone etc) being 802.11ac enabled. Well the next generation of devices probably will have the 802.11ac capability but the current generation don't. (At the time of writing I gather there is one Asus laptop which does). So I can't comment on whether there is a speed increase.

Third, there is also supposed to be an increase in range of the signal but again that appears to be dependent upon using 802.11ac. This router is backwards compatible so it works perfectly well as an 802.11n (or g or b) device but the range it achieves using the "n" standard is almost exactly the same as my BT Home Hub v2.

It does have (once a firmware update was completed) a rather nice guest feature which allows you to very quickly set up access for guests without them having to login. Just remember to turn it off when the guests have gone if you don't want your neighbours using it!

It seems to work solidly enough as a 802.11n device but it is so far ahead of the device sector in using 802.11ac I honestly could not recommend it yet. Once there are devices using 802.11ac it can be properly tested (and I would expect the price to come down or this model to be superseded). Until then if you need a router I'd be inclined to go for a reliable well-reviewed 802.11n model.

Update:September 2012. The iPhone 5 was announced a few days ago. Apple are apparently supportive of the new 802.11ac standard so I half expected that they might include that in the latest device. They have not done so. It will support the alternative 5ghz band which is less crowded so there is a step forward, but it still leaves this router's capability some way ahead of the receiving devices.

Update October 2012. Apple has just announced iPad mini, IPad 4th generation and a new iMac. Interestingly none of them have the new 802.11ac standard. Apple seem to be going more down the alternative 5ghz band route. And just to be non Apple I also note that the Microsoft Surface tablet launched on 24th October 2012 also doesn't support 802.11ac. (I could not find this info on the Microsoft website so it relies on info from a third party reviewer).

So once again this router is still ahead of receiving devices.