A few years ago, I reviewed a Netgear router with Wi-Fi 6E capabilities and gave it 9 stars out of 10, recommending it to just about anyone looking to upgrade. Now, for Prime Day, it’s an eye-catching 50% off its MSRP.
Regardless of what you pay for internet service, your router can make or break the actual wireless experience. An old, low-quality router will be beat down by wireless congestion and interference from other radio wave-emitting devices. If its coverage is deficient, you’re going to end up with Wi-Fi deadzones. If you haven’t upgraded in a while, now’s a great time to replace your old router, maybe with the Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 specifically.
Yes, It Comes in Black
The Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 is a tri-band Wi-Fi router with a striking appearance that lives up to the Nighthawk name. Its antenna wings and it’s all-black design give it look like a bird or a bat swooping into your office or living room.
There are benefits beyond just giving your ornithophobic house guests a jolt: the router has a total coverage of up to 2,500 square feet, and it supports up to 40 devices at once. When I was testing it, the RAXE300 let me take full advantage of my gigabit internet with its 1-gig LAN port.
There are also four 1-gig Ethernet ports, two of which can be aggregated, plus one 2.5-gig port. You can find routers out there with better LAN port options, but these still aren’t anything to sneeze at. While multi-gig internet plans are already here, you probably aren’t paying for one unless you’re a professional. Speaking of ports, you also get a USB Type-C port for connecting network storage, too.
I should add, though, that while $200 is a good deal, it isn’t the absolute lowest this router has gone. According to my Camelizer extension, the RAXE300 hit $165 in March of this year. So, if you feel like holding off, you could potentially get a better deal later.
A Great Wireless Upgrade
Going beyond the wired capabilities, the wireless experience is great with the RAXE300. So long as I was in the room with the router and PC, I enjoyed using my Quest headset to stream VR games wirelessly with minimal lag.
I’d especially recommend this router if you’re still using a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) router. That standard is over a decade old now, and three generations have debuted since. You might blame your Wi-Fi problems on the structure of your home, interference from neighbors’ wireless networks, or the demands of modern streaming and gaming. That may all be accurate, but every Wi-Fi generation comes with technological improvements, including mitigations for those very types of problems.
A Wi-Fi 6E router like the Nighthawk RAXE300, with its third band and its overall faster speeds than Wi-Fi 5 routers, is probably going to give you a noticeable boost.
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What About a Wi-Fi 7 Router?
In the days since I reviewed the Nighthawk RAX300, Wi-Fi 7 has debuted and become the new cutting-edge standard for wireless networks, knocking Wi-Fi 6E down a notch. That means upgrading to this router isn’t quite as future-proof as you can get.
Here me out, though: there are benefits to being a little behind the times. For one, you’ll be taking advantage of your router’s full capabilities more often and sooner. Many of Wi-Fi 7’s benefits can only be enjoyed with Wi-Fi 7 devices. Unless the phone, laptop, smart TV, or other wireless device you’re using was built with the Wi-Fi 7 standard, you’re not going to get the best performance possible.
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Unless you’re someone who’s always using the absolutely latest hardware at all times, you’re statistically more likely to have a device equipped for Wi-Fi 6E than for Wi-Fi 7. At the time of my review, Wi-Fi 6E devices were still relatively rare. Nowadays, they’re way more common. In fact, if you’re doing more tech shopping this Prime Day, Wi-Fi 6E gizmos are going to be more affordable than their Wi-Fi 7 counterparts, if such counterparts exist yet at all.
That’s why I’d still generally recommend this three year old router. Netgear is a trusted brand and, unlike other common router brands, isn’t under consideration for being banned by the US government.