NETGEAR R6300 Pro Reviews

Netgear R6300 review | This 802.11ac router has been given performance-enhancing firmware. But is it enough to make you buy it? Reviews | TechRadar

From a standpoint of performance, the Netgear R6300 is impressive to say the least. It maintained speeds throughout the house rivaling that of the hardwired benchmark. Considering that the testing was done using an antiquated laptop, the final results seem even that much more impressive. One of the elements where the R6300 falls short is from a design standpoint. Not only is it not very visually appealing, but its stature combined with the positioning of the majority of the ports it a bit of a disappointment. Also, it could have used a USB 3.0 port or two. However, the performance of the router drowns out it shortcomings. The GUI, also known as the "Netgear genie," is intuitive and extremely easy to use. After setting up the router on you network and downloading the GUI, all you have to do is sit back, wait a few minutes, and you will be connected to your network without lifting a finger. If you want to manipulate settings, even advanced settings, you will have no problems at all.

In the competition for the title of best 802.11ac router on the market today, Netgear's R6300 finishes a very close second to the Asus RT-AC66U. It's not quite as fast as the Asus in most benchmarks, and it doesn't offer as many features as the Asus does. The performance gaps, however, are not huge. The one area where Netgear has a leg up on Asus is in apps. Install Netgear's Genie app on your smartphone, and you can use it to monitor and manage your network. Asus was getting ready to launch their AiCloud service as I was wrapping up these reviews, however, so Netgear's advantage may be short-lived. And Netgear will never be able to overcome the RT-AC66U's removable, upgradable antennas.

A promising start for 802.11ac, but with few compatible devices, it won’t revolutionise your home network

The Netgear R6300 802.11ac Dual Band Gigabit Router is a genuinely exciting router. It has claimed wireless speeds of up to 450Mbit/s on the 2.4GHz band and up to an incredible 1300Mbit/s on the 5GHz band. It also has two USB ports to which you can attach USB drives and printers, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and DLNA media sharing so you can share music and videos with other devices on your network. You can also run the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously, maximising compatibility with wireless devices.

The Netgear R6300 802.11ac router combines the fastest Wi-Fi speeds we have ever tested with a clever and complete user interface for ultimate control. Some may not like the footprint or aggressive shape, but we think with all the features that Netgear has outfitted the R6300 with there is no better router on the market today.

If you are trying to decide between the R6300 and Buffalo's WZR-D1800H purely on the basis of their draft 11ac capability, it's largely a toss-up. With the V1.0.2.14_1.0.23 firmware, the R6300 can pump out higher total bandwidth if you are running multiple 11ac clients. But at this point, with only $200 routers or bridges that support full three-stream draft 11ac, how many people are going to do that? More realistically, single client throughput is more evenly matched with a slight edge going to Buffalo as signal levels drop. The R6300 has significantly higher wired routing throughput than the Buffalo, but you'll need > 500 Mbps internet service to have that matter. What could be more in Buffalo's favor is its much higher simultaneous session handling, which hit our almost 35,000 test limit while the NETGEAR maintained the 4,096 session limit that is common across its WNDR router line.

Although the Netgear R6300 supports the latest 802.11ac standard (in draft form); an odd design, and surprisingly underwhelming performance running in 11ac mode does not make this router one of Netgear's best.

Despite its bulky design, the R6300 makes an excellent router for those who want a fast home network for wired clients as well as existing Wi-Fi clients and future 802.11ac clients.