This router even looks like it means business thanks to its aggressive styling.
It actually looks like a stealth bomber with its angular panels and gunmetal grey colour. There are also three antennas to complete the look and expand its range.
But it’s not the Nighthawks looks that make it such a breakthrough product – it’s the many features under the hood including a dual core 1Ghz processor to boost wired and wireless performance.
The Nighthawk supports the latest 802.11ac wi-fi standard which is up to three times faster than the previous 802.11n.
Apart from speed 802.11ac also locks on to your device on the network thanks to new beamforming technology.
This also increases the range of the router and we found our wi-fi signal was stronger in areas of our home where we struggled to connect with a regular router.
Many of the latest mobile devices and laptops are now 802.11ac compatible so you’ll notice a definite speed increase.
But the Nighthawk can also distinguish between all of the tasks on wi-fi and prioritise the bandwidth for that particular purpose.
The dual bands – 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz – mean there is less interference and is the first step to providing the smoothest and fastest performance but the Nighthawk’s QoS (quality of service) feature can also take a lion’s share of the credit.
QoS can help prioritise streaming video and gaming through the WMM (wi-fi multimedia) setting so you’ll have a faster connection for your online gaming and uninterrupted high definition video streaming.
There are also two USB ports (one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0) which can be used to share USB hard drives and printers on your network.
Netgear’s Nighthawk also supports automatic backups including ReadySHARE vault for PCs and Time Machine for Macs.
Another useful feature to help set-up, manage and maintain the Nighthawk is the Netgear Genie app.
Of course security is also a top priority with password-protected connections and parental controls for web filtering to any connected device on the network.
Users can also offer secure guest network access that is separate to your own secure connections.
The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Router is available now and is priced at $319.
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