Router Netgear R7000 Nighthawk: And instead of the heart, the fiery Cortex-A9!
It seems that quite recently routers were trained only to distribute the Internet over the air and wires. The best of them did it so well and stably that some owners forgot - where does this box with antennas stand at all? But the functionality gradually expanded, and as a result, the current flagship models will give odds to an inexpensive NAS. On the one hand, this is good: you can buy a router, connect an external drive to it and get two devices for the price of one and a half. On the other hand, the wealth of possibilities required the development of not just a firmware, but a fully-fledged operating system with a user-friendly interface and a set of drivers.
And this is where the problems started. Network equipment manufacturers initially focused on people who simply adored the command line and remembered by heart hundreds of teams. Getting rid of this orientation turned out to be difficult. Until now, in completely consumer models, there is interface design in the style of "Engineers for Engineers". There are also relapses: for example, ZyXEL, deservedly proud of the simple and convenient interface in the first generation of Keenetic routers, released firmware version 2.0, where everything was complicated so that thousands of users wanted to run over the ceiling. Until now, even when acquiring new Keenetic models, many find the not quite official firmware version 1.0 and replace it with the progressive creation of ZyXEL developers.
')
Expansion of functionality in combination with the complexity / acceleration of iron played another cruel joke. I declare responsibly: now there is not a single router that would not have a couple of serious bugs that interfere with its daily operation. Another question is that in decent models of self-respecting manufacturers, these bugs sit so deeply that it is rather difficult to face them. And, of course, when updating firmware, some of them are destroyed, and new ones still need to be found.
Over the past year about a dozen models have passed through me, and in each of them, sooner or later, a “surprise” was found. For example, one of the routers, pleasing absolutely in all respects, suddenly turned out to be incompatible with the Wi-Fi adapter of the TV. The adapter was connected, it worked fine, but with the new inclusion, the zombopanel required to do the mating procedure again, because I forgot the settings. With a dozen other routers, the TV works flawlessly, as if hinting.
Another device that demonstrates the wonders of stability and speed at an affordable price (I will even call it by name - this is TP-LINK TL-WDR4300), suddenly did not make friends with one of Sony's smartphones. Connection breaks - and that's it, it's impossible to watch a movie on DLNA. Needless to say that with other routers (including those who are not friendly with the TV), the relationship between the smartphone is excellent.
And so they all are. Do not stumble on incompatibility - you will live happily ever after. You will come across - you will study the forums, experiment with the firmware and generally waste time. And today we will talk about the newest router Netgear Nighthawk R7000, surprisingly combining advanced features, wide functionality and stability that is just amazing for such a monster. At least for a week of rather severe exploitation I did not manage to catch a single flaw. Unless, of course, you count some ... design features, which we will talk about separately.
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a famous single-seater strike aircraft designed to bypass air defense systems and attack airfields, headquarters and other important facilities. In service with the American army, he stood for nearly 20 years and managed to gain popularity no less than our MiG-29. True, Nighthawk was decommissioned in 2008, but once Netgear used its name and design elements in the flagship router, then fame still lives.
The similarity is there!
And more predatory antennas!
Nighthawk really has a certain personality, so it’s not a shame to put it in a prominent place. Lack of edges and other decorations makes cleaning from dust easier. Three antennas look stylish and screwed through a standard interface. This, if necessary, will allow replacing them with more powerful ones. Unless, of course, you believe that size matters in this case. The Chinese believe.
The stated characteristics of the router are impressive: up to 600 Mbps when connected in the 2.4 GHz band and up to 1300 Mbps 5 GHz in the 802.11ac mode. Well, what can I say ... This is not even a reserve for the future, but a reserve. Of course, I primarily speak about the 5 GHz band, because it is almost impossible to find a device that supports a speed of 600 megabits at 2.4 GHz. And if such a one is suddenly found, it is unrealistic to accelerate to such a level in the extremely littered 2.4-gigahertz range. No, of course, on the outskirts of a small cozy town, among private houses, where all the neighbors sweetly drink bitter and consider the Internet a dirty word, you can try. But only the residents of such towns are unlikely to be able to afford Nighthawk ...
The 802.11ac standard supports more and more devices, not only laptops with tablets, but also the most advanced smartphones (for example, the new Samsung Galaxy). But the trouble is: nobody is able to accelerate to 1300 Mbit / s. And if it can, it does not want. For example, MacBook Air, if it isn’t shamned with it, connects using ac at up to 400 Mbps, and MacBook Pro - up to 600 Mbps. More, according to Apple, you just do not need. The Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet was already connected to 866 Mbit / s, pumping a real 65 megabytes per second through the air. But this is an exception to the rules, achieved in the line of sight of the router. It was worth to move a little further away, as the speed dropped to 450 Mbit and below.
So 1300 Mbit / s is sometime later. In a year or two. The main thing is that by that time the 5 GHz range should not be too littered. In the meantime, let's focus on fair 400-600 Mbps on ac, 300-400 on 802.11n at 5 GHz and 250-300 at 2.4 GHz. In real life, this is more than enough, I assure you.
With wired interfaces, everything is usually: 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Personally, it seems to me that five of them would not hurt, but it is unlikely that today at least some significant number of users have such a need.
You can write a short story about various chips and lotions of Nighthawk. It is a pity that now it is not customary to put literary works about them in the boxes with routers, as ZyXEL did in its time. And so you read the description on the site - and your eyes run.
First, the router is a dual-core processor Broadcom BCM4709 with Cortex-A9 cores operating at frequencies up to 1 GHz. This is of course very cool. In addition to Netgear, this SoC used only Asus (model RT-AC68U). In combination with 256 MB RAM, we get something comparable in power to a good personal computer from the beginning of the 2000s. Is it good? Yeah not bad. I connected 18 devices to the router at the same time, I started downloading data over the air at once by three hundred gigabytes, and it didn’t even frown. But you have to pay for such power, and not only when you buy a router, but also afterwards. Nighthawk requires a current of up to 3.5 Amps, and that’s what a power supply can provide. Other routers with 802.11ac support are enough for 2.5 and even 2A. Of course, the router does not always work at its maximum, but its average power consumption is noticeably higher than that of its fellows. Yes, and heats up under load very noticeable.
All chips are closed by screens. I did not tear off - it is not cheap and bureaucratic. Pay attention to a thick layer of thermoscatch. I have never encountered anything like this in routers before.
But this is generally great. Under the motherboard is a large, in all bottom, metal plate, which plays the role of a radiator. Will we live to routers with coolers? (sorry for the layer of dust, I was clearly not the first of this router)
Another mega-chip Nighthawk on the official site is recommended to consider supporting Beamforming. Say, the router monitors the movement of each device and sends a powerful data stream to it, calculating the optimal trajectory. In fact, beamforming technology is a rather ancient thing, and experimented with it back in the days of 802.11g. It was required mainly for corporate needs when organizing video conferencing. The wireless channels of that time were painfully tiny. The beam forming technology can be implemented both at the SoC level and at the antenna level. The first option in ancient times did not take root due to the low power of the “iron”, so many (up to a dozen) multidirectional antennas were used mainly to create the perfect beam to a specific device. These experiments did not go to the masses.
Beamforming is now a standard 802.11ac chip, and calculations are being made at the SoC level. True, there is a nuance: it all works only in ac mode, and only if beamforming is supported on the device side. In my case, this means a MacBook Pro and ... everything. Of course, over time, the fleet of devices capable of helping the router in determining its location will expand, but for now this is more of a cool trick than something useful. At the same time, Netgear Nighthawk is one of the most "long-range" routers that have been in my home. It not only perfectly covers the entire apartment, despite the solid concrete walls, but also allows you to use the home Internet under the windows. It is also the first router in my memory, whose range in the 5 GHz band is only slightly worse than in 2.4. At least, according to the data of the Wifi Analyzer installed on the LG G2 smartphone, at the farthest point of the apartment the signal remains in the green zone, whereas on its predecessors it stably fell into yellow. Do not forget that the router, again, unlike the analogs, supports QoS not only on the outgoing, but also on the incoming traffic. So it is possible to make the appropriate settings for devices that require increased speed and channel stability.
Of course, an external hard drive can be connected to the Nighthawk, and via USB 3.0. Thanks to the powerful hardware, the actual write speed is as much as 30 MB / s. For comparison, colleagues in the shop do not accelerate above 18 MB / s (for example, ZyXEL Keenetic Ultra), but this level was previously considered a record. The read speed is about 40 MB / s, so the router can be considered as a replacement for a simple NAS in conjunction with an external drive. He, of course, does not know how to download torrents (Netgear does not encourage this), but the video on DLNA transmits perfectly, in the Time Machine mode it works, the print server also. By and large, NAS in this situation is not really needed. Yes, in order not to forget - there are two USB ports, not one. The second, slower, just better to use to connect the printer.
You can control the router both via the web interface and through the Netgear Genie application available for Android and iOS. The main interface is quite convenient, and does not cause desire with jokes to run over the ceiling, like a couple of years ago. Although, maybe I'm just used to it. Very pleased with the ability to turn off the blinking, or even completely cut down the diodes on the case. Bow of the earth, slept a week without color music on the ceiling.
In general, I really liked the router. It is not only fast and can withstand an impressive load, but also works very stably. In my motley zoo devices, there was never one that came into conflict with Nighthawk. Even the standard “trick” of the flagship Netgear, when they in turn begin to disappear into the Internet access in one of the ranges, is missing in this case. Reinforced concrete stability. This is worth a lot.
And in Netgear it is even understood! In the States, Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (aka R7000) costs about $ 200 (including sales tax). We sell it for 9200 rubles. Severely, I do not argue. It's funny that the hardware similar to Asus RT-AC68U in the States costs $ 20 more, and in Russia, on the contrary, it is a thousand rubles cheaper (8200 rubles). Yes, and the firmware, they say, Asus is more sophisticated, although it does not support QoS for incoming traffic. And the hull design is not aircraft.
In general, decide for yourself. The router is excellent, and if financial capabilities allow it, you can safely take it. Do not allow - select more affordable options. By the way, an updated TP-Link Archer C7 V2.0 should be on sale soon for about 6000 rubles. But I did not tell you that.
PS Why don't someone from Skolkovo make a MiG-29 router? It is not very difficult (if you call someone from the giants into partners), but it can sell well.
And this is where the problems started. Network equipment manufacturers initially focused on people who simply adored the command line and remembered by heart hundreds of teams. Getting rid of this orientation turned out to be difficult. Until now, in completely consumer models, there is interface design in the style of "Engineers for Engineers". There are also relapses: for example, ZyXEL, deservedly proud of the simple and convenient interface in the first generation of Keenetic routers, released firmware version 2.0, where everything was complicated so that thousands of users wanted to run over the ceiling. Until now, even when acquiring new Keenetic models, many find the not quite official firmware version 1.0 and replace it with the progressive creation of ZyXEL developers.
')
Expansion of functionality in combination with the complexity / acceleration of iron played another cruel joke. I declare responsibly: now there is not a single router that would not have a couple of serious bugs that interfere with its daily operation. Another question is that in decent models of self-respecting manufacturers, these bugs sit so deeply that it is rather difficult to face them. And, of course, when updating firmware, some of them are destroyed, and new ones still need to be found.
Over the past year about a dozen models have passed through me, and in each of them, sooner or later, a “surprise” was found. For example, one of the routers, pleasing absolutely in all respects, suddenly turned out to be incompatible with the Wi-Fi adapter of the TV. The adapter was connected, it worked fine, but with the new inclusion, the zombopanel required to do the mating procedure again, because I forgot the settings. With a dozen other routers, the TV works flawlessly, as if hinting.
Another device that demonstrates the wonders of stability and speed at an affordable price (I will even call it by name - this is TP-LINK TL-WDR4300), suddenly did not make friends with one of Sony's smartphones. Connection breaks - and that's it, it's impossible to watch a movie on DLNA. Needless to say that with other routers (including those who are not friendly with the TV), the relationship between the smartphone is excellent.
And so they all are. Do not stumble on incompatibility - you will live happily ever after. You will come across - you will study the forums, experiment with the firmware and generally waste time. And today we will talk about the newest router Netgear Nighthawk R7000, surprisingly combining advanced features, wide functionality and stability that is just amazing for such a monster. At least for a week of rather severe exploitation I did not manage to catch a single flaw. Unless, of course, you count some ... design features, which we will talk about separately.
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a famous single-seater strike aircraft designed to bypass air defense systems and attack airfields, headquarters and other important facilities. In service with the American army, he stood for nearly 20 years and managed to gain popularity no less than our MiG-29. True, Nighthawk was decommissioned in 2008, but once Netgear used its name and design elements in the flagship router, then fame still lives.
The similarity is there!
And more predatory antennas!
Nighthawk really has a certain personality, so it’s not a shame to put it in a prominent place. Lack of edges and other decorations makes cleaning from dust easier. Three antennas look stylish and screwed through a standard interface. This, if necessary, will allow replacing them with more powerful ones. Unless, of course, you believe that size matters in this case. The Chinese believe.
The stated characteristics of the router are impressive: up to 600 Mbps when connected in the 2.4 GHz band and up to 1300 Mbps 5 GHz in the 802.11ac mode. Well, what can I say ... This is not even a reserve for the future, but a reserve. Of course, I primarily speak about the 5 GHz band, because it is almost impossible to find a device that supports a speed of 600 megabits at 2.4 GHz. And if such a one is suddenly found, it is unrealistic to accelerate to such a level in the extremely littered 2.4-gigahertz range. No, of course, on the outskirts of a small cozy town, among private houses, where all the neighbors sweetly drink bitter and consider the Internet a dirty word, you can try. But only the residents of such towns are unlikely to be able to afford Nighthawk ...
The 802.11ac standard supports more and more devices, not only laptops with tablets, but also the most advanced smartphones (for example, the new Samsung Galaxy). But the trouble is: nobody is able to accelerate to 1300 Mbit / s. And if it can, it does not want. For example, MacBook Air, if it isn’t shamned with it, connects using ac at up to 400 Mbps, and MacBook Pro - up to 600 Mbps. More, according to Apple, you just do not need. The Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet was already connected to 866 Mbit / s, pumping a real 65 megabytes per second through the air. But this is an exception to the rules, achieved in the line of sight of the router. It was worth to move a little further away, as the speed dropped to 450 Mbit and below.
So 1300 Mbit / s is sometime later. In a year or two. The main thing is that by that time the 5 GHz range should not be too littered. In the meantime, let's focus on fair 400-600 Mbps on ac, 300-400 on 802.11n at 5 GHz and 250-300 at 2.4 GHz. In real life, this is more than enough, I assure you.
With wired interfaces, everything is usually: 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Personally, it seems to me that five of them would not hurt, but it is unlikely that today at least some significant number of users have such a need.
You can write a short story about various chips and lotions of Nighthawk. It is a pity that now it is not customary to put literary works about them in the boxes with routers, as ZyXEL did in its time. And so you read the description on the site - and your eyes run.
First, the router is a dual-core processor Broadcom BCM4709 with Cortex-A9 cores operating at frequencies up to 1 GHz. This is of course very cool. In addition to Netgear, this SoC used only Asus (model RT-AC68U). In combination with 256 MB RAM, we get something comparable in power to a good personal computer from the beginning of the 2000s. Is it good? Yeah not bad. I connected 18 devices to the router at the same time, I started downloading data over the air at once by three hundred gigabytes, and it didn’t even frown. But you have to pay for such power, and not only when you buy a router, but also afterwards. Nighthawk requires a current of up to 3.5 Amps, and that’s what a power supply can provide. Other routers with 802.11ac support are enough for 2.5 and even 2A. Of course, the router does not always work at its maximum, but its average power consumption is noticeably higher than that of its fellows. Yes, and heats up under load very noticeable.
All chips are closed by screens. I did not tear off - it is not cheap and bureaucratic. Pay attention to a thick layer of thermoscatch. I have never encountered anything like this in routers before.
But this is generally great. Under the motherboard is a large, in all bottom, metal plate, which plays the role of a radiator. Will we live to routers with coolers? (sorry for the layer of dust, I was clearly not the first of this router)
Another mega-chip Nighthawk on the official site is recommended to consider supporting Beamforming. Say, the router monitors the movement of each device and sends a powerful data stream to it, calculating the optimal trajectory. In fact, beamforming technology is a rather ancient thing, and experimented with it back in the days of 802.11g. It was required mainly for corporate needs when organizing video conferencing. The wireless channels of that time were painfully tiny. The beam forming technology can be implemented both at the SoC level and at the antenna level. The first option in ancient times did not take root due to the low power of the “iron”, so many (up to a dozen) multidirectional antennas were used mainly to create the perfect beam to a specific device. These experiments did not go to the masses.
Beamforming is now a standard 802.11ac chip, and calculations are being made at the SoC level. True, there is a nuance: it all works only in ac mode, and only if beamforming is supported on the device side. In my case, this means a MacBook Pro and ... everything. Of course, over time, the fleet of devices capable of helping the router in determining its location will expand, but for now this is more of a cool trick than something useful. At the same time, Netgear Nighthawk is one of the most "long-range" routers that have been in my home. It not only perfectly covers the entire apartment, despite the solid concrete walls, but also allows you to use the home Internet under the windows. It is also the first router in my memory, whose range in the 5 GHz band is only slightly worse than in 2.4. At least, according to the data of the Wifi Analyzer installed on the LG G2 smartphone, at the farthest point of the apartment the signal remains in the green zone, whereas on its predecessors it stably fell into yellow. Do not forget that the router, again, unlike the analogs, supports QoS not only on the outgoing, but also on the incoming traffic. So it is possible to make the appropriate settings for devices that require increased speed and channel stability.
Of course, an external hard drive can be connected to the Nighthawk, and via USB 3.0. Thanks to the powerful hardware, the actual write speed is as much as 30 MB / s. For comparison, colleagues in the shop do not accelerate above 18 MB / s (for example, ZyXEL Keenetic Ultra), but this level was previously considered a record. The read speed is about 40 MB / s, so the router can be considered as a replacement for a simple NAS in conjunction with an external drive. He, of course, does not know how to download torrents (Netgear does not encourage this), but the video on DLNA transmits perfectly, in the Time Machine mode it works, the print server also. By and large, NAS in this situation is not really needed. Yes, in order not to forget - there are two USB ports, not one. The second, slower, just better to use to connect the printer.
You can control the router both via the web interface and through the Netgear Genie application available for Android and iOS. The main interface is quite convenient, and does not cause desire with jokes to run over the ceiling, like a couple of years ago. Although, maybe I'm just used to it. Very pleased with the ability to turn off the blinking, or even completely cut down the diodes on the case. Bow of the earth, slept a week without color music on the ceiling.
In general, I really liked the router. It is not only fast and can withstand an impressive load, but also works very stably. In my motley zoo devices, there was never one that came into conflict with Nighthawk. Even the standard “trick” of the flagship Netgear, when they in turn begin to disappear into the Internet access in one of the ranges, is missing in this case. Reinforced concrete stability. This is worth a lot.
And in Netgear it is even understood! In the States, Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (aka R7000) costs about $ 200 (including sales tax). We sell it for 9200 rubles. Severely, I do not argue. It's funny that the hardware similar to Asus RT-AC68U in the States costs $ 20 more, and in Russia, on the contrary, it is a thousand rubles cheaper (8200 rubles). Yes, and the firmware, they say, Asus is more sophisticated, although it does not support QoS for incoming traffic. And the hull design is not aircraft.
In general, decide for yourself. The router is excellent, and if financial capabilities allow it, you can safely take it. Do not allow - select more affordable options. By the way, an updated TP-Link Archer C7 V2.0 should be on sale soon for about 6000 rubles. But I did not tell you that.
PS Why don't someone from Skolkovo make a MiG-29 router? It is not very difficult (if you call someone from the giants into partners), but it can sell well.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/218799/
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