Netgear R8000 Nighthawk X6 AC 3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router Review

Netgear R8000: Out of the Box & Setup

Even though the box is one of the largest we have seen for a home network router, Netgear delivers the Nighthawk X6 package with the router, AC Adapter and Cable, an Ethernet cable, and an instruction Guide. To set the Nighthawk X6 up, you will need to have a fairly large space on your desk. Measuring at 11.63 x 8.92 x 2.14 this is a very large piece of equipment. It is even larger than our previous beast, the Belkin/Linksys WRT1900AC. While the X6 does not have removable antennas, the Netgear engineers equipped the router with 6 high-performance external antennas that fold down on to the body of the Nighthawk X6. Next to the six retractable antennas, you will find a number of buttons and LED indicators. From the top to the bottom, there are the Power indicator, Internet LED, 2.4- and (2) 5-GHz activity lights, (2) USB indicators, (4) LAN port activity lights, the Wi-Fi On/Off button, and WPS button. Over on the back, you will find the USB 2.0 port, a button to turn the LED lights On/Off, Gigibit Ethernet Ports, Internet WAN Port, USB 3.0 Port, Reset switch, Power Plug, and Power On/Off switch. Now that we are familiar with the all the buttons and controls, lets take a look to see how easy it is to set the X6 and what the Graphics User Interface (GUI) looks like.