Not one to shy away from jazzing up its router offerings, Netgear's first WiFi 6 routers bring a bit of style to 802.11ax (aka ‘High-Efficiency Wireless’).
The manufacturer’s first routers using the 802.11ax standard, otherwise known as 'WiFi 6' these days, certainly are distinctive, and beyond their sleek black exterior, there’s some nice performance specs to boot.
Suitably named, the Nighthawk AX8 and Nighthawk AX12, can offer 25% higher data efficiency on behalf of 1024 QAM according to Netgear, with quad-core processors reportedly handling up to 6Gbps of wireless data traffic at one time.
Each router has multiple gigabit Ethernet ports – with 5 available on the AX12 and extra one on the AX8 – and a 5Gbps Ethernet port, as well as support for two USB 3.0 devices. As the name suggests, AX12 can handle 12 simultaneous data streams, whilst the AX8 (you guessed it) can cope with up to 8. Naturally, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integration also feature if talking to your router is your bag.
As for its rather ostentatious appearance, Netgear says this is intended to optimise the position of antennas (naturally).
The Nighthawk AX8 will be available to bring extra bandwidth goodness into homes just before Christmas (21 Dec), ahead of the AX12’s release in Q1 of 2019. The AX8 will cost $400 in the US and pricing of the AX12 is currently unknown.