PC_Pro_Issue_274_August_2017

Labs Routers
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Netgear Nighthawk X10
The fastest router money
can buy and it’s packed with
features – this could even
replace your NAS drive
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪
PRICE £333 (£400 inc VAT)
from scan.co.uk
The Netgear Nighthawk X10 is
hands down the most expensive
router we’ve ever tested. At
£400, it costs more than a games
console, many a 4K TV and – perhaps
a little more relevantly – any of the
award-winning mesh Wi-Fi systems
on test this month. But perhaps this is
a sign of the times. In 2017, it seems,
spending £200 to £400 to sort your
Wi-Fi appears is the going rate.
So what do you get for your
money? The first thing to note is that
the X10 doesn’t come with an ADSL/
VDSL modem built in, which is
disappointing for the price, but you
can attach it to your existing modem
or router using the WAN port to
extend your network (or use it in
access point mode for the same effect).
Aside from this, it’s fully stacked
with the very latest in wireless
technology. The X10 is a tri-band
802.11ac Wave 2 router, and it
supports MU-MIMO and 160MHz
channels for link speeds up to
1,733Mbits/sec on each of its 5GHz
networks, and 800Mbits/sec on its
2.4GHz network.
It has a 1.7GHz quad-core
processor and four external antennae
with embedded amplification for the
strongest possible signal. There’s also
support for the next-generation
wireless standard, 802.11ad, for
potential short-range speeds of up to
4,600Mbits/secs at 60MHz. This is
more future-proofing than practical,
though, as hardly any devices support
the new short-range standard.
Over normal Wi-Fi, though, the
Nighthawk X10 is a champ and,
in our throughput tests, it was
the fastest overall single-unit
router. We measured download
rates of 102MB/sec at close
range – that’s nigh-on Gigabit
Ethernet speed – and 17.1MB/
sec at long range in the kitchen.
The only systems
significantly faster than the X10
at long range are the three
multi-point Wi-Fi systems,
which cost between £200 and
£400. At £400, the X10 might be
expensive, but it isn’t completely
out of touch with the market rate.
In many respects, the Nighthawk
X10 offers a lot more than all these
multi-box systems. For one, if you
don’t have one already, it’s one of the
few routers on the market that can
truly be considered a replacement for
a proper NAS drive.
The USB transfer rate is
ridiculously quick at 75.8MB/sec over
wired Gigabit Ethernet and, with
that powerful processor inside, it
should be able to deal with multiple
connections without too much hassle.
There’s the software here to back
it up as well. Netgear’s ReadyCloud
system provides easy remote access
to your files, ReadyVault lets you
back up files from PCs and laptops to
connected USB drives, and there’s
also Amazon Cloud drive support,
so you can mirror files to the cloud
automatically. Strangely, though, this
only supports single-folder backup.
There is also DLNA, TiVo and
iTunes media server support and,
ABOVE At £400, the
stealth aircraft-style
Nighthawk X10 is the
most expensive
router we’ve tested
BELOW The X10 has
six Gigabit Ethernet
ports, two of which
can be linked together
for a 2Gbits/sec NAS
drive connection
impressively, the Nighthawk X10
can run a Plex media server. The
router’s CPU is even powerful enough
to transcode video on the fly for
remote streaming.
If the onboard USB storage features
aren’t enough for you, the X10 has six
Gigabit Ethernet ports, two of which
can be teamed together for a 2Gbits/
sec NAS drive connection, and there’s
also an SFP+ port so you can go up to
10Gbits/sec speeds if you want to.
Perhaps the one disappointment is
that Netgear hasn’t hugely overhauled
its Genie software at the same time as
packing in so much hardware. While
Genie is rich with features, it has some
strange gaps and inconsistencies. For
example, while you can set parental
control content filtering levels (using
OpenDNS) on a per-device basis, the
feature is only available via the app,
not via the web management pages.
Likewise, although it’s possible to
block and pause internet access by
device, you can’t apply a schedule per
device, which is a basic feature we
would expect all routers to offer. Still,
you can tweak most other
settings on the router, and it
has a couple of useful extras:
OpenVPN support and a
BitTorrent downloader.
The Nighthawk X10 is an
impressive router, no doubt
about that. It’s the fastest single
unit around and has great range.
And it’s extremely powerful and
packed with features. For most
people, though, £400 would be
better spent on a multi-box
system such as the Google Wifi
or BT Whole Home Wi-Fi.
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