Netgear Nighthawk R7000 AC1900 Smart WiFi Router Review
The Nighthawk R7000 may not be the first AC1900 compatible router to reach our hands but it’s certainly better looking compared to the Linksys EA6900 and true to the name Netgear has given it since the exterior does remind us of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft by Lockheed (Janes A.T.F anyone?). As for the why did Netgear choose to name the R7000 after a stealth attack aircraft well the answer is power and features. So aside the Broadcom BCM4708A chipset the R7000 Nighthawk is powered by a Cortex A9 dual-core 1GHz processor (making it one of the fastest 802.11ac routers currently in the market) paired with 256MB of RAM and 128MB of flash memory. Other important features include beamforming technology (focuses the transmission of the wireless signal where detected devices are located), TurboQAM technology (boosts 802.11n 2.4GHz speeds to 600Mbps from the typical 450Mbps), Time Machine backup-ready (works with external storage devices), built-in OpenVPN server and support for third-party firmware.