Netgear Nighthawk XR1000

Netgear’s gaming routers are not just fancy colorful finishing sporting products; They feature a brand new OS that lets you customize your gaming experience And with the Nighthawk XR1000, Netgear introduces the first Wi-Fi 6 gaming model.

While not the fastest router in Netgear’s lineup, the XR1000 is fast and DumaOS offers plenty for serious gamers.

Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 Design – A Fancy Look Router

• The red accent helps to distinguish the router
• Standard array of Ethernet ports
• Wi-Fi antennas need to be screwed manually

You may have just read that Netgear’s routers are not only a rebound of fancy colorful finishing sporting models, but externally, the XR1000 is just that. It has the same shape and size as the RAX50, only here it has a red accent to show the gaming router. And, in my opinion, these accents make the XR1000 look much better than the RAX50.

While Netgear’s other Wi-Fi 6 routers opt for a stealth-bomber look, fitting the antennas to fold-up wings, the XR1000 plays a more traditional design. Here, you need to manually fit the four antennas and let them stand. Leaving the XR1000 is a small task that seems to mean business.

Around the back you’ll find four Gigabit Ethernet ports for wired devices and one Gigabit Ethernet port for WAN connection. There is no 2.5Gbps WAN port that is included in other Netgear routers such as the RAX200, nor is there link integration. Still, Gigabit Ethernet is good enough to handle even the fastest UK broadband speeds.

Also included is a USB 3 port for sharing files on the local network, if you need.

Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 Features – DumaOS is quite incredible

• Excellent QoS settings
• You can choose the best server for your console or PC and filter by area
• Works with Nighthawk app

The XR1000 is being set up via the Netgear Nighthawk app. It will connect you to the router and take you through internet and Wi-Fi setup. By default, you end up with two Wi-Fi networks – one for the 2.4GHz band and one for the 5GHz band – but you can turn on Smart Connect to have a network, the router determines which device the band will connect to.

With the Nighthawk app, you can do some very basic things. You can turn on the guest network, manage NetGear Armor services (a network-wide security service powered by BitDefender, priced at £ 59.99 per year) and change your wireless name. You can view connected devices and reboot the router, either when you’re on the same network or even remotely.

But you’re touching the surface of what the XR1000 can offer; You really have to dive into the web interface. Here, DumaOS 3.0 presents its full power – and it’s impressive. I first encountered DumaOS on the Netgear Nighthawk XR500 and this is the latest version now.

DumaOS is built around offering best performance on a per-device and per-application basis, and has some highly sophisticated controls. Checks a speed when installing the router to get an idea of ​​the bandwidth.

Enter QoS settings, and you can drag performance groups (web, media, gaming, and more) to assign more or less bandwidth to each. As soon as you make an adjustment – say, prioritizing gaming – other groups automatically adjust.

You can add individual devices, with a specific preference for them, making sure your main TV always has a preference for streaming Netflix or Amazon Prime videos. Although configuring QoS can often be a difficult thing, DumaOS makes it easy to adjust quite complex rules.

In addition to prioritizing traffic, you can also set some complex traffic rules. For example, you can set a schedule for when a device might play Call of Duty online, which you can do if you don’t want kids to be online all the time.

Probably the best known for DumaOS is its geo-filter. This is a technology that helps you find and connect servers with minimum ping time, ensuring you get the best response time when you play online.

You can select a game using the ping hitmap, then run an experiment to find out where the fastest servers in the world are. You can then use it to create a geo-filter, where the router only allows your game console or PC to connect to a specific server.

Properly dive into the geo-filter, and you’ll discover new controls that allow you to select locations on the map where you want to connect, preventing your devices from joining games on slower servers. With older versions, you can select a radius from only one location, offering less granular control. The geo-filter is extraordinarily powerful and is especially useful for game consoles.

Otherwise, DumaOS provides the usual advanced controls, allowing you to configure your wireless network and Internet connection in the same way as any Netgear router.

Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 Performance – Fast, but not the fastest Wi-Fi 6 router

• Fast, especially in the near range
• Deals well with distance
• Not Netgear’s fastest Wi-Fi 6 router

This router is a Wi-Fi 6 AX5400 router. It offers a two-stream 2.4GHz network that can run up to 600Mbps and a four-stream 5GHz network that can run in the 160MHz band for total throughput up to 4800Mbps.

Of course, although the XR1000 is backwards compatible with Wi-Fi 5 devices, you get the main advantage if you have a Wi-Fi 6 device. My guide for Wi-Fi 6 explains more.

While there’s plenty of bandwidth here, the Netgear Nighthawk RAX80 doubles the number of 2.4GHz streams for a total of 1200Mbps bandwidth, although it maintains the same 5GHz speed.

Testing the XR1000 with a Wi-Fi 6 laptop that includes a two-stream Wi-Fi 6 card, I put the router in smart connect mode to run my test. I noticed that the performance was very strong in the near range with a throughput of 715.57Mbps, but it dropped to 318.59Mbps on the first floor and again at 355.15Mbps on the second floor.

These speeds are very similar to the Netgear RAX80 router, although the touch is slow.

Netgear Nighthawk XR1000 Conclusion

It’s not NetGear’s fastest router, and the XR1000 actually offers less bandwidth than the cheaper RAX80. If you mostly use your internet connection for web browsing or video streaming, then the older RAX80 makes more sense. However, if you are into gaming properly, especially on consoles where there is less choice than servers, DumaOS becomes your own. If you need something different, a guide to the best routers can help.