Netgear Nighthawk RS600 router review

Netgear’s Nighthawk line of networking gear has a reputation for offering speedy WiFi and high-performance features. Before settling on the mainstay Synology RT6600ax router, I shifted between a Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700 and a Nighthawk XR1000, effectively depending on whether I wanted access to more Ethernet ports.

That XR700 was a beloved WiFi 5 router, but now that we’re wading in WiFi 7 waters, I was curious to see what the Netgear Nighthawk line had up its sleeve. Cue the entry of the Netgear Nighthawk RS600, which boasts shared WiFi 7 speeds up to 18Gbps and sports a couple of 10Gbps Ethernet ports. On paper, it looks great. But let’s see how it fared after extensive testing.

Entry-level prices for a WiFi 7 router start at around $250 with the TP-Link BE3600, which is more than three times cheaper than the Netgear Nighthawk RS600. Alternatively, the Asus RT-BE58U is competitively priced at $299. If you want to save money with a Netgear Nighthawk router, the RS200 has WiFi 7 for $449 or there’s the TP-Link Archer BE550 for $499. The RS600 is the next priciest pick at $799 RRP, which is up there; in fairness, though, it’s not as expensive as the TP-Link GE800 ($1,199 RRP). In short: the RS600 isn’t the priciest WiFi 7 router around, but it’s closer to premium RRPs than it is the budget-friendly picks.

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The physical part of setup is very straightforward: power into the DC port and an Ethernet cable between modem and yellow internet port. That internet port supports up to 10Gbps speeds, which is great futureproofing for NBN 2000 plans (and, dare I hope, faster in the not-too-distant future). There are also four LAN ports, one of which is 10Gbps. That’s great and all, but the other three LAN ports are relegated to ageing gigabit speeds, which is disappointing when 2.5Gbps would’ve been a better fit for this thing’s speed potential. Still, given the price point, these sorts of concessions aren’t unexpected.

With the Nighthawk companion app installed ahead of configuration, guided setup is a mostly straightforward affair. There’s even a QR code on the device for automated WiFi connectivity once you’re up and running. That said, the default password was listed with a capitalised first letter, but the actual password used all lower-case. That was a surmountable frustration, but there were a lot of artificial lengthening during setup that felt like elevator sequences in games that are only there to hide loading screens.

Couple that with a forced firmware update—not a bad thing, just more waiting time before getting properly online—and it took close to 30 minutes for initial configuration. For context, that’s a lot longer than most sub-10-minute experiences nowadays. Further config frustrations included a push to install the Netgear Armor app, and the heads up that so-called Smart Parental Controls are a premium feature that requires an ongoing subscription after the 30-day trial.

Initial speed tests are a great way to get a feel for wired and wireless performance for any networking gear. On paper, the Netgear Nighthawk RS600 is poised to impress with WiFi 7 and 18Gbps wireless speeds shared across those 6GHz, 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands. Band steering was enabled by default—an automated system for switching wireless devices to the best band to maintain connectivity and ideally, speed—which is how I conducted my tests.

All of my router internet speed tests are conducted with an Exetel NBN 100/20 FTTC apartment connection, using Ethernet for the first test then a Google Pixel 7 Pro for the WiFi tests (via WiFi 6). All of the tests below were done in the evening. Lower numbers are best for latency (measured in milliseconds), while larger numbers are better for download and upload speeds (both measured in megabits-per-second). Use the top line of results in the tables as an idea of best-case speeds at that time of day, then every line below as comparative. Signal strength according to Google is ranked from best to worst as excellent, good, fair and poor.

Here's the base comparative test results from my go-to Synology RT6600ax that’s reconnected whenever I’m not testing networking gear.

Note that the garage tests above typically fail and are a great way of testing the external wall penetration of networking gear, particularly for WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 devices. Below is how the RS600 performed in speed tests conducted immediately after the RT6600ax tests concluded (and after that lengthy initial router setup).

Despite being an older WiFi 6 router, the RT6600ax still had consistently lower latency across tests and, more importantly, faster speeds in the back part of my apartment. Those study and bathroom results, in particular, stand out as disappointing inside-the-home scores for the RS600, even though I appreciate the intuitive shift to the 2.4GHz band as the Nighthawk router searches for a more consistent WiFi signal.

Though low, those download and upload speeds for the garage are actually indicative of impressive external wall penetration. Let’s put that down to WiFi 7. Still, the download speeds in particular for the fence and across-road tests indicate some serious drop-off when using devices at range. I do like the spread of 6GHz, 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands relative to test distance and potential interference, which shows the band steering is doing what it’s supposed to do. But I still expect more from those 2.4GHz speeds at this price point.

One of the things I check immediately with any networking device I’m testing is Quality of Service (QoS) settings. I was initially surprised that I couldn’t find any QoS settings, neither in the focused Nighthawk companion app nor in the browser-based web portal. As far as I can tell, QoS does seem to be there as max-speed downloads were adjusted relative to preserving streaming quality. I like that it’s not a feature you can accidentally disable.

You can get away with most Netgear Nighthawk RS600 tweaks and monitoring via the Nighthawk companion app. But I do wish it was a little less notification-happy, particularly when new devices connect, as it can quickly fill up your phone faster than a drunk buddy inadvertently sending through app-chunked Snapchat video rants. If you favour peace of mind over convenience, though, this will likely be less annoying.

For everyday internet use cases, the RS600 didn’t skip a beat across web browsing, downloading and uploading files, local file transfers (wired and wireless), online gaming, as well as voice and video chatting. It didn’t have issues with WiFi printing, either, which feels like a crapshoot with most modern networking devices I’ve tested. Unfortunately, the overly zealous security did make accessing my NAS via a static IP address impossible, but that’s reportedly fixable with a dynamic IP address change (though less convenient). The biggest disappointment, though, is the lack of mesh expansion for such a pricey product.