Final Words & Conclusion
Final Words & Conclusion
It might not be as powerful or luxurious as the XR500, but the XR300 at 199 is a very capable router. We had no issues setting up the router for WAN and WIFI and thanks the DumaOS we can conclude that the router on pretty much any front is solid, well aside from USB performance though, but that one is easily forgiven. The WIFI performance is relatively close to that flagship model out there (and that is the basis of comparison). And while it is a good router, it is a bit more normal and mainstream for perf. That's said, we recently moved into a new space the building seems to be much harder on anything Wi-Fi due to coated isolation materials, steel-reinforced floors etc. In retrospect, that is a good environment to test in as it is a more worst-case scenario. In your household, the ranges and numbers might be much better, and then if you live in the city with 40 other access point nearby, it might be worse. This is what makes proper Wi-fi testing so incredibly difficult. You can also create a cage of Farraday and test inside it, that's perfect for static measurements, but completely useless relative seen for real-world performance. So I do hope you can see the complications with Wi-Fi testing as the results in your house can be much better, but also worse. The XR300 is a more advanced product thanks to the DumaOS the GUI easily steers you though many settings and options.
Price
Routers are increasingly more expensive whenever there's a 'Gaming' label on there, and yes the router has a stiff price tag as it will cost you €199,- with a similar number in USD. In the year 2019 that is a lot of money for an AC (and not AX) router.
Moar
The XR300 is loaded with features, like the potential to reduce gaming latency managing and prioritize network traffic. With a couple of minutes of configuration, you can easily tweak virtually any aspect of your connection. The reality is also that you don’t actually need much bandwidth for gaming, streaming video and such however is a different thing. You get features like a private network, VPN options, server routing options and very strong diagnostic and monitoring options all are present in this dual CPU core product. It's good in features and aesthetics, really really good even. And albeit perf differs here and there, every little corner inside my house did get coverage. These advanced routers are getting firmware updates pretty actively, and that's great in these vulnerable times where everything connected is prey that is hunted. Now, I like the admin interface, which does offer extremely advanced network settings.
Overall Performance
Overall wired throughput is good, for LAN to LAN measurements we topped 940 Mbit/sec but that's normal for any gigabit router these days. The power consumption is okay as far as I am concerned, at almost 10 Watts continuous. With your household devices online 24/7 these days your power bill will increase 20 bucks per year just for that router depending on local rates. If you take into account that you can also use the unit as a bit of a NAS with external storage connected to the router, well that does help out in the equation, of course. The USB throughput performance is pretty poor though.
Concluding
The Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR300 router is your normal to a well-performing router for Wi-Fi, not excellent in hardware, however, the DumoOS brings loads of extra functionality towards the router. That can be something as simple as port forwarding, but even automatic firmware updates so you don’t have to spend time checking for updates or bothering to install them. Performance-wise, it's an AC (Wi-Fi 5) router that you've seen and known for years. At all other fronts, it performs normally to good however at USB the perf dropped massively. We don't expect you to purchase a router for USB usage though. The price at 199 bucks is a bit on the high side though, for that money, I do feel this product already should have been made AX compatible to make it a bit more future proof. However, if you are in need of a router with some xtra's, this might just be what the doctor ordered. However, the XR500 is a hundred bucks more and does make a substantial difference in both hardware and a chunk in range/coverage.
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