Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Smart Router (R7000) Review

Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) Review: A Complete Analysis

 A Top-Class networking service at your residence or workplace

Reviewed By Taylor Green: 25 Sept 2019
4.2/5
NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900

Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) is one of the best home routers that comes at an affordable price. It provides a top-class networking service at your residence or workplace. We will discuss all the details of the router along with a detailed analysis. 

So let’s start discussing various aspects of the device like design, feature, performance, VPN server, etc. Follow all the sections very carefully to gain some insights on this router if you are considering buying one.

In order to analyze all the details of the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router, you must follow all the sections thoroughly. They are given below.

Plus Icon

Router Stability

High Range

 Powerful Network Communication

Netgear Genie Application Facility

Beamforming technology with preloaded special WiFi features

Minus Icon

USB 3.0 Performance is less than USB 2.0

Position of USB 3.0

Average Buffer Rate and Network Storage 

Expensive

Social Interactions

Specifications and Features

Below are some of the benefits that you can explore with this Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router:

Processor and Clock Rate

Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router has a dual-core processor that has a clock rate of 1 GHz. it makes the router one of the fastest devices amongst all Netgear routers. The device offers you various types of new and enhanced features that are not available in any other home routers. 

Enabled with VPN 

It has a built-in open Virtual Private Network feature that can connect smoothly to the server. It’s WiFi network connection speed is up to 600 MB per sec. The salient feature of this router allows you to download any third-party firmware in the device. 

Time Machine Backup

You can perform the process of coupling with a secondary storage device and access it seamlessly. It has a unique Time Machine backup process as well.

SpecificationsWireless Connectivity:

802.11ac Dual Band Gigabit, AC1900 WiFi (600 + 1300 Mbps), Simultaneous dual band 2.4 & 5GHz

Processor: 1GHz dual-core

Memory: 128 MB flash and 256 MB RAM

Operating Frequency: Simultaneous dual band 2.4 & 5GHz

Ports: Two (2) USB ports—one (1) USB 3.0 & one (1) USB 2.0 port

Dimensions: 11.22 x 7.26 x 1.97 in (285 x 184.5 x 50 mm)

Weight: 1.65 lbs (750 g)

Encryption:

Wi-Fi Protected Access® (WPA/WPA2—PSK) and WEP, Guest network access—separate & secure, WiFi Protected Access® (WPA/WPA2—PSK), Double firewall protection (SPI and NAT), Denial-of-service (DoS) attack prevention

Features:

AC1900 WiFi—600+1300 Mbps† speeds, 1GHz Dual Core Processor, Circle Smart Parental Controls – Manage content and time online, Works with Amazon Alexa & the Google Assistant – Control your home network using voice commands

Design and Size

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router model is a bit large compared to its predecessor.  The large design on the device and three detachable antennas make the device a bit heavy. If you are willing to buy one, then you need to handle it with care. 

Its outer surface doesn’t allow the fingerprints to stay for too long, which makes the device look shiny and attractive.

Quick Login

It is very easy to set up, as the id and password are already present at the backside of the device. Its 2.4GHz band allows you to share the name of the clients that are visible when they connect the router through WiFi. 

To use the router, just turn on the router and plug-in the Internet connection and configure it without doing any additional things. 

When you turn on and access the device for the first time, you need to open the web browser. It will take you to the router’s setup interface. Thereafter, configure the device properly with your IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and so on. 

The interface which allows you to do all these is known as the Netgear Genie Web interface. 

Netgear Genie App

The Netgear Genie mobile application is easily available in the App Store and Google Play Store. You can download and install it for free of cost. 

The web interface that you open from your desktop or laptop is much more convenient than that from the mobile applications. This is because the mobile application contains a limited number of features. 

Multiple Connectivity and Privacy Settings

The most common feature of the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router is its ability to host more that one guest network. Also, you can customize it manually with the help of Open DNS parent control. 

The parent control feature works best when you create an account in it. Once the account is created, you can easily download the Netgear Live Parental Controls Management Utility software. The software is easily available for Windows and Macintosh platforms. 

The utility software is used to manage the functions of five firewalls related to web-filtering levels. They are set as high, moderate, minimum, low, or none. 

Here, high means the entire traffic of the wireless network will be restricted. Besides, the software gives you the right to sign in from any open DNS website and manage it.

Upload/Download Supervision

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router has a new version of the QoS feature. It helps you to regulate the uploads and downloads of your network. You can also modify your rate of download and uploads according to your wish. 

It also allows you to set priority to the network so that you can enjoy real-time applications like watching a video, playing an online game, video chatting with someone without any buffering. You can also stream HD videos and movies with ease. This will help you to get the ultimate experience which is one of the major features of a home router.

Remarkable Hardware Interface 

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router offers you exclusive dual-band support for all the connected clients and also the existing customers. While the 802.11ac clients are active with the device, it delivers up to the speed of 1.3GB per second while transferring data. 

Note: The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router has upgraded the connection speed to 600 MB per sec from 450 MB per sec. 

The router comes with the Broadcom BCM4709 WiFi chipset that includes the well known Turbo QAM technology. With the help of this technology, its 2.4 GHz partial streaming ability can deliver the speed up to 200 MB per sec instead of 150 MB per sec. 

In addition to that, the chipset also offers other privileges to the WiFi routers, which has the clock-rate of 2.4 GHz over the 5 GHz devices. 

The router’s hardware consists of a CPU that runs at the clock rate of 1 GHz per second. It also has a built-in flash memory, which is 128 GB. It also has a volatile memory of 256 MB that belongs to the third generation offering double data rate. The device also has USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports located on its front and back panels.

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router allows you to access a hard disk drive having the format FAT 32 or NTFS. Its USB ports have enough ability to power up and run any wired external disk drives.

Dedicated Virtual Private Network Server

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) has an open VPN server, which is very much useful for businessmen. The router has much better QoS, backup support and a VPN server to manage your private networks. But first, you need to configure it. 

Steps to configure VPN on Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000):

Step 1: Create Non-IP Dynamic DNS Account

To create a non-IP DNS account, ensure that the clients connecting to your VPN network have reset their connection settings. Now, open the router’s webpage by typing the device’s IP address in your default web browser. 

Then go to the “Advanced Settings” and select the Dynamic DNS option. When you see that there is no account active, you can create one instantly. 

Just click on the “Register” button, insert your email id and create a new password. After that, you will receive a verification email. So, access your email account and you will see a link. Now, click on that link to activate your DNS account. 

Step 2: Activate Open Virtual Private Network

Here, you will learn how to activate the Open VPN facility in your Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router. 

For this, go to “Advanced Setup” and put a tick mark on the “Open VPN” checkbox, then click on “Apply”. 

In case, you don’t complete the activation process, a warning box will appear on your screen. It will alert you about a new configuration file that you have to download every time while changing the IP address. We advise you to complete the registration task to avoid this problem. 

Step 3: Download Open VPN Client

Next, you must download and install the Open VPN client. The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router has an inbuilt “Downloads” page where you can find the link to download the VPN software. 

Select the right file for your device and download it. Then follow the message instructions to complete the installation process. 

Step 4: Change the Name of your VPN Network Device

To rename the VPN adapter, just open the “Control Panel” and “Network and Sharing Centre”. Then you will see many network adapters present there in a grid format. 

Choose the “Netgear VPN” adapter and right-click on it to select “Change Adapter Settings”. Now you can easily rename the VPN network. 

Step 5: Setup OpenVPN Configuration File

In this setup process, you just need to download and copy a particular file. To do so, download the correct VPN configuration files and copy them to the system directory. 

Now, access your system drive and open the program files folder. Search for the “Open VPN” folder and you will see a “config” folder. Open it and paste the file by unzipping it. 

Step 6: Run OpenVPN Remotely

In order to run the OpenVPN connection remotely, disconnect your home network first. Now, open the OpenVPN connection on your computer. 

After that, a window (Open VPN Connection)  will appear on the screen with a list of feedbacks and logs. If the last message appears as “Connected Successfully”, then your OpenVPN is working just fine. 

Supreme Performance

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router delivers a superfast WiFi service, which is seven times faster than a normal wired Ethernet connection. It has a regular network speed of  431 MB per sec within a distance of 15 feet. 

But, when you take the device a bit far away, such as 100 feet, then the speed slashes down to 295 MB per sec. This is still one of the fastest networking speeds.  

Summing Up

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) router uplifts your home network to a whole new level with its overall performance and enhanced abilities. We advise you to use the backup facility on a regular basis to protect your data while connecting this router. 

We hope the above discussions were helpful in providing a proper review of this Netgear product. If you are relying on our opinion, we suggest going for this AC1900 (R7000) router which is available at a reasonable price.