NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 review: The more affordable Wi-Fi 6 router!

Netgear has launched several wireless routers with support for the new Wi-Fi 6 wireless standard. The most affordable in this line-up is the new NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 (model RAX40), which, unlike its brothers, uses an Intel processor, instead of one made by Broadcom or Qualcomm. If you want to see what the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 dual-band wireless router has to offer, and whether it is a good fit for you, read this review:

NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4: Who is it good for?

NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is a great choice for the following types of users:

• People who want to invest in the Wi-Fi 6 standard and plan to buy devices with support for it
• Enthusiasts who want advanced firmware that offers complete control
• Users who want to control their home network using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant

Pros and cons

There are many positives about the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4:

• Support for the newest wireless standard - 802.11ax a.k.a Wi-Fi 6
• Netgear's cloud accounts are protected with two-step verification
• Sharing of USB devices is truly plug-and-play, thanks to the ReadySHARE feature
• You can set the router to update its firmware automatically, without manual intervention
• It is integrated both with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
• It can be mounted on walls
• Great multilingual support

There are some negatives to consider as well:

• The speed of the USB 3.0 port deserves improvement
• The WiFi experience on the 2.4 GHz may be faulty on some network clients (not all)
• Netgear's ecosystem of apps and services is confusing and needs to be simplified

Verdict

NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is part of the first wave of wireless routers on the market with support for the new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) standard. Also, it is one of the most affordable routers with support for this technology, with less powerful hardware, fewer USB ports, and fewer advanced features. If you want to jump on the Wi-Fi 6 bandwagon, and you do not want to spend a crazy amount of money, NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is a router that you should take into consideration.

Unboxing the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 wireless router

NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 comes in a black box with blue accents. On the top you see a picture of the router, and a few of its features mentioned. The product naming is a bit confusing, as the manufacturer refers to it as NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 but also as AX3000 model RAX40. On the sides of the box you find details about the technical specifications of this product and its capabilities. When you open the package, you find the following items inside: the router itself, the power adapter, an Ethernet CAT5e cable, the quick start guide, and the warranty. The unboxing experience offered by NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is quick and pleasant. In the packaging, you get everything you need to set up and use the wireless router.

Hardware specifications and design

NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is a modern dual-band wireless router with support for the draft version of the Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless standard. Its total theoretical maximum bandwidth is of 3000 Mbps, split as follows: 600 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz band, and 2400 Mbps for the 5 GHz band, when using the Wi-Fi 6 standard. The router has an aggressive design, familiar to the Nighthawk brand. There are only two external antennas, and Netgear does not mention the existence of any internal antennas. On the top side of the router, there are the ventilation grids, several LEDs that signal the status of the router and its features, as well as two buttons for controlling the WiFi broadcast and the WPS feature. On the back of the router, there is the Internet port, four Ethernet ports working at 1 Gbps, the power jack, the Reset and the Power buttons, a USB 3.0 port, and a button for controlling the LEDs on the top. On the bottom of the router, there are two holes for mounting the router on walls, as well as some stickers with information about the product, and more ventilation grids that help cool the hardware inside. Speaking of hardware: NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 has a dual-core Intel PXB4395 processor, running at 800 MHz, 512 MB of RAM and 256 MB of storage space for the firmware and the apps that you install on it. When compared with other AX wireless routers, the hardware on this model is a bit more modest. Due to is lower specs, Nighthawk AX4 delivers only 2x2 MU-MIMO wireless transfers, instead of 4x4 or 8x8, like other wireless routers, that have more powerful hardware. Obviously, NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 also works using the older Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 4 standards, as most people do not own devices that can use the new Wi-Fi 6 standard. NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is an average-sized router, with 13.38 x 8.11 x 2.24 inches or 340 x 206 x 57mm in width x depth x height. It also weighs about 1.32 lb or 600 grams. If you would like to learn more about the official specifications of this wireless router, go to this page: NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 Specifications.

Setting up and using the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 wireless router

Setting up the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 wireless router can be done both from a PC, using a web browser, or from a smartphone, using the Nighthawk app for iOS and Android. This time we decided to change our approach and use the mobile app instead of the traditional browser-based setup. The Nighthawk app is not complicated to use, and it doesn't request many permissions on your mobile device, which is good. The setup wizard asks for your location and then whether you want to install a new router. After you connect your smartphone to the default WiFi emitted by the router, you can set the type of internet connection that you are using, and enter the appropriate connection details. You then set the name and password for the WiFi in your home, set the admin password that you want to use (it would have been great to be able to set the username too), and answer some security questions that you can use to recover your password (when you forget it). The app checks for firmware updates, and, if any are available, it recommends that you perform the upgrade. It is a good approach. Unfortunately, the latest update that we received had some bugs that lowered WiFi performance, so we had to revert back to an older firmware version. After the firmware update is finished, you can connect your router to your Netgear cloud account, so that you can remotely manage the router, even when you are not at home. One useful security precaution is that Netgear recommends that users enable two-step verification to protect their accounts, which is great. Other router manufacturers should emulate this approach. Then, you get to finally use the app to remote control your router. The app is simple to use but also very basic. You cannot perform any advanced configuration from it. For that, you need to use a web browser on your PC, and log in to the router's administration user interface. This interface is split into two tabs: Basic and Advanced. The Basic tab has few options, and all are easy to configure. The real fun is in the Advanced tab. There you can find all the configuration options that are available for your router. The user interface is available in many languages, and switching between them is easy. Also, most of the settings can be understood with ease, if you have a bit of knowledge about technology in general. However, the way the Advanced tab is organized, is not that well thought out, and you need some time to get used to the location of all the settings. For example, you get two different sets of wireless settings, both under Setup and Advanced Setup, which leads to confusion. The Help documentation is easily accessible, as well as the Online Support options. But, unlike routers from other brands, the documentation is available online, not in the firmware of the router. Therefore, if your internet connection does not work, you cannot access the Help documentation and use it. Another aspect that it is unique to Netgear is that, in order to use all the advanced features of the Nighthawk AX4, you need to install several apps, and set up accounts in more than one place. This ecosystem of apps, features and services is confusing to users, and more difficult to understand. Netgear should improve this, and give direct access to more advanced features straight from its firmware, like other manufacturers do. However, as a positive, we loved how truly plug-and-play the experience of connecting an external hard disk to the USB 3.0 port, and sharing with the network is. After we were done setting up the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 router, we connected several devices to the network: two desktop PCs, a couple of laptops, one tablet, several smartphones, an Xbox One console, two smart plugs, one smart bulb, an intelligent robot vacuum cleaner, and a wireless printer. They all connected with ease, and we had no problems in sharing files and folders over the network. However, when we used the 2.4 GHz wireless band, we had an uneven experience. On some devices like our smartphones, everything was fast and smooth, while on our test laptop, the average speed was low, and wireless transfers were performed with high variability. To give you a perspective, look at the transfer made on the 2.4 GHz band, in a room separated from the router by one wall. It was rather disappointing, and Netgear should investigate this. We suspect that this may be caused by incompatibilities with some wireless network cards and specific drivers, as it is the case with other AX wireless routers from other brands. Another transfer, made in the same room, on the 5 GHz band, was fast and stable, as you would expect from a router like the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4. Performance on the 5 GHz band was fast and smooth, and we have no complaints about it. If you want to see the details about the wireless performance of this router, and all the features that it has to offer, go to the next page of this review.

Wireless network performance

First, let's look at the apartment that was used in our testing and how it is set up. You can see that the router is placed in the living room. With most wireless routers, the signal strength is not that high in places like the Kitchen and the Medium balcony. Our testing was done using a fast 1 Gigabit Internet connection that is capable of uploads on the internet of up to 500 Mbps. We used a laptop for our measurements and several software tools. To get a better idea of the performance offered by NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4, we compared it with ASUS RT-AX88U (the first wireless router with support for Wi-Fi 6) and TP-Link Archer C5400X (a recent premium router with support for Wi-Fi 5). We analyzed the 2.4 GHz band first and measured the signal strength with NetSpot. You can see below how the signal strength evolved from room to room. The signal strength offered by NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 tended to be weaker than that of the routers we compared it to, in most rooms. Next, we used SpeedTest to measure how fast the internet connection offered by this router is, when using 2.4 GHz wireless network. NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 offered reasonable download speeds on this band, without breaking any records. When we measured the upload speed with SpeedTest, the trend was similar. Continuing our measurements on the 2.4 GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. In this test, NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 had disappointing performance in all rooms, because of the fact that, on some network clients, transfers have a pronounced variability. The situation improved when measuring the upload speed offered by NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 on the 2.4 GHz. Our tests and usage experience lead us to consider that NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4, using a new and yet immature technology like Wi-Fi 6, may have some compatibility problems with some network cards, like other Wi-Fi 6 routers do. For the next set of measurements, we analyzed the performance of the 5GHz wireless band. We looked at the evolution of the signal strength, from room to room. This time NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 performed similarly to the routers we compared it to. To view the maximum potential of this router, we used a PCI-Express network card with support for 4x4 MU-MIMO transfers and SpeedTest. When we used this network card, we obtained a maximum speed of 567.94 Mbps for the download and 497.59 Mbps for the upload - fast speeds but not the fastest you can get. To get back to earth, and everyday devices people use, we took our laptops and measured the download speed with SpeedTest, in every room of our test apartment. NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 offered fast downloads, but it was outperformed in most rooms by its competitors. When measuring the upload speed, the situation improved, with NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 taking the lead in a few rooms. For the last measurements on the 5GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. In the same room with the router, NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 was the speed champion, while in others it performed well, without breaking any records. The trend was also similar when we measured the upload speed. NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is capable of delivering fast Wi-Fi on the 5GHz band. However, we were not able to test the WiFi using the Wi-Fi 6 network standard, because we do not have any network clients that are compatible with this standard.

Wired network performance

To test the quality of the wired Ethernet connection, we used a desktop PC and a mini PC, both equipped with an SSD. We measured the speed of the internet connection when using an Ethernet cable, with SpeedTest. As you can see below, NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is a fast router. Then, we ran a network transfer between the two computers, using the PassMark Performance test. NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is a fast router, but the routers we compared it to delivered slightly faster downloads. NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 has no problems in delivering real Ethernet connections that work at 1 Gbps.

USB performance

We connected a portable SSD to the USB 3.0 port of the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 wireless router. Then we ran a few transfers from a desktop computer to this drive and back. We measured 314.36 Mbps for the download, and 200.46 Mbps for the upload. These are decent speeds, but other premium wireless routers are faster. The USB 3.0 port on the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 is slower than that of other premium wireless routers. Future firmware updates may be able to improve its performance.

Extra features

NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 bundles several advanced features:

• Guest network - you can enable one guest network for each wireless frequency: 2.4 GHz, and 5 GHz. A useful feature is that you can decide whether you allow guests to see each other and access the local network.
• Dynamic QoS - an automatic traffic prioritization service, that splits the available bandwidth by application and device, using Netgear's algorithms, without any user setup.
• ReadySHARE - makes it easy to share external USB storage devices, and printers, with your entire network. For example, sharing a USB hard drive with the network is, literally, a plug-and-play experience.
• ReadySHARE Vault - you can install this app and use it to backup the Windows PCs in your network to an external hard drive connected to the router through its USB port.
• Parental Controls - this feature is not built into the firmware of the router. When you try to access it, you are redirected to a NETGEAR web page that tells you to install the NETGEAR Genie app, to get access to this feature. You also need an OpenDNS account. It is not a useful parental controls feature, like the one other brands offer on their high-end routers.
• Dynamic DNS - you can use NO-IP and NETGEAR DDNS accounts on your router, so that you can connect to the router from the internet, even if your internet provider gives you a dynamic public IP address.
• VPN service - you can set the router to function as a VPN server, using the OpenVPN protocol.
• Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integration – you can control your home network using voice commands.

NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 has some useful additional features, like the Dynamic QoS services, ReadyShare, or the VPN server functionality. However, premium routers from other brands may offer more useful features that increase the value of the product.

What is your opinion of the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4?

Now you know our opinion about the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX4 - one of the early routers with support for the new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless standard. Before closing this review, tell us what you think about this model. If you already have it, do not hesitate to share your experience with us and others. Comment below and let's discuss.