NETGEAR R6250-100NAS Wireless AC1600 Dual Band Gigabit Router

Pros: Easy to set up. Clear instructions. Great aesthetics. Ethernet cable included. I experienced absolutely solid performance for each connection type (N, AC, Gigabit wired). It comes preconfigured with a secure SSID and password. This is a handy way to help beginners use encryption to protect their wireless network from neighbors and passersby. Product was packaged well, both to explain and protect the contents. The LEDs are just bright enough to be easily seen, not annoyingly bright like I've experienced with other networking hardware. The performance is very consistent. The unit has never needed a reset for any reason. I've never had a file transfer or internet stream hiccup. All of my devices (laptops, tablets, etc) were able to connect to it. If you are shopping specifically for an AC router, this one would be a very good choice.

Cons: I compared the wireless file transfer speeds of my old N and new AC router for transferring both small files (collection of ebooks) and large files (HD video). I transferred them from one PC to another, on my home network. For my case, there was nearly no improvement in file transfer speed simply by replacing the router. My old wireless N router can still be purchased and costs half what this AC router costs.

Overall Review: The preset SSID and password are written on the unit. This sticker is super helpful for home use. However, if using this router in a semi-public place, make sure to change the password or remove/cover the sticker. There is no wall mounting capability. I personally do not need this feature, but as most home networking devices are wall mountable, and Newegg does not list this feature in the specifications, I decided to mention it. I think this is a very solid router. Its got great features, price, and performance. However, if you've already got a good Wireless N system, there may not be much reason to upgrade to AC. While this is wireless AC hardware, and is technically capable of transfer speeds well over 800Mbps (100MB/s), most consumers' experience will be far slower. Factors like the performance of the computers using the router, the building materials (walls, furniture, etc) between router and adapter, and the types of files being transferred are what govern the real world experience. I compared file transfer speed on my home network, from one PC to another, under various conditions. I then graphed and analyzed the results. My data included: 1) Distance from router (garage at 80ft vs same room at 5ft) 2) File size (collection of 0.5MB e-books vs 26GB HD video) 3) Router type (AC vs N) 4) Adapter type (internal N vs external AC) 5) Laptop type (old clunker vs modern mid-grade) (both laptops have USB 2.0 only) The largest factor to file transfer speed was the file size. It is much more efficient to transfer large files. If the reason you are shopping for a router is because it takes you a long time to transfer collections of small files, consider zipping them for transfer. The next biggest factor was distance from router. It was much faster to be close to the router. The next biggest factor was AC adapter type. It was faster to have the external AC adapter. I am not sure whether the improvement was due to AC technology, or due to having an external antenna. Whichever was the case, it was clearly faster. The next biggest factor was laptop type. It was slightly faster to transfer files using the newer laptop. I wish I could have included a laptop with USB 3.0 ports in my test. The least important factor was the router type. I found the file transfer speed to be nearly independent of router type. To be honest, this result surprised me. I expected the AC router to be much faster when using an AC adapter, but this just wasn’t the case. Thank you statistics for helping me see past my bias! For my situation, I could not see much performance improvement by using this router, as compared to my old wireless N router. I was going to paste my data table below, but it took up too much space (3000 char limit).

Pros: - Router has a very nice look, which is a definite plus since as a wireless router, it would be counterproductive to hide it away. - The build quality of the router and everything it came with are top notch. The router itself is made of nice heavy plastic and the RJ-45 ports feel good and secure. The power supply for the router is one of the sturdiest I’ve ever used. The router also came with the nicest cat-5e Ethernet cable I’ve ever used, it was also clearly labeled as to which end should be plugged into which device; a nice touch to make setup that much easier for somebody less experienced in doing such things. - Set up is about as easy as expected for a router, not quite plug n’ play, but close. Was up and running within 10 minutes. - Settings manager has everything you need to set the router up to work for your network and more. In particular I like being able to see devices which are currently connected to the router, hard-wired and via WiFi. (After reading some other reviews, I'd like to point out my intended target for this statement was the average home user. I certainly didn't find myself wanting a setting that I couldn't find in that situation.) - You can remotely reboot the router. Could be useful. - The ability to network a printer through the router using the router’s USB port is a fairly useful feature for several situations. In particular if you have a printer which by itself can’t be networked, you can network the printer without having to keep a computer running for the purpose of sharing the printer on the network. - Another useful feature enabled through the USB port is the ability to connect a USB storage device to the router and turn it from a local storage device to a network storage device (essentially a NAS). - One of the most commonly performed tasks with a router is made slightly easier by the settings manager. When forwarding a port you can manually type in the IP address you intend to forward to, however, you also have the choice to select one of the currently connected devices and forward to that device. - Compared to my old router (Linksys WRT150N) the wireless range and reception are much better. All around my house anything using WiFi shows very solid WiFi connectivity, and more objectively, I’m able to use the WiFi to do things such as browse the web and stream videos via WiFi, something my old router had trouble with even if you were within 50 feet of it. - The range and speed of the WiFi are something which highly impressed me. My friend brought his car over one day to run some diagnostics on it, however we needed to emulate the diagnostic software on his laptop. To figure out how to do this we connected to the router which was in my house with several walls and 100 feet between it and the laptop. The reception (according to the Windows WiFi prompt) was exceptional, and the download speeds were fast enough to match my wired internet speeds (3.2MB/s) . This was using the 2.4GHz WiFi.

Cons: - The setup guide for the router lists a url which you are supposed to type into your browser in the event that your browser doesn’t automatically access the router start-up page. There are two listed in the setup guide and only one of them is correct (www.routerlogin.net). - The Genie application has a couple neat things in it, but none really that aren’t already included either in windows, or the router settings page accessed through your browser. Overall I didn’t find it particularly useful. - The Genie application for mobile devices is some weird combination of what you get on the desktop version combined with some kind of file browser/streaming application. Again, I didn’t find it very useful beyond being able to see who’s connected to my network from my phone. It would have been more useful to make it into a more mobile friendly version of the settings manager. After about 10 minutes of clicking around both in Windows and on my phone I was unable to actually figure out how to include my files for streaming using the application and got bored. It also has a built in QR code scanner? Why? - The layout of the settings manager is a bit unintuitive. Netgear for some reason decided to split the settings between “Basic” and “Advanced” tabs. I can see where somebody would have thought this was a good idea, but in practice, it just isn’t. I spend a lot of time divining where the software designers decided to hide particular features in every router I use, so this layout only contributes to the convolution. It would have made more sense to have a layout which puts as much control at your fingertips as possible (I could say this about every router I've used, but this one in particular). - Annoyingly despite this router being gigabit capable, I have yet to see such speeds. When transferring large files the speed seems to peter out around 105MB/s. I’ve tested this over every gigabit capable computer in my house and this seems to be consistent. - The orientation of the router is a little odd. I imagine the intent was to allow the router to contain a more powerful antenna, however the base of the router is too small, and the router itself quite tall, making it quite easy to knock over. Unruly Ethernet cables could also make positioning the router to sit just how you want it more annoying than it should be, because of how small the base is it neither has a large contact patch with the ground, or a very stable one.

Overall Review: - The guest network is enabled by default. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like people leeching my WiFi. Best to disable it if you intend this router for use in your home. - The router produces quite a bit of light from its indicator LEDs and the Netgear logo prominently displayed on the face of the router. Keep this in mind if your router is somewhere where the light could become an issue. There also doesn’t appear to be a way to turn off the LEDs either on the router or through the settings manager. - Unsurprisingly the WiFi signal drops off quite a bit when it has to pass through many walls. At the bottom of my driveway (one wall, 100 feet) I get an exceptional signal, in my garage (several walls, 100 feet) my signal is quite poor and inconsistent. - Overall I really like this router. I may be biased because I owned my previous router for many years and over that time it faded into near obsolescence as my home gained more networked devices each demanding more and more speed; that aside, in the two weeks I’ve owned this router it has performed as I ask any of my devices to perform; perfectly. After my initial setup and forwarding a few ports it has worked with no need of my intervention. The router has quite a few neat little features which some customers may find useful, they’re certainly features which I could see people actually using. As a standalone router it works admirably. My (wired) network speeds when necessary reach within 10% of the theoretical maximum of the router, and my wireless devices as far as general use (web browsing, watching videos online) may as well have a wired connection. The cons I listed were quite minor overall, and really nothing that put me off. Overall as a home, office, or small business router, I would recommend it.

Pros: Having used this router now for several months and replacing my Linksys E1000 entirely, I can honestly say I feel like I've exhausted my review of this router. I like that it s 10/100/1000 and no longer bottlenecks my network like my previous router. With that said, the router is for more mid-advanced users and with enough tinkering, you can have it running smoothly with no hitches. The administration screens are fairly easy to navigate and filled with options to disable/enable as you want. The interface also allots for people who want to use it in a basic sense and those who want to use it in an advanced sense. The cost is a bit high, but to get a 4-port Gigabit switch, repeater and built-in WiFi amplifiers...you would almost be the same cost. I however don't use this as a switch. I use a Cisco Small Business class 8-port Gigabit switch that is extremely reliable as well. My transfer speeds over network and download speeds of extremely large files is impressive with no bottlenecks or slow downs. I get an additional bar of WiFi at the other side of my house over my old router and I can use it as a printer sharing device, which I am currently doing (HP LaserJet 1020) with no issues. I wish it had an additional port for my NAS, but supposedly the newer models come with 2 USB ports, but at an additional cost... All in all, I would solidly recommend this router to anyone assuming they were willing to pay the price for the features. If you don't care about the features, then by all means, go buy a $59-$75 router from a local store.

Cons: I don't like the wireless MAC filtering screen. It is not intuitive and at times, I feel like it isn't working, but it is...if that makes sense. I actually like the screen of another router I reviewed earlier (D-Link DIR-810L). The cost of the router is a con. Netgear would eliminate the barriers to entry by reducing the price to close to $100 rather than $200. Only desktop mountable, but this can be remedied by my below modification... This is probably just a con for me, but I hate routers that are not wall mountable. This router is not by OEM standards wall mountable, but if you are inventive, you can cutout the little triangle openings in the back of the router and with some 3" screws, hang this thing from the wall with no issues (at least I didn't have any)...this is not a guarantee your hanging job won't make it fall off the wall and break. That would be your fault.

Overall Review: Good router for large house or small business. My other last thought is...my previous router would periodically get reset (not sure if power loss or not) and I would have a hard time getting back on the network. This router has not had that problem since I got it setup. Buy it...

Pros: A lot of expert reviewers have already given a lot of information. I am going to focus on some other points that haven't already been made twenty times: If you don't tweak anything, and more or less set it up as quickly as possible: 802.11n performance on the 2.4GHz band was very good. Perhaps not top of the line, but still, very very good. 5GHz performance was really excellent, definitely thought this was top of the line. Not surprisingly, I guess, since 802.11ac--this router's main thrust--solely resides on 5GHz band. I was struck at once at how "idiot-proof" the router seems to be, for routers of this complexity. At only a slight cost to the power user, it seems like just about anyone should be able to get this running reasonably well out of the box. I don't know if I'd buy my grandmother this router, but for anyone else, I think they can easily manage it and really have a good experience. One feature I liked instantly was the "Wireless AP mode" (i.e., wireless "access point" mode), wherein you essentially plug this router into another (presumably older) router that you can't get rid of (say, for example, because you have Verizon FiOS and can't ditch their ridiculous Actiontec router because you have a MoCA bridge), and then the router effectively becomes a pass-through, DHCP'd, client of the upstream router, and all the features that are therefore irrelevant in that mode are not even available on the menu. Sure, it's not a big deal to handle that yourself if you need to, but this feature made it quite easy, and was well-implemented in the router. I am able to crank out fully saturated file transfers SIMULTANEOUSLY on both bands without the router even noticing. Very nice, simultaneous, band performance. You have a couple of choices for the transfer speed (independent controls, also, for each band). If I set the 2.4GHz band to its minimum n-mode ("up to 145 Mbps"), I get real nice 50+ Mbps throughput all throughout the house on suitably equipped devices (this is actually very good for 802.11n in this mode for the real world). If you push to its highest mode, and let it use 40 MHz (i.e., "double") channels, I got about 70Mbps on it, but I didn't play long with it, because I don't like chewing up that much RF. Similar for the 5GHz. Overall I'm very happy with what this router brings to the table. It appears to do what it advertises, and particularly, for a router of this potency to be this "usable" to someone else who might know exactly what they're doing, I think it's a very good product. I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to review it. My WLAN servers have had a considerable improvement in speed and responsiveness, which I like, and the 802.11a performance is really excellent--very useful, indeed, if you are in a very Wi-Fi saturated place and need some RF Lebensraum. :) See continued "pros" in the "Other thoughts" section.

Cons: Oddly for a router designed for the power user, the firmware only gives you a moderate smattering of advanced controls. For example, you can NOT set the "beacon interval", even though you can set the long/short preamble, and so on, and so on. Weirdly, you cannot use this router with the built-in "wireless repeater" mode with WPA (or higher) security settings. It's very clear about it--the minute you switch it to wireless repeater mode, it tells you to make sure you're using, at most, WEP (or even NO security). That's definitely odd, and makes this feature a non-starter for me. This surprised me: on the channel selection for the 5GHz band, If you choose one of the lower ones, it really complains, and tells you "You should really pick a higher numbered channel for best results". Really? Why? I was intrigued, so, just the same, I picked a lower channel to see, and the signal strength seemed to be at least 15dB less on lower channels vs. higher channels, even though there were no interfering signals. I am wagering that this is because the internal antenna for the 5GHz is more tuned to the higher frequencies, so you get a bad SWR on the lower channels. That 5GHz band is a LOT of range to cover, and I guess there's just no reasonable antenna design to cover the whole band without losing some gain. Just something to be aware of. So the high channels are best, by a big margin.

Overall Review: Firmware was slow and a bit dodgy out of the box--but a firmware update was a great improvement. Another feature, which you see more and more of these days, is the ability to offer "guest" networks, optionally. In this case, your router provides not only your own personal high-security network with its LAN etc, but allows you to also simultaneously broadcast a second SSID, which is for a purported "guest" network. These have INDEPENDENT security settings, independent SSIDs, and can be offered on one, or both, bands (with different security and SSID or whatever, at your discretion). The nice thing about this is you can easily turn them on and off, and you can set it so anyone on the "guest" networks has no route to any of your private network LAN clients (so they can spread their viruses or whatever to you). The USB port is interesting. I've always felt these were more a "solution in need of a problem"--I feel like anyone smart enough to really get good use out of the USB port won't actually NEED to, because he would have a NAS or a SAN or whatever. That being said, I stuck a USB drive in there just to explore it, set it up as a remote SMB mount, and put a bunch of music on there and it was fine, and worked as it was supposed to. You could similarly stick a nice 2TB external USB drive on there, or whatever (and I suppose that's easy enough if you don't know what a "NAS" is). In the router configuration you can set it to access the USB by SMB/network neighborhood (also compatible with Mac), and/or FTP and/or HTTP (those are all LAN side only), and you can also set up WAN-exposed HTTPS and a special WAN-exposed FTP if you wanted to do that (which, I hope you DON'T want to do, but it's there)--I assume it'll do the port-forwarding kung-fu for you. You appear to have significant permissions controls, as well as virtual mount points/directories, for whatever mass storage device you plug into the port. Like I said, seems mostly like a solution in need of a problem, but, a lot of people like it, and this particular implementation looks good. There is also a way to share, over the network, a USB printer using this port. I didn't explore that (since, like you, I have only wireless printers, duh!). There are some parental controls (which of course, you don't get to use if you're running in a special mode, such as "repeater" or "AP" mode), and some scheduling controls, but these all appear to be quite simple, and basic. Also, if you want to do really advanced filtering--say, by particular source or destination IPs or ports or what have you, your options on that seem to be quite constrained--almost non-existent, unless I'm missing something. FIRMWARE NEWS: There is some evidence out there that openWRT and/or DD-WRT will work on this router, and people are beginning to compile it for the R6250. Probably that will unlock all kinds of awesomeness once that's more mature.

Pros: Sleek design? (See cons) ;-) Gigabit wired connectivity is a big plus. Range is nice especially with no external antennas sticking out. Even through concrete walls I actually seem to have better range than my Asus RT-N66U Router. Dual band connectivity is real nice. WiFi Speeds are excellent! Communication on my wired network seems much faster and more responsive than my previous configuration utilizing a TP-Link network switch. Have also seemed to have less software specific crashes since replacing the switch with the router. Most likely user/configuration error on that issue I am sure. Pretty standard web interface that is easily navigated. This is my first Netgear router and I had no issues setting it up. USB 3.0 port for external hard drive is a nice speedy touch. Printer or USB harddrive are easily shared over the network via this router! Overall I have no major complaints with this router.

Cons: A few cons but very few. The Sleek Design, although it is a very sleek looking piece of hardware, the port placement on the "back" of this device just seems odd. In order to place this side by side with other pieces of hardware it just seems to take up a lot of real estate. I personally would have preferred the ports be placed on one of the current "sides" instead of the back. Not a deal breaker but definitely a minor annoyance. Although the web interface is easily navigated and configured, it could use a few more power user features in it. Again this is very minor but it still has plenty of nice options in there.

Overall Review: For the money this router is a great deal, especially since I paid about the same for my ASUS RT-N66U. The cons are not enough for me to even knock an egg off of this review. Great speedy router for a great price, especially with the newer tech specs. Rock solid stable and fast! Lots of features! What more could you ask for?

Pros: This router was easy to setup and configure. USB3 port to share content or a printer. Excellent 2.4GHz speeds on G and N. My house has drywall and plaster so signals have a tendency to fade quickly. I was getting about 4MB/s speed with my old router. I swapped in the 6250 router and my throughput (with the same wireless G adapter) doubled to 8MB/s. The 5GHz connections allowed for fast copying of files. When paired with a Netgear A6200 USB wireless adapter, my throughput jumped to 18 MB/s. Readyshare was easy to use. I copied some movies to a USB flash drive and plugged it into the 6250. I then started the DLNA client on my mobile phone. The 6250 showed up and I was able to select a movie and start watching. I experienced no issues streaming videos using Readyshare. The network map feature showed all my connected devices.

Cons: The 5GHz range was low. If there were more than two interior walls between the router and my laptop, I had to fall back to 2.4 GHz and 54g connection speeds. The Netgear Genie software was easy to use but would not allow me to change the settings on the router, although Netgear says they will be adding that feature.

Overall Review: The interface was easy to use. Wireless G and N throughput was great. I will be using this router as my main wireless router. I hope that 5GHz catches on and there are more Wireless AC cards available. If you are living in an area that is saturated with 2.4GHz G or N traffic. Wireless AC would be a good option.

Pros: High bandwith dual band. Beamforming(which is just radio amplifiers to boost the wifi signal) 1300mbps on the 5ghz band 300mbps on the 2.4ghz band, or combined 1600mpbs!! Gigabit lan out usb port but that's becomming more and more common on all routers. Not bad looking with nice leds.

Cons: The range is not what i'd expect from this router. Generally, with a high powered radio amplifier, you should experience stronger signals throughout a decent range. But that range is much shorter than you'd expect. My old router is a netgear n600. In my driveway, i'll get 3-4 bars on 2.4ghz and full bars on 5ghz with that router. With this router, i cannot connect to my 5ghz band as i don't get signal. The 2.4ghz band will show up and i'll get a max of 3.

Overall Review: This thing is loaded with features. The usb port renewed life in my non wifi printer, now i have a network printer which is so convenient. Transfering files over the network is extremely fast as i'd expect with 1300mpbs on the 5ghz band, but even on the 300mbps 2.4ghz band it's still fast enough. Overall, i'm slightly disappointed on the wifi range in which i took off an egg, but everything else is wonderful. Wifi is definitely stronger on short range, theres like a barrier in which you'll go from a full 5 bars to like nothing at all.

Pros: Full Gigabit on LAN and WAN, which is almost a requirement in the $100-and-up range. Same latency/ping as being directly connected to my cable modem. This is one fast router. WDS setup worked perfectly on all 3 laptops I tried it on. 2.4GHz range and speed was excellent, close to the high-powered enterprise AP I usually use. 75-85 feet plus 3 interior walls and an exterior wall, I was still pulling 5mbps down and 1-2mbps up over a stable connection. The enterprise AP does maybe another 20-30' at that speed. Cheap routers would not work past the exterior wall. 5GHz range was pretty much what I expected, 50' plus 2-3 drywall/stud interior walls and it drops off quickly. Exterior brick walls and 5GHz? Forget it. This is a limitation of 5GHz itself. The router performed as good as any other 5GHz product I've tried. Web-based configuration UI is fast, responsive, and has no show-stopper bugs that are typical of feature-rich consumer routers. USB file server and print server worked well. File server was reasonably fast at 15-20MB/s on Ethernet. Simultaneous dual-band and separate guest WiFi ID and password is very nice. Being able to keep guests isolated from my LAN and NAS is a huge security plus. If you're looking to upgrade a home or small office router, this would be a solid choice

Cons: No wall-mount slots or notches. This router would look very nice wall-mounted. The USB file sharing feature is not nearly as fast as a full-fledged NAS. That's typical for router-based USB storage. No Apple Time Machine network storage support or iTunes support for media. None of these are major enough to lose an egg, since if you don't have Apple machines, two of them don't matter. The absence of a wall-mount option is something I doubt 99% of users would miss.