CES 2021: Netgear Launches Tri-Band RAXE500 Wi-Fi 6E Router

spartan1967 said:
Why? Bought an R8000 3 years ago and literally have had zero issues. Best $200 I ever spent on a router and am able to hang it on a wall.

One of my Acer laptops is stationed 30 feet away with a wall in between and I get the same speed as the computer the R8000 is wired to. Plus Netgear pays hackers to find holes and updates their firmware on a regular basis, with an update just a few days ago.
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Netgear do come off better than most, to a degree, but I still wouldn't buy one. Check out the CVEs section for fun.
There's also a reason why folks like Voxel release custom firmware where they update all the packages within the firmware to address the swiss cheese of security holes which Netgear deems 'acceptable'. Again, see report above.

Voxel's Firmware

www.voxel-firmware.com www.voxel-firmware.com

The R8000 is Broadcom based which isn't the best these days. You're better off going with the R7800 (Qualcomm based) if you must buy an 802.11ac Netgear.
 
Squuiid said:
There's also a reason why folks like Voxel release custom firmware where they update all the packages within the firmware to address the swiss cheese of security holes which Netgear deems 'acceptable'. Again, see report above.

Voxel's Firmware

www.voxel-firmware.com www.voxel-firmware.com

The R8000 is Broadcom based which isn't the best these days. You're better off going with the R7800 (Qualcomm based) if you must buy an 802.11ac Netgear.
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Would never ever download a third party's firmware for my network from a company I never heard from until today. Might as well give the keys to someone I never met before who knocked on my door asking to borrow my car.

Also, why would I spend the same money on a dual-band R7800 router vs. a tri-band R8000?
 
spartan1967 said:
Why? Bought an R8000 3 years ago and literally have had zero issues. Best $200 I ever spent on a router and am able to hang it on a wall.

One of my Acer laptops is stationed 30 feet away with a wall in between and I get the same speed as the computer the R8000 is wired to. Plus Netgear pays hackers to find holes and updates their firmware on a regular basis, with an update just a few days ago.
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I will admit that the Orbi's I set up for my friend seem to be reliable and do the job.
OTOH the Orbi app is a horror show of ghastly design and constant upsell, so much so that I'd stay away from Netgear for my own use. To me, allowing an app that feels so icky suggests a company with no taste.
 
spartan1967 said:
Would never ever download a third party's firmware for my network from a company I never heard from until today. Might as well give the keys to someone I never met before who knocked on my door asking to borrow my car.

Also, why would I spend the same money on a dual-band R7800 router vs. a tri-band R8000?
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You missed the point entirely. I’m not suggesting you do this but simply highlighting that there are folks out there so appalled at Netgear’s security that they’re spending time and effort on addressing the security issues themselves and offering them to the community.
Whether you trust this one person to be more secure than Netgear is another matter.

The R7800 is widely known to be Netgear’s most stable and performant 802.11ac router, despite being ‘only’ dual band as you put it.
In this case, it is all in the chipset.
 
Squuiid said:
The R7800 is widely known to be Netgear’s most stable and performant 802.11ac router, despite being ‘only’ dual band as you put it.
In this case, it is all in the chipset.
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With the range and zero problems I have had with the R8000 I guess I have to ask, why is the R7800 better?
 
Buy any one of these WiFi6e routers from any of these vendors and you’ll be an unpaid beta tester for six months at least. Standard for Netgear (anything with RAX), Linksys (MR9600 is their top line mesh stand alone router last firmware update is 10 months ago), TPLink never updates firmware on older models once a newer model comes out. If Asus didn’t have Merlin fixing their mess they would be in the same boat as all the others. If you’re using google or eero you dont care about WiFi in the first place, set it and forget it crowd.
 
name99 said:
I will admit that the Orbi's I set up for my friend seem to be reliable and do the job.
OTOH the Orbi app is a horror show of ghastly design and constant upsell, so much so that I'd stay away from Netgear for my own use. To me, allowing an app that feels so icky suggests a company with no taste.
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And that is exactly my point. Netgear’s software team are poor at best and, when it comes to security, just downright negligent. But that’s just my opinion. Keep buying Netgear if you’re comfortable accepting the risks, by all means.
 
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Squuiid said:
Finally 6E hitting the mainstream. Wouldn't touch Netgear (nor TP-Link, ASUS, Linksys for that matter) with a bargepole though.
Going to be a while before anything one should consider buying is available.
Ubiquiti, Eero, Google WiFi, Ruckus, Meraki, Aruba and the like.
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Ubiquiti, Ruckus, Meraki, Aruba and the like are too expensive, too difficult to setup, and are not available to purchase in retail, some of them need yearly subscription.

If you care about your privacy you must be nuts to use Eero by Amazon or Google WiFi.

Squuiid said:
Not true. Depends on your requirements and internet connection speed.
Wi-Fi 6 and 6E devices will see a big increase in networking performance.

As an example, my synchronous gigabit internet connection is very much limited over 802.11ac. I only get about 460Mbps rather than the 940Mbs I get when hard wired. Downloading 100GB+ Xbox games over WiFi is significantly slower.
Wi-Fi 6, and more so 6E, will allow one to better utilise gigabit internet connections, which fortunately are becoming more commonplace.
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I will believe it when when I see it.
 
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