NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S AC2600 Review

Who's using all the internet up, my game is lagging!  Turn off the Wi-Fi on your iPhone you are using up the internet! The internet is sooo slow, I thought we had super fast fibre! Can we change providers and get a better internet! Turn off the Washing Machine I am trying to play my game!

We're a WiFi traffic busy home.  I work from home online, the TV has internet, Sky TV accesses the internet, our two teenage boys have XBoxes, PS4s, iPhones, iPads and the younger kids watch YouTube on the iPads.  We use steaming applications too, like Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.  

All these devices and applications meant we had experienced no end of Wi-Fi issues. 

Even, things you wouldn't think would affect your Wi-Fi caused us problems; like our washing machine - during a spin cycle it would cut our Wi-Fi out completely.  The washing machine is positioned on the other side of the wall to the modern and I had to make sure I only did a wash when the boys weren't home playing on their games, or when I knew I didn't have a conference meeting scheduled. How crazy is that?!

Then there is our modem - it just isn't up to scratch. Often it would drop connection and in some areas of the house there was little to no connection at all - my son would suffer in his bedroom above the garage and we couldn't even get a connection in the dining room - which is where I do my work, thus, when I had conference calls I would have to go move to the Kitchen just to pick a signal up - which wasn't stable anyhow. My son when he has had Fifa matches, he would move his TV, Xbox and gaming chair all in the kitchen just so he can get a better signal.

Every single day at least one of the kids (or myself) would suffer from lagging or complete loss of Wi-Fi. I would be in conference calls on my Mac with colleagues and I would loose connection mid-meeting. Or the boys would be playing a Fifa match and it would lag.  

It became a massive pain. When I was invited to review the NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S AC2600 I was super excited, but the boys were super suspicious - they had made their mind up that it was the internet provider and no matter what modems or equipment we got nothing would help! But I was quietly confident the Nighthawk X4S would help - what I didn't expect was just how good it is - it solved ALL our Wi-Fi issues!   No more lagging, no more random loss of connections and no more Wi-Fi problem headaches. Now we enjoy good speeds, stable connections in every corner of our home and a hell of a lot less moaning in this house!  

The unit itself is a lot bigger than I was expecting, I just assumed it would be the same size as my modem, but it's twice the size!  It's very sleek and clean looking and has 4 ariels you attach - 2 on the back and 1 on each side.  I especially like how it feels and looks: sturdy and robust. This is a solid bit of equipment and I am extremely impressed.

Setup - dead easy: 

You connect the Nighthawk X4S to your current modem with an Ethernet, plug it into the power. Download the NETGEAR Genie app. This app is a dashboard where you can control and monitor all the devices connected to the Nighthawk X4S. Finally, you connect each device via the wireless settings to the NETGEAR and you are good to go - the connection is protected by a password.

Faster Gaming and Streaming

The Nighthawk X4S offers both Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) and Quad Stream technology which is designed to deliver Wi-Fi to multiple devices simultaneously for faster speeds and lag-free experience - which it does brilliantly. Another great feature is the Dynamic QoS which prioritises your Internet traffic for smoother and faster gaming and streaming experience.

Reach:

Wi-Fi reaches all corners of our home now, the Nighthawk gives an increased range from Quad-Stream Wave 2 WiFi. With 4 high-powered antennas and amplifiers that increase Wi-Fi coverage, and stability everyone stays connected - and I can take conference calls in my dining room.

Family Sharing - External Storage: 

You can connect your storage in one of the USB ports on the Nighthawk X4S and stream your photos, videos, documents etc. The ReadyShare Vault PC software will keep it safe. You can also organize and schedule automatic backups directly from your Laptop.

One hipcup: 

We had a couple of days of disconnect where I couldn't get any of our devices to connect to the Nighthawk (we had to connect back to the modem) and after trying to unsuccessfully fix it myself, I rang NETGEAR, who were extremely helpful. Embarrassingly, it was a simple push of a button on the Nighthawk to switch the Wi-Fi back on - and then everything was up and running again and the boys stopped complaining the Internet was rubbish.  The LED lights that indicate the Wi-Fi is switched on was off, and could I figure how to turn it back on - I tried everything through the Genie app, what I didn't realise is, the actual LED light itself is the button!  But, during these couple of days with no Nighthawk X4S it made us even more aware of how good it is! and just how much we appreciate it and how we couldn't live without it. 

I cannot recommend the NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S AC2600 highly enough - it is worth every penny.