no. what you see here is not an alien spaceship pulled from pages of a sci-fi graphic novel. it is the NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router which lays claim to the crown as the industry’s fastest combined WiFi speed router with up to 3.2 Gbps on the tab and it is the first tri-band your hard-earned money can buy. based on the Broadcom 5G WiFi XStream platform, the Nighthawk X6 features six high-performance antennas and three network bands, one 2.4GHz and two 5GHz for maximum range and ensure delivery of WiFi to more devices. so why the tri-band? well, just think of the three bands available as highways, but with the Nighthawk X6, these highways have ‘highway patrols’ in place that helps to segment slower and faster connected devices and assigning each to the appropriate ‘highway lane’.
such network load balancing and segmentation allows Nighthawk X6 to optimized the speed of each device, mitigate interference and support more connected WiFi devices in a more efficient manner. if you really think about it, it is really a clever solution, well, that’s if it really lives up to the promise. this particular use when there are a mixture of new and old WiFi devices, some still on wireless n or even g, which makes no sense for them to be hogging the ‘high-speed lane’, so to speak. also, with the additional 5GHz band, it also allows high bandwidth activities such as video streaming and online gaming to be on separate 5GHz bands, as opposed to ‘time-sharing’ a single band, so each service will be able to get the most out of the WiFi speed.
another issue facing wireless users is mobility where moving around the house or office tends to affect the wireless quality, but not with Nighthawk X6. it features NETGEAR Beamforming+ smart signal-focusing technology which locks on and pinpoints the WiFi signals directly at a wireless device, and as you move, Beamforming+ will compensate for the distance, ensuring WiFi strength for best streaming speed. of course, it won’t help if you stepped out of range – that’s a no-brainer, but as long as you are in the coverage, Nighthawk X6’s intelligent system will see to it that your connected devices get the speed they deserves. other details include a 1GHz dual-core processor with three additional offload processors, latest 802.11ac wireless technology (naturally), USB 3.0 port for hooking up to storage devices, VPN support, five Gigabit Ethernet ports, iTunes server support and more. the NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router is available for pre-order online as we speak for $299.99. scroll down for the product video.
