H
ats off to Netgear for trying to make
its router design a little different with
the AX8. If you’ve ever wanted your
router to invoke the stylistic spirit of a Star
Wars imperial spacecraft, this is the router for
you. The rather splendid-looking Nighthawk
AX8 isn’t all style over substance though. This
is a highly powerful router.
However, it does trail the other models on
test this month in one very obvious way: it has
only five Ethernet LAN ports compared to the
eight ports you’ll find on all the other routers
on test. For a high-end router priced at £300
inc VAT, that’s quite the slip-up, even if more
of people’s internet-connected devices use
Wi-Fi instead of wired connections these days.
Ethernet connections aside, though,
the AX8 includes the expected dual-band
Wi-Fi configuration, with a 4x4 antennae
arrangement for each band. Inside there’s an
unspecified 1.8GHz quad-core processor. You
also get two USB 3 ports that can be used to
share printers and USB storage. Dual-function
link aggregation is also supported, so you can
either hook up two cables to the LAN ports
for a faster (2Gbps) LAN connection, or one
cable to the LAN port and one to the WAN
port to create a faster internet connection.
Looking more closely at that design again,
the exterior metallic grey surfaces are all
plastic, while a black-painted metal grille
covers the central portion, providing someventilation. What’s more, thesevents
are apparently not enoughtoproperly
cool the hot-running hardwareinside,
as Netgear has also seenfittoinstalla fan.
It’s a long while since we’veencountered
a router with a fan inside it,andit was
quite a shock to hear the surprisingly
loud volume of this one, atleastwhen
the unit is powering up. It’s easily audible
over an adjacent PC, for instance.
However, once the unit has settled back
down to normal operation, it’s quiet enough
to be largely unobtrusive. Nonetheless,
none of the other units apparently needed
active cooling, and we’d certainly prefer
not to have it on a device that’s going
to be permanently powered on.
Meanwhile, those intriguing wings are
permanently attached to the router, but
fold down for stowing. The mechanism
works well – you have to lift up the side
slightly to unhook the wing and then fold
it down. However, there’s a slight concern
that the wiring is exposed when a wing
is folded in this way, as there’s potential
for the wire to get snagged or trapped.
Setting up the AX8 was simple enough,
although Netgear doesn’t overly hold your
hand. The menus are fairly spartan and
lack the slickness of the TP-Link’s menus,
for instance. In terms of key software
features, Netgear offers the usual USB
printer and storage sharing,
QoS options and security
features as the other routers
on test this month.
When it comes to
performance, the AX8 was
actually more capable than we
expected, given its slightly less
beefy look compared with the
competition. It was the slowest
in our shortest-range test
(which is still quite long-range),
but it topped the chart (other
than the Asus mesh unit) inour most challenging, long-distance test. Its
USB speed was also the fastest we recorded,
providing a plentiful speed of 832Mb/
sec, although it didn’t recognise our exFAT
formatted USB drive, unlike the TP-Link.Conclusion
The Netgear AX8 is a sleek and high-
performance Wi-Fi 6 router that largely
delivers the performance and features
you expect for its high price. However, the
TP-Link AX6000 offers more Ethernet
ports and slightly faster performance
for less money, making it our top pick for
an independent router this month.NETGEAR NIGHTHAWK AX8
/£30 0 incVAT
SUPPLIER amazon.co.ukVERDICT
Decent performance and features, but other
options offer slightly more for less money.DESIGN
16 / 20
PERFORMANCE
22 / 30FEATURES
14 / 20
VALUE
22 / 30OVERALLSCORE
74 %
LABS TEST / WI-FI 6 ROUTERS
SPEC
Weight
1281g
Dimensions (mm)
305 x 202 x 161 (W x D x H)
Ethernet
5 x LAN + 1 WAN 1000Mbps
Wi-Fi
802.11ax dual band (AX6000)
USB ports
2 x USB 3
Processor
1.8GHz quad-core
Extras
Fold-down sides