INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Nowadays everything from smartphones, tablets and computers (both desktop and laptops) to TV screens, media players, security/alarm systems, lighting and home appliances (even small ones like coffee makers) can be connected wirelessly to your local network and although i was never (and probably never will be) a huge fan of WiFi because of its reduced performance and security over wired connectivity i have to admit that the vision of the smart home (or connected home as some called it) some of us once had is finally not that far away. As expected however when there are so many wireless capable devices inside a household (or even at the office) you will need a router capable of supplying all of them with good quality signal. Unfortunately for people looking to get their hands on a powerful modem/router there are really just a handful of models capable of doing so including the Nighthawk X4S D7800 AC2600 WiFi VDSL/ADSL Modem Router by Netgear which we've been using in our lab for almost 2 weeks now.

 NETGEAR (NASDAQGM: NTGR) is a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and service providers. For consumers, the company makes high performance, dependable and easy to use home networking, storage and digital media products to connect people with the Internet and their content and devices. For businesses, NETGEAR provides networking, storage and security solutions without the cost and complexity of big IT. The company also supplies top service providers with retail-proven, mobile broadband solutions for their customers on the go. NETGEAR products are built on a variety of proven technologies such as wireless, Ethernet and Powerline, with a focus on reliability and ease-of-use. NETGEAR products are sold in approximately 44,000 retail locations around the globe, and through approximately 37,000 value-added resellers. The company's headquarters are in San Jose, Calif., with additional offices in over 25 countries. NETGEAR is an ENERGY STAR® partner.

   Just like with most AC compatible routers out in the market currently the Netgear Nighthawk X4S D7800 offers concurrent transmission of two bands 2.4GHz and 5GHz which result at the advertised speed of 2600Mbps ( to be more exact you're getting 800Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 1733Mbps on the 5GHz one). Under the hood of the Nighthawk X4S D7800 we find 512MB RAM, 128MB flash ROM and a quad-core network processor by Qualcomm Atheros (IPQ8064 model) which combines a powerful, dual-core Krait CPU (1.4GHz) for control plane and applications, with a dual-core 730MHz Network Subsystem (NSS) to accelerate packet processing. The X4S D7800 also supports several technologies including MU-MIMO (multiuser, multiple input, multiple output standard), 256-QAM over 802.11n/ac, Beamforming+ (focuses signal wherever connected devices are located), dynamic QoS, DLNA and VPN and is fully compatible with ADSL/ADSL2/ADSL2+/VDSL/VDSL2 lines. In terms of connectivity the Nighthawk X4S D7800 offers two USB 3.0 ports, eSATA port, four Gigabit Ethernet Ports with auto-sensing technology, WAN auto-sensing Gigabit port and one DSL/VDSL port. On paper Netgear has what we think is one of the best VDSL/ADSL modem/routers in the market today and all that's left is for us to see if that's really the case.

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A large product picture is placed at the front of the box along with the main product features.

 

 

The package contents are listed on the left side of the box right over the product measurements, warranty information and a few words about the Genie App.

 

 

Some of the offered software features are listed on the right side.

 

 

A complete list of features is printed at the rear of the box in 5 different languages.

 

 

Packing is almost perfect since the device is placed in a thick plastic bag and then inside a formed piece of cardboard (as is the rest of the bundle).

 

 

Contained inside the box is the Nighthawk X4S D7800 AC2600 WiFi VDSL/ADSL Modem Router, power adapter, Ethernet cable, phone cable, DSL filter, ADSL splitter, software CD, warranty information paper, connected home catalog and 3 quick start guides (3 languages).

 

 

THE NIGHTHAWK X4S D7800

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 As with the Nighthawk R7000 router (and others by Netgear which we have yet to test) the D7800 strongly resembles the F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft.

 

 

At the front of the device we see 12 activity LEDs (two also double as WPS and WiFi buttons) for the on/off power, internet, 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, USB ports, eSATA port, Ethernet ports, WiFi and WPS.

 

 

Both sides are perforated and on the right side we find the eSATA port.

 

 

The two USB 3.0 ports are placed on the left side of the device.

 

 

Moving at the rear we see an on/off LED switch, reset button, two antenna mounts, four Gigabit Ethernet ports, WAN Gigabit Ethernet port, ADSL/VDSL port, DC in and the on/off power button.

 

 

The X4S D7800 sits ontop of 4 rubber feet and can also be mounted vertically on the wall.

 

 

Netgear has tagged all 4 high-gain antennas so you can't place them anywhere they need to go to their specific mounts.

 

 

With all 4 antennas mounted the Nighthawk X4S D7800 may take up more space but it also looks even better.

 

 

Also do remember that you can move the antennas around to get better signal to your devices (didn't really work for us but some people say it does).

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you connect the X4S D7800 with your computer and you launch your internet browser you will be asked either to enter your ISP details or allow the wizard to detect them automatically (this page is presented in the language of your location so since it was presented in Greek we didn't take snapshots of it).

The home page gives you a rough idea of the device status (such as Internet, WiFi, number of connected devices, parental controls, and connected storage media and guest networks).

 

 

Everything related to your ADSL/VDSL connection is placed inside the Internet tab (the internet interface is disabled by default so do remember to enable it).

 

 

The basic wireless options can be accessed from the wireless menu as seen above.

 

 

All attached devices (wired and wireless) are showcased in this tab (you can also name them and attach the type of device as we did).

 

 

QoS is a feature most people will never get to use (and in many cases it's not really needed) but we did and it actually works quite well.

 

 

Via the ReadySHARE tab you can either make the contents storage device attached onto one of the USB 3.0 ports or the eSATA port available from anywhere in the world (ReadyCLOUD), make a printer attached on one of the USB 3.0 ports available in the local network or back up files from your Windows PC onto a storage device attached to the X4S D7800.

 

 

The guest network tab allows the end user to configure limited access to the device from secondary (guest) users.

 

 

Netgear has implemented a downloading function onto the D7800 so by attaching a USB storage device you can use it as a BitTorrent client.

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The advanced tab includes most settings found inside the basic one plus extras (these are the ones we'll cover in this and the next page).

The main tab here gives you information about the router, current connection and WiFi (both bands and regarding the guest access).

 

 

WAN settings are placed inside the setup menu (you can even adjust the MTU manually).

 

 

You can set the IP of the device and the IP range which it can assign to connected devices (DHCP server) from within the LAN setup tab.

 

 

This may not be very significant but you can also change the name of the device (as it will appear on the local network).

 

 

If for some reason the basic settings in the ReadySHARE feature are not enough you can access the advanced ones from this tab (including the media server ones).

 

 

You can block computers and Ethernet/WiFi enabled devices in general from accessing your network from the access control tab.

 

 

Parental controls are ok but through the block sites tab you can also block specific URLs or all that contain specific keywords.

 

 

You can also block specific services and enable email alerts from the same security menu.

 

 

Backing up and restoring your settings is very easy and it's done from the administration tab (as is performing firmware updates).

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many extra settings are placed under the advanced setup tab so from here you can use the device as an access point, enable bridge mode, set port forwarding and triggering, setup dynamic DNS, enable VPN, set static routes, turn remote management on or off, enable/disable the 2 USB 3.0 ports, enable/disable UPNP, set the connection type for IPv6, enable/disable the traffic meter function, enable VLAN/Bridge group, enable/disable LEDs (although you can also do that from the rear switch) and finally you can configure the device to work as a modem/router or as a standalone modem.

 

 

GENIE SOFTWARE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you don’t want to use the web interface you can always use the Netgear Genie Software available for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.

From this software you can check the status of the router, check your download/upload speeds, see all connected devices, set parental controls, use the ReadySHARE function, convert local printers to AirPrint for iOS compatible devices, check the media files placed in a connected storage device and finally you can use some tools available in the network support tab.

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    To sufficiently test modem/routers we had to change our methodology quite a bit since we decided to make use of the online internet speed measurement application called SpeedTest (we use it with two different destinations/servers). SpeedTest may not be the most "accurate" way to test internet connection speeds since variables change all the time from our ISP to the ISPs of the servers SpeedTest makes use of but the same can be said for every single way one can test internet speed. Bottom line whatever the results always remember that they may not be 100% on the spot. To somehow "help" our results we also record the connected downstream/upstream values each modem/router is able to get into our charts (reboot the modem/router 6 times to get the average upstream/downstream value).

    The rest of our testing methodology involves testing the wireless capabilities of the modem/router at hand and thus it's the exact same we use when testing standalone routers. So once again we will be using the networking benchmark by Passmark (v.8), the QCheck by Ixia and ATTO 2.47 (since April 2015) to test such devices the same exact way we test Powerline adapters and Modem/Routers. Since we need to test new features and specifications all routers are benchmarked with their highest available wireless standard/band (5GHz in this case). Our systems are outfitted with Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB PCIe SSDs, AC1200 USB adapters (we expect new AC1900 ones soon) and CAT7 cables and are placed 15m away from the router with 3 concrete walls between them while each test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average scores are recorded into our charts. Both systems have Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 installed with all the updates until the 2nd of November 2016.

    We’ve received several requests by some of you to also measure power consumption when testing modem/routers and although differences are not that great between similar models we decided to do so (average power consumption during tests is placed in our charts).

 

TEST RESULTS

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   The Nighthawk X4S D7800 may not have broken all our performance records but in terms of WiFi performance it’s certainly the fastest ADSL/VDSL modem/router to pass from our lab to date. It didn’t do as well in our ADSL connection tests but these tests are never 100% accurate (they could come really close to 100% if only we could test every single modem/router each time we do one such review something which is really not possible) and so we never put too much weight on them. WiFi and wired performance along with available features is what we check whenever we test a modem/router and as clearly seen in our charts and web interface screenshots the Nighthawk X4S D7800 has nothing to fear from even from the more advanced AC3200 compatible routers. Unfortunately once again the graphic heavy GUI of the web interface requires sometime to load but thanks to the specifications of the D7800 it’s not as frequent as with let’s say the D6300. Also It did come to my attention that some users report low USB 3.0 performance with the D7800 but after doing some quick Crystal Disk Mark tests we recorded sequential read and write speeds of over 60MB/s and although I admit this number could be higher it’s not really what I’d call bad for a modem/router (we may add USB performance charts in our results in the near future).

   With a current attached price tag set at no less than USD371.85 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and at 213Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) the Nighthawk X4S D7800 by Netgear is certainly not the lowest-cost modem/router in the market today. Honestly however although pricing in the USA is quite high and somewhat unexpected inside the EU the D7800 is priced very nicely especially if you take into account its wireless performance and available features. Long story short although not perfect the Nighthawk X4S D7800 is the best ADSL/VDSL modem/router in our charts and since it comes with an abundance of features and is also priced right (inside the EU that is) it gets our Platinum Award.

PROS

- Very Good Build Quality
- Design
- Wireless Performance (Fastest Modem/Router In Our Charts)
- AC2600 (Concurrent 802.11n & 802.11ac Bands)
- User Friendly Web Interface
- Features
- Technologies Used (Beamforming / MU-MIMO / TurboQAM)
- Windows, MAC, Android & iOS App
- 4 Auto-Sensing Gigabit Ethernet Ports / WAN Port
- 2 USB 3.0 Ports & eSATA Port
- LED On/Off Switch
- Price (EU)

 

CONS

- Price (USA)