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That being said, fair like the Asus RT-AX58U ( another ‘ low-cost ’ AX3000 router ), the Netgear RAX40 uses OFDMA and it supports 1024-QAM equally well as the 160MHZ channel bandwidth to importantly improve the radio operation of your compatible clients and to ensure a greater WiFi coverage ( than with the former gen ) – there ’ second besides support for Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant. note : I ran some tests anterior to this review to confirm some issues that I saw with the Asus RT-AX58U and things seemed to be in order when connected to an AX customer ( for the most part ), but I will besides try to check for some concealed jitter issues.
Design
The Netgear Nighthawk RAX200, the RAX120 and the RAX80, all look the lapp and have those farcical Star Wars embark shape that gives the depression that the router may fly off when you ’ re not paying attention, but the Netgear RAX40 had its wings clipped, indeed, rather of the large upwards-pointing sides, there are just two regular looking antenna. This direction, it does look more like a traditional router, but the rest of the case is still identical similar to the other WiFi 6 devices from the series, featuring those two credit card wrapping that start from the side and get close together towards the middle, leaving space for the LEDs and buttons. still on the exceed, but towards the rear side, Netgear added lots of cut-out areas which not alone look actually commodity, but besides help a lot with the internal temperature. Besides for the middle which is glossy, the rest of the case is matte bootleg which is quite soft to the contact ( it ’ s besides a fingerprints magnet ). 
subjectively public speaking, I do consider that the Netgear RAX40 has a better blueprint than the Asus RT-AX58U, but the latter has the advantage of being a lot more compress and that ’ s no storm considering that Netgear has always been about large cases ( tied its Orbi is among the largest wireless local area network systems on the market ). so, at its 13.38 adam 8.11 ten 2.24 inches, it ’ sulfur going to take some meaning sum of space from your desk, but the smasher of the traditional-looking routers is that most can be mounted on the wall and sol does the RAX40. The mounting holes can be found on the rear side positioned somewhere within the bunch of ventilation cut-outs which cover the bottom side about wholly. besides on the buttocks, there is an information label along with four silicone feet that have the role of keeping the router in place in subject you decide that it should stay on a flat open ( the RAX40 weighs 1.32 pound ).
The top and bottom breathing cut-outs are a very welcome summation and I saw that Netgear has included a vent wicket on the rear side as well ( above the ports ), but is it enough for a relatively high gear performing router ? The combination between a large case and the release cut-outs seems to have been a successful one, so indeed, the router will not overheat, but it will become strong on the clear, near the ports area. Just like with the Asus RT-AX58U, I was taken by surprise by the non-removable antenna and I know that most of you don ’ thymine in truth care and would not have upgraded them anyhow, but there is a sealed demographic that may have and again, this is not a cheap device by any means, despite being considered low-cost and such an option would have been nice to have ( well, the silver trace is that the antennas are very easy to move and have a large adjustability angle ). 
Like I said before, you get the LEDs in the middle of the event positioned in a vertical fashion, therefore, from the clear, there ’ s the Power LED ( if it ’ mho flashing green, then either the firmware is upgrading or the Reset clitoris has been pressed ), the Internet LED, the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz LEDs, four LEDs, one for each LAN interface ( green indicates that the connection has been made at 1Gbps and amber shows that the connection has been made at 100 MBps ) and a USB 3.0 port ( if it flashes green, then a USB device is trying to connect ). Further down there are a pair of buttons, one for turning on or off the WiFi ( weight-lift and hold it for two seconds ) and the other for enabling the WPS pair process. Moving to the rear side of the router, we find a Power On/Off button, a 12V Power port, a WAN Gigabit port, four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, a USB 3.0 port, a recess Reset button ( bid and hold it for at least 10 seconds in decree to return the device to factory default option settings ) and a LED On/Off switch. 
note : It ’ south worth mentioning that Netgear decided to extend the buttocks formative, creating some screen of tray underneath the ports and, while it looks cool, I got myself a manicure trying to remove some Ethernet cables.
Internal Hardware
To open up the router, detach the four silicone feet to expose the four screws and, after removing them ( the screws have a headliner head, but you can use a small flat screwdriver ), make certain to besides remove the screw near the ports from the raise side of the router – be mindful that doing so can void your guarantee. then, gently detach the acme partially and you ’ ll be greeted by the PCB which has two heatsinks connected by spring-operated bolts ; I left them like that for now and alternatively I detached the antenna and turned the board top down. 
here, I saw the 256MB of memory from MXIC ( Macronix a182209 MX30LF2G18AC-TI ) and I could besides easily remove the jump bolts that kept the hotness sinks, frankincense exposing the chips from the early side : first, there ’ s the Intel AnyWAN GRX350 CPE net processor ( S8503N15 SLMD9 ), followed by 512 MB of RAM ( from Samsung ), american samoa well as a LV132A quadruple positive-NAND gate, a pair of GS5014R LF 1851M 10/100/1000 Base–T dual port magnetics modules ( LAN ) and a 10/100/1000 Base–T magnetics module ( WAN ). As for the wireless performance, the Netgear AX3000 uses an Intel WAV654 ( S8514L96 SLMRS ) bit ( b/g/n+ax ) 2×2:2 for the 2.4GHz dance band ( along with the Skyworks SKY85331-11 front-end faculty ) and the Intel WAV654 chip ( a/n/ac/ax ) 2×2:2 for the 5GHz radio band ( along with the Skyworks SKY85743:31 front-end module ). 
note : The Netgear Nighthawk AX4 is advertised as being an AX3000-class router which means that it features a utmost theoretical data transfer rate of 2,400 Mbps on the 5GHz band and a maximum theoretical data transmit pace of 600 Mbps on the 2.4GHz radio band.
Features and Performance
The current genesis of AX wireless routers ( specially, the ‘ budget ’ segment ) is not going to deliver everything that the new WiFi standard can offer, but the RAX40 does support a few crucial ones, such as the well praised OFDMA ( short from Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access ) and it ’ s a feature that supports a low datum rate transmission simultaneously from multiple node devices – the channel gets divided into multiple sub-channels ( sub-carriers ) which are shared by up to 30 devices at the like time, limiting the overhead and ensuring that the bandwidth is not wasted ( OFDMA works both up and downstream ). You ’ re still going to need compatible clients to be able to take advantage of such a feature and that ’ s not only available for OFDMA, but pretty much the entire laid of newly implemented technologies, such as 1024 QAM, 160MHz and yes, even MU-MIMO is hush a region of the more ostentatious group. 
The 1024 QAM is basically trying to ensure a 25 % data rate increase, while the 160MHz is not in truth that new ( well, neither is the 1024 QAM, since I already saw it with the honest-to-god Linksys WRT3200ACM which has gotten curiously relevant these days ), but it can besides ensure a army for the liberation of rwanda wider bandwidth and, hopefully, double the link rate. When I tested the Asus RT-AX58U, I did not saw a desirable implementation of this feature and, as you ’ ll learn below, neither did Netgear with its ‘ budget-friendly ’ Nighthawk AX3000. MU-MIMO is calm present and, as common, it has the function to ensure that multiple clients are served at the like clock ( and not having to compete for the bandwidth ) and I have to besides mention the BeamForming which has the function of focusing the signal towards your compatible clients, so you get a better, more stable throughput and less intervention. As you can see, the keyword is compatibility and the WiFi 6 is at a serious disadvantage right now since the market is reasonably much evacuate of 802.11ax radio adapters.
Netgear Nighthawk RAX40
–
7.3
DESIGN
8.5/10
EASE OF USE
5.0/10
CONFIGURABILITY
8.5/10
AFFORDABILITY
8.5/10
WIFI PERFORMANCE
6.0/10
Pros
- Cool design
- OFDMA, 160MHz and 1024-QAM
- Excellent wireless performance when everything is compatible
- More affordable than some of its competitors
Cons
- The antennas can’t be removed
- Some compatibility issues with Asus PCE-AC88 and PCE-AC68
- Some mild stability issues on the 160MHz
- Slow booting time and any configuration changes take a long time to apply
Mark is a graduate in Computer Science, having gathered valuable experience over the years working in IT as a programmer. Mark is besides the main technical school writer for MBReviews.com, covering not merely his passion, the network devices, but besides other cool electronic gadgets that you may find utilitarian for your every day biography.
