Netgear Orbi WiFi 6

Netgear brings Wi-Fi 6 to its Orbi mesh range – at a price £710 FROM Netgear, netgear.co.uk FEATURES WiFi 6, tri-band with 1x 2.4GHz and 2x 5GHz, beamforming for 2.4GHz/5GHz bands, 2.5Gbps WAN port/4x Gigabit Ethernet (router), 4x Gigabit Ethernet (satellite)

- CLIFF JOSEPH

Netgear was one of the first manufacturers to release routers that use the new 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard, aka Wi-Fi 6. And it has now brought that state-of-the-art Wi-Fi technology to its range of mesh networking systems with the new Orbi WiFi 6.

The technical specifications for this top-of-the-range Orbi system are seriously impressive, with tri-band Wi-Fi that uses 2.4GHz and two separate 5GHz bands that provide a maximum speed of 6Gbps – twice the speed of previous Orbi systems that use 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

The primary router connects to your existing modem or router in order to use its internet connection, and uses a special high-speed Ethernet port capable of 2.5Gbps speeds. It also has four additional Gigabit Ethernet ports for any wired connections, as does the secondary ‘satellite’ unit that you can place in another room in order to extend the range and reliability of your Wi-Fi network.

That top-of-the-range performance comes with a top-of-the-range price, though, starting at £710 for this two-piece kit, which is suitable for homes of up to 465sq m.

That makes it one of the most expensive mesh systems we’ve seen – and there’s also a three-piece kit that includes an additional satellite for larger homes up to 700sq m, which weighs in at a hefty £970.

Top speeds

The Orbi WiFi 6 doesn’t disappoint on performance, though. Speeds didn’t vary too much with the primary router located in the same room as our normal router, with both routers recording speeds of 58.5Mbps.