Netgear Nighthawk X8 Wi-Fi Router With Active Antennas Launched at Rs. 27,000

Netgear Inc, a US-based global networking company, on Wednesday launched the Nighthawk X8 Wi-Fi router in India. The company claims the router to be the industry's first to feature 'Active Antennas' to increase wireless range. It is set to hit shelves starting next month, priced at Rs. 27,000.

The Nighthawk X8 AC5300 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R8500) as mentioned by the firm delivers combined Wi-Fi speed of up to 5.3Gbps (1000Mbps + 2166Mbps + 2166Mbps). The quad-stream, tri-band router is said to come powered by a 1.4GHz dual core processor and support six Gigabit Ethernet ports. Two of the six ports can be "aggregated to double the gigabit connection to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device," adds Netgear.

The router features Smart Connect functionality that automatically segments "slower and faster devices into the most appropriate Wi-Fi band." Users can also segment traffic based on devices or application. It recognises each application and the device it is running on to monitor their network traffic accordingly using the Dynamic QoS feature. The company says the Nighthawk X8 includes a total of eight antennas, which include four internal and four patent-pending external Active Antennas. The role of Active Antennas is to amplify the Wi-Fi signal within the external antenna for long-range connectivity.

"Nighthawk X8 is the next wave in Wi-Fi and is for people who crave the absolute best networking experience possible today. Nighthawk X8 AC5300 Wi-Fi helps provide sufficient bandwidth for the increasing number of devices in the home and cutting-edge Wave 2 AC provides the best Wifi performance" said Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director, India & SAARC, and Netgear during the launch.