Netgear R6230 Affordable Router Review

Netgear R6230 Design

A black dot on your desk with blinking lights. That’s the R6230. It’s tiny but shiny. It will take up very little space on your shelf or desk and look pretty doing it. You have the usual blinking LEDs for LAN port, a USB LED, and a WPS LED. Turn it around and we have 4 LAN ports and a WAN port. The LAN ports are 1GB by the way and not 10/100. There is only one USB 2.0 port but it’s more than suitable for printer sharing. Connecting a USB hard drive might be a little laggy. The antennas are adjustable but not removable. The pre-programmed SSID and network key printed on the back label is a nice touch and means you can literally plug it in, turn it on, and connect with no setup.

Features

You won’t find advanced features like MU-MIMO, Beamforming, and SmartConnect on the Netgear R6230 but you will find some features that are somewhat surprising for a wireless router in this price range. Features like VPN support, Advanced QoS, and Parental Controls allow you to control the website access of certain users and devices. This is a 1200Mbps dual-band wireless router. That means the bandwidth of the two bands adds up to the total figure of 1200Mbps.

The 2.4GHz band provides 300Mbps and the 5GHz band provides the other 900Mbps. The router can handle up to 20 connections but it’s probably best to keep it well under this number for the sake of a more enjoyable experience. The router also provides the basics like Guest WiFi, Firewall, and WPA2 security.

Netgear R6230 Performance

The R6230 scores were high in terms of usability which is a plus for beginning owners. In performance tests, it scored on par with routers such as the ASUS RT-AC68U and TP-Link Archer C7 in terms of throughput and 2.4GHZ short distance. Fairly impressive for an affordable router. Unfortunately, it fell well behind the pack in long-distance throughput. On the plus side, the Netgear R6230 was among the leaders in 5GHz throughput. Right up there with the ASUS RT-AC88U AC3100. Very impressive!

Nighthawk App

Netgear likes to claim how easy the Nighthawk app is to use despite its reputation for being buggy and somewhat troublesome. It might be best to stick with the web interface by plugging a computer into the router and typing in http://www.routerlogin.net into your favorite web browser. The beauty of this router is no complex setup is necessary because the router comes preset with an SSID and passphrase. Of course, if you are concerned about security (and you should be!) you can use these credentials for your initial connection and go in and change them to something more secure.

Netgear R6230 – Video

Conclusion

Hey, if you want to surf the web, watch movies, or play a game or two without going crazy with multiple connections this is a great device. Remember the 1200MHz speed doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any slower than a 3200MHz router it just sends out fewer radio broadcasts (Also known as spatial streams) and is capable of fewer connections at once. If you are a single person or couple why blow the money for a nice night on the town on extra networking hardware you don’t need?

In conclusion, the Netgear R6230 is a great router for people who are looking for an affordable option that has good features. It is perfect for small to medium-sized homes, and it is easy to set up and use. I would definitely recommend this router to anyone who is looking for a good quality, affordable option.

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