The secondary node was placed at the opposite end of the adjacent bedroom, while the third was positioned in the living room below. I tested this in my own home, with the primary Orbi unit located in my study at the front of the house. So it all comes down to real-world performance. However, the RBK352’s rating of 1,200Mbits/sec is pretty speedy: theoretically, that’s fast enough to download a full gigabyte of data in under seven seconds. Only having a single 5GHz radio is normally bad news for a mesh system. Still, while there are a few boxes left unticked, you get exactly the same feature set as on the premium RBK852, so it’s hard to feel too hard done by. You can’t filter sites by category, however, as you can on the TP-Link Deco X20. These could be added in a future firmware update, but for now, you’ll have to make do with the quite sophisticated website filtering feature, which lets you block specific keywords and domain names for specific clients according to a custom schedule. No USB sockets means no file or printer sharing and, as usual with Orbi systems, there’s no band-splitting option, so your 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks appear under a single combined SSID.įor some reason, Netgear also doesn’t currently offer its Circle parental controls on Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems. The $70 per year subscription feels a bit steep, considering TP-Link’s equivalent HomeCare service is free, but Netgear’s offering additionally includes Bitdefender Security software for all the clients in your household. As usual, integration with Alexa and the Google Assistant allows you to control the guest network and reboot the router with your voice, and you can enable Netgear’s Armor network security module too, which adds vulnerability scans and malicious site blocking. It also exposes a very familiar set of features, including Netgear’s distinctive inbound VPN service, which makes it easy to access your home servers and clients over the internet. That’s not a bad thing, as it’s quite clear and responsive. If you’ve ever used an Orbi system before, you’ll be right at home here, as whichever route you choose, the RBK352 presents the exact same interface as every other Orbi model. At any rate, it’s a process you’ll probably only go through once.įrom then on you can use either the smartphone app or the web portal to manage your mesh. There’s a clunky moment when you have to jump into your phone’s Wi-Fi settings to manually connect to the Orbi network then find your way back into the Orbi app to continue the setup process, but there’s not much Netgear can do about that. We used the Orbi Android app to set up the RBK352 system, and found the experience fairly foolproof. Image 4 of 6 Netgear Orbi RBK352 review: Setup and software features Since you’re only paying for a single unit, instead of two or three, there are huge cost savings to be enjoyed: the Honor Router 3 delivers the Wi-Fi 6 experience for just £50. In a medium-sized home, you might even find that a single Wi-Fi 6 router delivers the long-range performance you need. For example, the three-node BT Whole Home Wi-Fi system offers excellent performance and costs just £198 for a three-node pack. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) mesh systems won’t match the top speeds of Wi-Fi 6, but can still provide great performance for a much lower price. For £645, the Orbi RBK852 further ups the ante with 4x4 MU-MIMO, versus the 2x2 provision of the less expensive models. For £450 this matches the RBK352’s 1,200Mbits/sec 5GHz radio but adds a dedicated backhaul radio rated at double the speed. In that price range, you’re also looking at Netgear’s own Orbi RBK752. This packs a tri-band design with an ultrafast maximum speed of 4,800Mbits/sec, boosting performance but pushing the price up to around £460. If that doesn’t satisfy, you can move up to the Asus ZenWiFi AX. READ NEXT: Netgear Orbi Dual-Band (RKB13) review The hardware specification is very similar, too, although there are some differences in design and features, which I’ll discuss below. The Orbi’s most direct competitor is the TP-Link Deco X20, which comes as a three-node kit for £280 – around the same price as the Orbi RBK353 (the final digit indicates the number of satellite nodes provided in the box). If you want an affordable Wi-Fi 6 mesh, there aren’t a lot to choose from. Image 3 of 6 Netgear Orbi RBK352 review: Price and competition
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