From this interface, you get some more advanced features, including port forwarding controls. This router, however, doesn’t support BT IGMP proxying at the moment, which means that if you have BT TV through a YouView box, you won’t be able to watch streamed channels, such as BT Sport. It’s strange, as this feature is available on the older Wi-Fi 5 Orbi systems and even the newer Nighthawk routers. The base station included the router, so we tried to connect this directly to the NBN with iiNet, and it worked, sort of. Every day the internet connection would be dropping - the wifi seemed to be working fine, but the router connection to the internet continued to drop out.

Those connecting via 2.4GHz can expect about 150mbits at close range and half this level when further away. In my tests, that proved to be true, with the RBK752 managing decent throughputs of 442.92Mbps at close range, 319.54Mbps on the first floor, and 284.78Mbps on the first floor. That’s just a little way behind the RBK852, although the bigger system still has plenty of streams left for other clients, whereas I was maxing out the bandwidth of the RBK752. A close-up view of the router unit from the front and side. The units look incredibly good with the white and silver colour scheme. The separation gap lights up below the Orbi logo highlighting booting up and errors and then turns off when it’s in normal operation. In both business and home use, it probably comes down to if you are already invested in Netgear hardware and want to have a unified management solution. For those already using Netgear kit and its Insight management, the SXK30 is a good choice, but cheaper and faster options are available elsewhere for those that aren’t so invested.

Satellite Ports

As the baby of the Wi-Fi 6 range, the system runs a dual-band AX1800 network, which means that there’s no dedicated wireless network for communicating between satellites. Instead, clients and network communication needs to share the two networks. For many years I have had a very fast wireless home network, at the expense of convenience. With a lightning-fast router set up as an access point on each floor, I have gotten stable speeds, but with the disadvantage that I had to manually switch from one network to the other when moving from one floor to the next. Also, consider the fact that a well-functioning smart home is out of the question, with several smart products spread across different wireless networks. Netgear Orbi AX4200 has a large router and ditto node, but they have nice curves that are not annoying. Photo: Netgear You need mesh A NETGEAR limited 1-year hardware warranty is included with the NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System (RBK653), NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System (RBK753) and NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System (RBK853). Putting the router through my usual throughput tests, I first of all set up with the router downstairs and one satellite upstairs. In effect, this is the same set up as with the cheaper Orbi RBK352 system. Here, the Orbi did well. At close range, using a Wi-Fi 6 laptop, I got throughputs of 417.59Mbit/s. Moving to first floor, throughputs dropped to a decent 199.87; on the second floor, I got throughputs of 188.64Mbit/s. A good shot of the router and satellites straight out of the box. It’s hard to tell immediately which one is which, so Orbi have handily labelled the router for you to get you going.

Where this hardware has the edge over the larger and more expensive Netgear Orbi Pro WiFi 6 (SXK80) is in its smaller scale. If you’re looking for a decent spec mid-range mesh Wi-Fi kit, that comes with Wi-Fi 6 (AX) out of the box with an excellent range at around 7500 ft² (696 m²), awesome performance with tri-band connectivity, supports 75 concurrent connected devices, looks great on a shelf and just plain works with minimal configuration then the Orbi RBK763S should certainly make your shortlist. You can find a breakdown of the available LAN ports for each satellite of all three products below:The power connectors are included in a separate box. The adapters come with a US plug by default, but EU and UK adapters are also included indicating they will work with 110-volt and 240-volt mains wherever you are. This seemed better, but then at completely random times the Orbi wifi connections would drop. The base station was always okay, but the satellites kept dropping connections, so our zoom calls were interrupted, connections to online systems had to be restarted. There was no obvious reason, no change in traffic or movement of wireless devices, nothing we could see that was causing these drop outs. You can also set up a Guest Wi-Fi network that makes it secure for your guests to access the Internet using your connection. On its own, the RBR750 router was able to deliver 506.7Mbps at 15-feet to the Dell XPS 15 test system. This roughly tied the Linksys Velop AX4200 (507.7Mbps) and ahead of the Eero Pro 6 (436.1Mbps). None could touch the Netgear Orbi WiFi 6 RBK852 router, however, which moved 833.6Mbps. Even on the SXK800 and its 6,000mbits of potential bandwidth users can only grab the same bandwidth that the router of the Mini delivers if they can bond multiple 5GHz and 2.4GHz channels into a single connection. Most users will be connecting over a single data stream and be bound by the effective limits of the bandwidth each channel offers, even if they’re the only person connecting.

Rather than the RBK852’s array of eight antennas, the RBK752 units have six, reflecting the use of Qualcomm’s Networking Pro 800 Wi-Fi chip instead of the RBK852’s Networking Pro 1200, which offers more data streams. With MU-MIMO and beamforming, the router customizes the signal to match the needs of the connected devices, but it can’t run ultra-wide 160MHz data channels. The original Orbi WiFi 6 product was quite chunky, but the RBK353 is much smaller. In the box, you get one router and two satellites, although there’s a cheaper version with two satellites (the RBK352). Each device is a small box, with rounded edges (178 x 145 x 61mm). They’re easy enough to position where you want them.Another view of the bottom and top of the router unit. Nothing major to note here other than ventilation on the top and bottom which should allow plenty of ventilation for passive cooling as no fans are present in the units. If you’re looking for a decent spec mid-range mesh Wi-Fi kit, that comes with Wi-Fi 6 (AX) out of the box with an excellent range at around 6000 ft² (557 m²), awesome performance with tri-band connectivity, supports 40+ connected devices, looks great on a shelf and just plain works with minimal configuration then the Orbi RBK753 should certainly make your shortlist. As with all Orbi products, the RBK752 is set up and configured using the Orbi app. This walks you through placing the router and satellite and configuring a secure wireless network. As with practically all mesh systems, the RBK752 presents the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks under the same names, pushing clients to connect to the best network based on range, performance and features.