Netgear Nighthawk AX12 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6 Router Delivers Breakneck Speeds And Star Wars Style
Wi-Fi 6 routers are still a bit of luxury in the networking market, and haven’t yet reached the saturation point of Wi-Fi 5 (aka 802.11ac), which has had years to propagate. With that being, Netgear has introduced a brand-new high-performance Wi-Fi 6 router that is aimed at streaming enthusiasts looking for enough bandwidth to satisfy an entire household worth of connected devices, and it’s called the Nighthawk Tri-Band AX12.
At its heart, the AX12 has a 64-bit 1.8GHz quad-core ARM processor running the show and is a 12-stream, Tri-band Wi-Fi router with combined wireless data transmission of 10.8Gbps (1.2Gbps + 4.8Gbps + 4.8Gbps). There are a total of four 2.4GHz streams and eight 5GHz streams available. We should mention that this is a standalone router, so you won’t find any mesh routing capabilities that seems to be growing in popularity in the networking sector.
On the wired front, the AX12 is equally impressive. It offers a Multi-Gig (2.5Gbps) port for internet connectivity and a total of five GbE ports to handle all of the wired traffic in your home.
Although looks really shouldn’t play much of a role in deciding what router to buy – unless you want to showcase it to blend in with your art deco design aesthetic – the AX12 has an interesting design. It seems to combine the aquatic sensibilities of a manta ray with the stark design of an Imperial shuttle.
Just looking at the specs, it seems as though the AX12 is absolute overkill for typical households, but for those that can use the added bandwidth and capacity (and are willing to lay down some serious cash), this just might be the ticket. Netgear says that the Nighthawk Tri-Band AX12 12-Stream AX1100 Wi-Fi Router (RAX200) – yes, that’s its full name, whoosh! – is currently available for pre-order with a price tag of $599.99.
