Netgear's Nighthawk RAXE500 was one of the best Wi-Fi routers of 2021, offering blazing Wi-Fi 6E speeds, but it was also one of the most expensive, with a list price of $599 [The new Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300, just announced at CES 2002, has nearly the same specs (and Death Star fighter-like spaceship looks) as its big brother, but is more affordable at $399 That's still quite expensive for a home Wi-Fi router, but you get a lot for your money

Both of these routers use three Wi-Fi frequency bands instead of two: the regular 24 GHz band, the 5 GHz band, and the newly available 6 GHz band This is why the RAXE500 and RAXE300 support Wi-Fi 6e rather than Wi-Fi 6 (technically speaking, both 6 and 6e are classified as IEEE 80211ax specifications) [This means that when the Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 connects to a Wi-Fi 6e capable device (such as a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra smartphone), the maximum throughput can be as high as 78Gbps [This assumes that a Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 is connected to a single wireless device in the home using all six antennas, two on the 6 GHz band, four on the 5 GHz band, and two on the 24 GHz band, for a total of eight channels simultaneously

The actual scenario is of course a bit more tricky, given the sheer number of devices connected to the average home today However, the RAXE300 remains extremely fast It can also cover up to 2,500 square feet, according to Netgear If you want to connect several devices via Ethernet, the RAXE300 has five ports with Gigabit speeds and a 25 Gigabit port for a modem

Like Netgear's other high-end routers, you can interact with the RAXE300 via the Nighthawk mobile app, but you can also set up and manage the router the old-fashioned way via the Ethernet port

Optional services include Netgear Smart Parental Controls and Netgear Armor Security, both of which offer a free trial period before you start paying

Netgear's Nighthawk RAXE300 is expected to be available by the end of March, but Netgear says it could be available sooner