extender

Netgear WN3000RP Wi-Fi Range Extender review

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A photo of the Netgear WN3000RP Wifi Range Extender plugged into a wall socket

Today, I’m reviewing Netgear’s WN3000RP Wifi range extender (sponsored link) – a plug-in device to improve your home Wi-Fi network’s range.

You may be thinking, ‘wait a minute, you only reviewed a Netgear range extender a few weeks ago!‘. And you would be right. I was sent a Nighthawk EX7000 Wi-Fi range extender to review, but unfortunately I had to send it back to the PR company after I’d written the blog post.

I still needed a Wi-Fi range extender though, as my BT Home Hub 4 can’t reach the whole house. The WN3000RP model had some reasonable user reviews on Amazon, met my needs and was reasonably affordable, and so I put it on my Christmas list. Santa, or rather my Dad, obliged and so I’ve been using it since Christmas Day.

It’s a much smaller than the Nighthawk and simply plugs directly into a plug socket with no further assembly required. As it’s equipped with Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), configuring it is dead simple – turn it on, press the WPS button, press the WPS button on your router, and then wait a minute or two. A new Wi-Fi network will appear with ‘_EXT’ appended to it and it’ll use the same WPA security key (password) as your router.

That’s probably all most people will need to do, but a few configuration options are available using a web-based control panel. There’s also a port for a network cable to connect a device which lacks its own Wi-Fi connection, although you’ll need to provide your own cable.

The Nighthawk I reviewed in November was a premium model with lots of additional features, such as extra network ports, a USB port for a hard driver or printer and faster connections. This is a much simpler model without the bells and whistles, but it does the basic job well. It has certainly alleviated our wifi signal issues and seems to perform as well as we need it to.

If you’re looking for a simple solution to extend your Wi-Fi router’s reach, at £27 from Amazon, you can’t go wrong with the Netgear WN3000RP. It’s a fifth of the cost of the £140 Nighthawk EX7000 (although Amazon had it for £100 before Christmas) which offers extra features and performance, at a price.

Netgear Nighthawk EX7000 review

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A photo of the Netgear Nighthawk EX7000

Since we moved into our new house, we’ve had a few wifi issues, so I was pleased to be contacted by Netgear to review their Nighthawk EX7000 wifi range extender.

Our house was built over 100 years ago, with thick stone and brick walls. Whilst our router (a BT Home Hub 4) is in the centre of the house, the signal is very weak in places – especially the kitchen at the far end of the house. So a repeater, like this one, will allow us to extend the range of the Wi-Fi signal.

Setting up

In the box, there’s the extender itself, a stand (so that the router stands up vertically), three detachable aerials, an AC adaptor and a quick-start guide.

The Nighthawk EX7000 supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). Fortunately, so does my router, so I just had to press a button on each device to configure the connection. Once set up, two new Wi-Fi networks appeared – a 2.4 GHz one, and a 5 GHz one – each following the same naming convention as my existing router. They even used the same Wi-Fi password.

Improved signal

Once I’d configured my iPhone to connect to the extender, rather than directly to the router, I found the signal much improved. At the extremities of the house, it dropped to two out of three bars, but this is significantly better than before where it’d lose connection altogether. It now means that everywhere in the house has a reasonable signal, which is a big improvement.

Extra features

The Nighthawk EX7000 isn’t just a Wi-Fi extender, however. On the back of the extender are five gigabit Ethernet sockets, so you can attach any devices without their own wireless connection using a cable. This will be great for my Raspberry Pi, for which I haven’t bought a wifi adaptor, but I’ve also plugged my Mac in as well. So far, the connection seems more stable than before although I’ve yet to play World of Warcraft on it – that will be its biggest test.

At the front, there’s a USB 3.0 port (type A). This can be used for sharing either a printer, or a USB storage device. As my printer is a multi-function device, I’ve kept it connected to my computer (although it is shared with Christine’s laptop using Bonjour anyway). Instead, I’ve plugged in a USB hard drive, and its contents are shared across the network using DLNA so that smart TVs and similar devices can access it.

FastLane

By default, the EX7000 uses both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands simultaneously, but you can enable ‘FastLane’ mode to increase speed. I turned this on, so that it uses a 5 GHz connection to the router but a 2.4 GHz to my connected devices. As only my iPad and iPhone support 5 GHz, I decided that it would be best to use 2.4 GHz.

All in all, the Netgear Nighthawk EX7000 is a very powerful device that fills several roles. It can extend your wireless signal, but it can also share a printer, files on an external device, and connect devices without a wireless capability of their own. This explains the £130 recommended retail price, as it’s a premium product, although Amazon sell it for around £100 at present. There are cheaper devices out there that can do one or two of these things, but if you want a powerful, fast Wi-Fi extender that combines several features in one box, then I can recommend the Nighthawk EX7000.

Update (January 2025): This model is no longer on sale.