The Netgear Nighthawk RS600 is one of the first wave of WiFi 7 home routers on the market. While the RS600 is technically marketed as the mid-tier option in Netgear’s lineup, it is more than capable at delivering fast wireless internet across your home.

For Apple users, the relevance of WiFi 7 has come to the fore with the launch of the iPhone 16, which are the first Apple devices to tout WiFi 7 support. In this review, we’ll test out the Netgear RS600 speeds on WiFi 7 using the iPhone 16 Plus …

The fit and finish of the router is very high, with solid build quality that is proportionate to its price point. The best performing routers will typically feature an external arrangement of spiky antennae to eke out the most speed and range possible. The RS600 opts to take aesthetics into account, housing everything inside a subtle hexagonal shape. This results in a practical-but-appealing black obelisk design, that will fit well into most people’s home spaces. I think these visual points matter as most people are forced to position their routers in a visible position in a room, like on a shelf or similar.

The RS600 housing is pretty compact too, measuring about 30 centimetres tall and 15 centimetres wide. It takes up the same amount of space as a large hardback book, which allowed me to hide it away from view entirely in a corner media cabinet. This is significantly smaller in dimensions than some other WiFi 7 capable routers, like the beast that is the Asus BE98, whose footprint is almost double the size thanks to its larger base, plus a tangle of outwardly-exposed antennas. In contrast, the RS600 fits well into my networking shelf, and is effectively silent in operation, so I wouldn’t know it’s there.