Very glad to see the internal boxes cardboard with minimal plastic use inside wrapping the router and satellites inside. Keep these in the box to use them again in the future and not fill up the landfill. For most people, the Orbi system will be configured in wireless mode, with the router and satellites communicating via Wi-Fi 6. Testing with a 2×2 Wi-Fi 6 card in a Windows computer, the Orbi RBK752 should technically give similar performance to the RBK852, maximising the full bandwidth available on the 5GHz channel. That’s very similar performance, as you can see from the graph, to the Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 System.

Network speed test (iPerf3) using a Lenovo Legion 5 laptop with an Intel AX210 WiFi 6 (AX) card installed connected to a workstation (Host) on 10Gbps Ethernet via a switch. 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. Orbi has added a whole list of features to the RBK753 that you might find useful. We’ve compiled a list of them for you:

What’s in the Box

The web interface might be the best choice, as we had some issues with Insight when we tried to install the router as an Access Point and not a router, which is an option. It’s via the web interface that you get access to less frequently used features, too, such as port forwarding. For the most part, however, you shouldn’t need to roam beyond the Orbi app. For example, it is not always an advantage to send at full power, if the nodes are too close to each other and create interference. But relax, it usually works just fine if you never touch these settings. Measured from the adjacent room to the node, the Orbi AX4200 gave a wireless speed of around 600 Mbit/s. Orbi in use You get slightly fewer ports on this system than with its bigger brother. On the router, you get a single Gigabit Ethernet WAN port, rather than the 2.5Gb port on the bigger system. This router can still cope with the fastest internet connections available in the UK today, and you can use port aggregation with the first Gigabit Ethernet port to support internet speeds of up to 2Gbps. The satellite(s) on the right features a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports which can be used to connect wired devices or a switch for additional connectivity. Orbi RBK753: Setup and Configuration

You can also set up a Guest Wi-Fi network that makes it secure for your guests to access the Internet using your connection. Thanks to the third satellite, I could even get reception in my kitchen, which usually suffers. Here, I got throughputs of 174.25Mbit/s. For the price, the new Orbi RBK853 is a decent performer. Netgear Orbi WiFi 6 Dual-band Mesh System (RBK353) Conclusion

Where single point connection speed is paramount, then the SXK30 probably isn’t the best choice, but then it could easily be argued that wireless networking overall isn’t ideal for this job. The RBK853 does come with twice the amount on Ethernet ports on its routers when compared to the RBK653 and RBK753.

Like its bigger brother, the Mini uses the Netgear Insight mobile application for configuration and not the Netgear Orbi tool that was designed for older hardware. Tri-band connectivity – utilising a single 2.4GHz and 5GHz band for WiFi devices to connect to the internet, and a dedicated 5GHz WiFi link for faster data connections between Orbi Router and Orbi Satellite. When it came to sending a signal up a floor to a bedroom, the Orbi RBR752 (281.0Mbps) was well behind the RBR852 (670.1Mbps). The Linksys Velop AX4200 and Eero Pro 6 were in a virtual tie at 437.5Mbps and 430.9Mbps of throughput. 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.It’s great to also have some decent performance options in the web-based configuration options too. More so than TP-Link’s Deco X50 I reviewed recently, though it’s a gold award winner. Overall, the performance of the SXK30 isn't wonderful when compared with other WiFi 6 hardware we've tested, but it's reliable and that might be more important to some. Final verdict 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. The units are positioned in what we’d call a typical home layout with one downstairs acting as the router and a second unit upstairs in a central location. We believe this is the most typical use case for a mesh networking product like this.

The competition has become a lot tougher, too. If you don’t want the hassle of a mesh system and don’t have any particular dead spots to deal with, then the Netgear Nighthawk RAX200 is faster, has a tri-band Wi-Fi 6 network for devices and all the ports that you could want.Regardless of whether you pay for support, Netgear has a wide array of do-it-yourself options online. They range from how-to videos and FAQs to optimization and troubleshooting tips. Netgear Orbi RBK752 review: Verdict 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. 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. There are different constellations of the Orbi AX4200, where I received the RBK752 for review. It consists of a main router and a node. There is also a larger system with two nodes, under the name RBK753, and you can also buy additional nodes. This mesh system is more powerful than the Nighthawk AX1800 system, and has six antennas inside each box – compared to four in the Nighthawk.