Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Buyer beware! If you have lots of 2.4GHz devices, many will not connect. You can search for "netgear 8500 2.4GHz problem" and see for yourself. These problems have been reported to Netgear for almost the last year and they still do not have a solution. That is unacceptable for a $350 router. OTOH, the 5GHz channels work great. Fantastic range and performance. Plus the 6 ethernet ports let me get rid of a switch I was using before. So if you only have 5GHz devices, I'd give it 4 stars. Less bulky design and it might get a 5. The bad news is that I had to keep my old router to support some of the devices that use 2.4GHz.