Closer Look

The minute I saw the Nighthawk M5 from NETGEAR in person, I had to dig out the older Nighthawk M2 to make sure it wasn't the same. Of course, knowing that the back was fully exposed would have made it easier, but I was also looking for any chassis changes owing to the more demanding 5G and WiFi 6 hardware on board. As with the previous mobile router offering from NETGEAR, it is quite tiny compared to just about any standalone home networking router for a balance of portability and performance. Weighing under 250 grams and ~10.5 cm long on each side, distinguishing the Nighthawk M5 from its predecessor is hard until you realize the Nighthawk M5 is slightly thicker at 21.5 mm. It's still easier to carry around than many phones and portable chargers. The top surface has a glossy finish, so it is a fingerprint magnet that needs wiping ever so often, and it has a black inset around the display itself. There is a NETGEAR logo up top, in addition to a tactile power button at the bottom and two touch-sensitive capacitive buttons—Home and Back—to the right of the 2.4" touch screen LCD panel.


A look at the side reveals a textured soft-touch rubber finish for better grip where you would naturally hold it. The side nearest the power button is where all the I/O is housed. NETGEAR includes two RF connectors on either end, a full-sized RJ45 LAN/WAN Ethernet port, and the now-expected Type C port in the middle. Gone is the Type A USB port from before for a storage device or charging another device, such as a smartphone. The Type C port, in addition to charging the internal battery, allows for a tethered connection to a PC, which is of course also possible with the Ethernet port, but takes a separate cable.


The back is exposed out of the box since the case panel is packaged separately. This allows for a closer look at the login credentials, including the default admin password and WiFi network details. Notice the nano SIM card slot a compatible, ideally 5G-ready SIM card will slot into. There is only one obvious way for the nano SIM card to slot in, which somewhat idiot-proofs the device. The provided 5040 mAh Li-ion battery also only fits in one way, and the NETGEAR logo faces the outside, with the +ve and -ve electrodes shown at the bottom.


Notches cut into the plastic body are where the back case panel clips into, which is also made of plastic given a similar soft-touch finish as the sides. There is a NETGEAR logo in the middle, and four raised feet lift the Nighthawk M5 off the resting surface ever so slightly.

Powering the Nighthawk M5 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem, which is a modem-RF system that allows for the combination of a vast majority of 5G mmWave and sub-6 GHz, standalone and non-standalone modes, TDD and FDD, spectrum sharing, LTE, and legacy modes (3G, 2G). The exact channels are region-dependent, but support is satisfactory. The US model, for instance, has NETGEAR advertising a maximum throughput of 1800 Mbps over WiFi 6 split across 1200 Mbps on the 5 GHz band and 600 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band. This makes it similar in practice to many standalone WiFi routers, where throughput is the sum of the capabilities of all individual channels. 4x4 MIMO antennas are onboard as well, and specific battery and performance modes to tune antenna strength, where NETGEAR claims a battery life of up to 13 hours of use under the best-case scenario, no doubt. Of course, this all depends on whether your mobile network provider supports everything, and your network plan is the biggest equalizer even if every 5G and LTE band is supported. The RF connector covers are easily removed for when you do get external antennas, such as these, but again, it is not a first-party offering.