Let me start off by saying that the NETGEAR Orbi RBK860 series is an incremental update to the previous gen Orbi RBK850 series which is still available for purchase and costs slightly less—the RBK853 goes for $1000 or slightly less in the US and £900-950 (inc. VAT) in the UK. Anyone who already has the RBK850 series doesn't need to shell out the cash for the RBK860 series and may want to save for the WiFi 6E Orbi RBKE960 series instead if you are a fan of the NETGEAR experience. The pricing disparity between the US and other regions is also not as obnoxious with the older gen too, so I am not sure why NETGEAR decided to do a 1:1 conversion this time round. All it does is make me tell you to look at last year's model instead! But those in the US or in regions where the newer, shinier RBK863 (or equivalent SKU) is more reasonably priced, as well as being in the market for a new WiFi 6 mesh system may want to consider the slight increase in cost to get the latest version given it does have consistently better performance—albeit slightly—over last gen and is likely to be even better than the competition should you be willing to partake in a wired backhaul configuration for the router and satellites.

You also now get an year's subscription to NETGEAR Armor that also contributes to the price hike so those who feel this is a useful security investment will also be tempted to go with the newer systems. Then there's the 10 Gbps WAN port on the router now over the 2.5 Gbps before, and admittedly both of these reasons are not going to solely influence most users. I would still like to know what NETGEAR's intention was in adding WAN link aggregation here though since it does feel completely useless if it indeed maxes out at 2.5 Gbps itself as the paperwork suggests. That one year of "free" Armor is also a reminder of how there are many neat features available here but locked behind a paywall / subscription model. Some of these were previously included natively with the now-defunct desktop-based control panel, although I will point out that the user experience there was less than convenient whereas the new Orbi app is certainly my favorite of any I've tested in terms of being easy to set up, use, and customize. You also still have a traditional browser-based admin panel for further customization including features that most users will never even be aware of, let alone actually try out. The Orbi series is in that weird position now where it costs a lot, asks for more to make full use of it, but does back it up with excellent, reliable performance—at least in my testing over the last few years, given I personally use the Orbi family for my networking needs.

Another thing to note here is the various SKUs sold around the world now seem to be the same when it comes to actual performance on the three bands used here. As such, my results are going to be representative of yours no matter where you are based. I don't really have much to complain about on the performance side of things clearly, especially since NETGEAR did address my big issue with the 2.4 GHz performance on previous Orbi models. The average customer willing to fork out $1100 for a WiFi system is more likely to have a vast plethora of IoT devices that rely on the 2.4 GHz band so this is more important than just for your internet browsing needs. As it stands, the RBR960 router alone is the best performing unit tested to date with the extra satellites mostly helping with giving you an actual long range capability and good performance over said range. This is good, given the four 1 Gb Ethernet ports on the router and satellite units feel almost like an afterthought in this day of multi-gigabit LAN ports being readily available.

WiFi-6E will also be a consideration now, with people perhaps wanting a more future-proof option that has the newer 6 GHz band. Those products are even more expensive, however, and there are even fewer clients out there. WiFi 6 alone took so long to get here that I don't see this being a major drawback yet. I would have liked to see a price cut after the newer-generation products showed up, which NETGEAR has not done. At the same time, we are seeing companies advertise WiFi 7 products, to where I can only suggest you wait rather than be an early adopter. There will be multiple WiFi 6E product reviews coming up on TechPowerUp which should help clarify the situation further. But for now I can tell you that performance and signal strength will not be holding you back with the NETGEAR Orbi RBK863S.