I've had a R6120 for a little bit over a year and it has performed satisfactory for home working. As there have been issues with the wi-fi coverage in the house, I've decided to buy an extender and EX7700 looked like a nice alternative.
First I've opted for a second hand device but following problems during installation and subsequent connection issues it was returned. Now I have a brand new EX7700 but unfortunately issues still occur, e.g.:
1. Sometimes when I try to connect my office Surface to the wi-fi I receive an error message that it cannot connect to this network. Absolutely at random;
2. My wife's mobile cannot connect to the wi-fi network most of the time;
3. My mobile also loses the connection to the wi-fi from time to time or is connected but there is no internet 😞
4. Network speed at the extender is around 2 times slower than at the router (both wi-fi);
My network setup at home is:
ISP modem -> Netgear Switch to connect to the LAN sockets in the rooms -> Netgear R6120 for wi-fi on the second floor and now a EX7700 on the ground floor.
As a whole the Network equipment performs almost satisfactory - the speed of the wi-fi at the ISP modem is around 200Mbps and at the wi-fi router around 60 Mbps. However, this has been OK for home office and occasional streaming but now with the latest issues with the extender I'm contemplating about getting rid of Netgear as a whole... I've had really good experience with this brand before and this was the reason to choose it also for my home network.
2. the R6120 isn't a gigabit router. Its only fast ethernet. So 10/100mbps. The max speed you can get out of it wired is 95mbps. so your wifi will be lower because of network overhead/interference/distance
3. the EX7700 is much more capable than the r6120. if your isp "modem" is actually a modem/router combo device, you'd be better off hardwiring in the extender and running it in access point mode
