NETGEAR Orbi 870 Series (RBE873) Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Mesh System

The Orbi 870 Series slots neatly into the middle of NETGEAR's Wi-Fi 7 line-up, borrowing the flexible backhaul approach that debuted on the cheaper 770 Series and pairing it with specs that edge closer to the flagship 970. Announced at CES 2025, it's the company's third crack at Wi-Fi 7 Orbi, and it shows: the port selection in particular reads like a wish list for anyone who has outgrown gigabit internet, with a 10 Gig WAN socket on the router and four 2.5Gbps LAN ports on every unit in the box.

This is a system for large, wired-friendly homes rather than apartments. If you have multi-gig fibre coming into the house, Cat6 in the walls, and enough square footage that a single router genuinely can't cope, the three-node kit is pitched squarely at you. Reviewers have found throughput and signal strength to be strong, and the ability to run a 2.5Gbps wired backhaul instead of permanently reserving a radio band is the sort of practical flexibility that pays off in a big, multi-storey build. Everyone else should think hard about whether they'll ever see the benefit.

Judged purely on hardware and capability, the Orbi 870 is excellent. Tri-band Wi-Fi 7 with a BE21000 rating, eight antennas, and genuinely useful multi-gig ports put it ahead of most mesh kits, and the flexible rather than permanently-dedicated backhaul is the right design choice. Independent testing backs up the performance claims, with PCMag awarding it 4.0 and Dong Knows Tech calling it an excellent buy for 2.5Gbps-class networks.

The problem is the price tag. At $1,299.99 list (£1,099.99 for the UK Black Edition), this costs nearly twice as much as eero's Pro 7 three-pack, which PCMag prefers outright, and roughly 40% more than an ASUS ZenWiFi BT8 three-pack that reportedly performs similarly. NETGEAR's own store already discounts it to $899.99, which tells you how seriously to take the RRP — and at that street price the maths looks far more defensible. Add the absence of USB ports and the familiar irritation of parental controls and advanced security sitting behind a subscription, and the value case wobbles further.

Coverage claims deserve a raised eyebrow too: NETGEAR quotes up to 9,000 sq. ft. in the US but only 7,500 sq. ft. for the same three-node kit in the UK, which is a reminder that these figures are marketing rather than measurement. Treat 150 concurrent devices the same way.

Four out of five. The engineering earns it; the sticker price doesn't. Buy it on discount, with wired backhaul in mind, and you'll be very happy. Pay full list and you're paying a premium for the Orbi badge.