NETGEAR Wireless Router - N600 Dual Band Gigabit (WNDR3700)

• Supports Windows 8
• High-performance wireless router with speeds up to 600 Mbps; ideal for video streaming and online gaming
• Simultaneous Dual Band - Doubles bandwidth and reduce WiFi interference for better connections
• NETGEAR Genie® App - Easy-to-use dashboard to monitor, control & repair home networks
• Wireless security with the highest grade protection

This router is fast, easy to set-up and smartly engineered. Although this is a high-end feature-rich consumer router, out of the box, I had this running in just a few minutes. Using the simple color-coded 1-2-3 step setup process, an expert, or a novice, can have this router up and running very quickly.

Modifying the two dual band networks for different names and passwords is straight forward, and I preferred to do it manually. After logging into the firmware, the screens are divided into three panels. The left panel is the list of the feature sets, such as "wireless settings," or "guest network" settings; the middle panel has the pick list of options for the feature set; and the right panel on the screen explains, in the easiest of terms, what the features and options mean. There is little need to refer to the product manual or other help. Everything is in one place, and in the right place.

I attained maximum speeds with each of the dual bands when my laptops were in close proximity to the router. My throughput on the 5 Ghertz band using the "n" protocol was a blazing 300 Mbps. With my previous router, I was never able to achieve anything faster than 130 Mbps. As is the case with the 5 Ghertz channel, this speed drops off quickly as I moved my laptop away from the router. By 30 feet, I was down to 100 Mbps a second, but still relatively fast when compared to the legacy "g" speeds. On the 2.4 Ghertz band, using the "g" protocol, I saw very little degradation within 50 feet of the router.

I streamed a Netflix movie to an HD television flawlessly through a Toshiba laptop and an HDMI cable. There was no stutter in the picture, and the picture quality was excellent. Unlike past video streaming, I did not experience a dropped picture while waiting for the video buffer to reload.

I connected a USB disk drive to the router and shared it among three laptops without incident. I established read and read/write passwords for various file folders on the disk drive. I also made the drive available for access through the Internet, and again this process was straightforward in creating. I plan on backing up the three laptops to the USB drive on the router, as well as sharing photos and other files with family and friends by having them access the password protected IP address of my new network-based disk drive.

In total, you can establish four networks on this router. One for each of the dual bands, and two more as guest networks for each of the dual bands as well. The guest networks are nice as they can completely isolate guests from accessing sensitive information on other PCs or devices on the network. (Or you can open up the guest networks to everything on the network.)

Some other features worth noting are the automatic checking for firmware updates every time you log into the router; the "traffic meter" that shows daily, weekly and monthly internet usage that can be configured to throttle it; and the ability to backup personalized firmware settings in case of an emergency restore. With regard to the latter, it would be nice to also get a saved PDF file of what the settings are for each of the backed-up firmware configurations.

The Netgear WNDR3700 replaced two Linksys routers that I had connected together to essentially create a "dual band" environment. One was an older "g" unit, while the other was a newer "n" router. Together they got the job done in a mixed environment of video and Internet surfing. But the WNDR3700 takes routing to a newer level, with faster processors driving the dual bands to faster speeds and better range; and a big feature set that is easy to use, understand and configure.

SIX-MONTH UPDATE This router has been powered up constantly for six months now, and it continues to run flawlessly. During this time, two firmware updates have been automatically flagged and applied without incident.

I use many of the key features of this router across the three laptops that are connected wirelessly to the dual bands. Video streaming from Netflix and other Internet sites continues to work smoothly.

Being able to connect a USB disk drive to the router has become a heavily-used feature. The router-based disk drive is the central location for backing up the data from the three laptops. I can backup these laptops locally, or from anywhere using the Internet. When traveling with a camera and a laptop, I am able to easily backup digital pictures to the router's USB disk drive. It is another way to save and protect files when away.

This router is my third, and best to date.

Buy NETGEAR Wireless Router - N600 Dual Band Gigabit (WNDR3700) Now

This high-end wireless router by Netgear is well-designed and comes with a lot of features out of the box. I loved the ability to skip the "insert this CD rom in your computer" installation for dummies method and go straight to the web GUI to set it up. The feature I was most interested in is the USB storage sharing. This feature allows you to plug in any external USB drive, and then share it over the network. This was a convenient target for pushing automatic backups to. If our computer's hard drive catches on fire, I still have backups that I've saved on the USB drive attached to this router. Unfortunately, I ran into a bug when trying out this feature. Netgear support was helpful, however, and helped me get it working in a day.

Pros:

Feature rich, high-performance.

Nice vertical stand included.

USB storage feature turns your external drive into a network share.

Comes with QoS (a must for VOIP), dynamic DNS, firewall, features.

Easy to upgrade the firmware and it will automatically check for updates.

Good documentation.

Dead-simple installation and you can skip the Insert This CD-ROM install method.

Ability to set up "guest" network with separate settings in addition to your main network.

Cons:

Traffic bandwidth monitoring is rudimentary. It is actually very good for an off-the shelf router, but I'm spoiled by my home router which runs Tomato firmware: it has pretty graphs.

USB storage feature needs work. You can only use your router's admin password to protect your shares. Configuring settings with Google Chrome or non-firefox, non-IE browsers may silently fail (as it did for me). The workaround is to reapply settings with IE or Firefox.

All in all a very solid product. I give it 4.5 stars, as I wasted time chasing down the Chrome/Web GUI bug. I have no doubt this will become a 5-star product as Netgear pushes out new firmware updates.

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Have been running a D-Link DGL-4300 for several years with good results. Needed a replacement with more speed and processing power to handle multi-media, large LAN file transfers and N wireless services.

Tried the D-Link DIR-825, but undocumented MAC address restrictions killed the deal. The router would not accept a non-zero value for the first two characters of the WAN MAC address.

Looked at the Linksys WRT-610N, but was concerned with past Linksys product performance.

Purchased the Netgear WNDR3700 which was getting very good reviews and selling out quickly after release.

Configuration was a breeze with typical Netgear menus. LAN and WiFI speed are excellent.

The DLNA USB device option works great, streaming pictures to our LAN connected Samsung TV.

Guest WiFi access with LAN restrictions makes sharing with guests or visiting family easy.

There have been no issues using Vonage VoIP and transferring large amounts of data at the same time. QOS settings are available in the WNDR3700, but I'm not currently using it. Even with QOS and rules active, the DGL-4300 would sometimes cause the VoIP to stutter during large transfers.

Port Address Translation (PAT) is not available. This makes it difficult to access multiple Port 80 LAN devices from the WAN side.

I rate the unit 4.5+ stars. PAT would have made it a five.

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As you have no doubt read in other reviews, the firmware on this model is buggy but is progressively getting better. I am currently able to use the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands without problems. I am also able to use the network file server feature without problems.

My main gripe is that the media server feature does not work currently, and will cause the issue where the router suddenly stops working (but will still respond to ping and appear on the local network). The only fix when the router freezes like this is to turn it off and on.

If you want to read more, type 'NETGEAR WNDR3700 freeze' into your favorite search engine (no quotes) and navigate to the Netgear forums link that is returned.

My opinion is that Netgear pushed this router out too fast, and figured the early adopter's testing would be enough for them to work out all the issues. If that is the case, they were wrong this time.

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When it works, this router is fine. The 2.4ghz range and throughput is everything one could want. As written about other routers, 5ghz range is quite limited. The usb hard drive functiality is very very slow. Nowhere near a replacement for a NAS.

I've been experiencing lockups about once a week. After multiple calls, tech said probably a hardware problem. That's when I find out that it is Netgear's policy to charge for swapping the router. If I want to send it in and wait for a replacement,its free. If I want them to send me working router first, and then send back the defective unit, they charge $16.00! This is a first in my experience. In addition,their own community shows lots of postings about this weekly lock up problem (see : )

All in all, not very happy to have to throw more money at a one month old router that is supposed to be Netgear's top of the line.

Update: received replacement RMA router. It still has the same problem, and now my 90 day support window is closed. There is no email for netgear support to even inform them of a bug. Looks like I'll be spending more money on a Linksys soon. Netgear = buggy router, and infuriating support and support policies.

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Cisco Factory Refurbished Linksys E900 Wireless-N300 Router

The only difference between this router and others for 2-3x more money is dual-band support (which is only useful for connections over 40Mb), QoS services (for more than 2-3 simultaneous users), some never used parent controls and access using Cicso's new (and limited) Cloud, as well as a gigabit switch (as this one supports only 100Mb although wireless connections can be faster). But, your Internet connection is likely the bottle neck at no more than 10-25Mb (for cable) or 7-15Mb (for DSL). So, why does anyone need more than 100Mb on their switch except to back up to another computer (I back up to SD)? You only need 3-5Mb for video (3.6 for native Netflix or 1.5Mb with Silverlight). I get over 20Mb downloads AND uploads with this wireless router (and a DOCSIS 3.0 modem). Well built and fair support, this switch is less than half the cost of anything comparable. And, the E900 supports the latest WPA2 encryption handling. This is THE best buy in wireless routers and what most people should buy. Highly recommended.

I must say I was skeptical about purchasing a router at such a low price point and factory refurbished as well. Rest assured this device is solid and comes packaged like it was directly from Cisco... it even had a Cat5-E cable and CD. The quality of the device was superb without a single scratch on it.

The reason I purchased this router is that I have 16 routers in my house one EA4500 Linksys EA4500 App-Enabled N900 Dual-Band Wireless-N Router with Gigabit and USB and 15 WRT54G Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router routers. Some may think this is overkill but I have an old house with plaster / chicken wire walls which creates a faraday cage in each room. Needless to say RF signals have a hard time getting through my home. So I was looking for a cheap upgrade that would get me wireless N @ 2.4 & 5GHz. I was evaluating an RE1000 but it required a high signal strength from another router in order to function and would not hardwire and act as a bridge... and it was twice the cost per repeater.

Setup was a breeze, simply connecting an ethernet cable to port 1 on the router and setting the router to bridge mode worked like a CHARM. I was able to complete setup in under five minutes. I don't use the Cisco connect software as I am old school and prefer the web interface. Although I am sure it is just as easy.

I am very happy with the performance of this router, while it doesn't have the range or throughput of my EA4500 it does a great job and outperforms my WRT's So much so that I could reduce my total number of routers by half. Throughput wise I was able to stream full HD video (1920 x 1080) from my media center and have a constant connection to the internet at speeds of 50mbps (tested using speedtest.net)

I have always trusted the linksys name brand for my home network and love the additional features like DHCP Reservation, DDNS, and router naming. I can now browse and administer these devices by name like or

For the price you cannot beat this router. Especially as a repeater for other linksys routers.

Thanks Cisco for making a great product.

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I've been wanting to get an 802.11n router since I began doing more home networking. Even my XBOX was telling me that my b/g router was holding me back and might impact my ability to stream higher-definition content.

I started looking at n routers vs. b/g and I was sold by the speed increase (up to 300 vs 54) as well as the increase in range (4x).

There was definitely quality put in to the refurb and packaging process of this unit; wen I opened it up, I would have had no idea this wasn't new. It was clean, packed well, and worked fine right out of the box. Setup with my existing Verizon router was no problem at all once I found the instructions online on how to do a lan-to-lan connection. For the refurb cost vs. new, it was a no-brainer to buy this one. I updated firmware to the latest rev just to be sure I was up-to-date. I did not install the software off of the included CD.

-1 star because the range is really no better than my old b/g router. My signal still fades significantly in my kitchen which is about 30 feet from my router location. I did a little reading online and I've seen some reports of this for the lower-end linksys routers. At 4x the range for an n router vs. b/g, I expected to be anywhere in my house or yard and have a good signal. I'm going to do some relocating to see if there are line-of-sight or obstruction issues that are impacting the range.

-1 star because speed isn't what I expected either. I didn't expect any increase in internet speed because I know I'm limited by my 25/25 Verizon FiOS package, but I expected it to maintain higher numbers when connecting device-to-router. My phone comes in at about 65, my tablet around 100, and when I take a look at the connection speed with my laptop it's about 150 Mbps. I know that the n routers will drop speed when other devices are identified on the channel; I'm probably in a congested area. I also know that certain devices can't take advantage of the full throughput of the n routers. So to be fair, my expectations were probably too high around the speed increase I'd see.

In terms of value for the price, I'm completely pleased; overall, I might have been expecting more than what an 802.11n router can realistically deliver.

EDIT: 1/28/2013 This router started to get flaky after a few days of use. Ended up having to do a reset on it, then I started having connection issues. I already picked up a dual-band n router locally (cost about 5X as much) and it's a significant step up in performance. My tablet even connects to it at the 5 GHz frequency, which is completely unused in my neighborhood (no interference).

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Bought it refurbished for $20. Very clean and new.

Flashed to DD-WRT to make it a Client Bridge/Repeater. Works like a charm and provides internet to several devices that do not have wireless capabilities as well increases signal upstairs. WIFI speed is great and allows me to stream from my PLEX Server with no buffering problems. This product is highly recommended if you like to go for simple affordable solutions with great performance. Fast shipping and delivery.

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I've ordered two of these routers and have been using them for the past 2 weeks with absolutely no problems at all. They looked brand new and each came with a Cat5e cable, power cord, and CD. I immediately installed Tomato onto them and they've been running without issue.

Pros:

-Broadcom 300MHz CPU/8MB Flash/32MB RAM/Linux-based, you can easily flash 3rd party firmware on these routers

-Super fast, Running N-Only in Greenfield under Tomato firmware I've been getting ~90Mbps in 20MHz and about ~96Mbps in 40MHz in a 100Mbps environment

-Stable, Have not had the need to restart the router manually, even if I tinker with settings, and even under high load

-Nice design, This is subjective, but I think it looks very sleek

Cons:

-No 5GHz wifi, If you live somewhere crowded, the 5GHz band is useful, although I had no need for it.

-No GbE, If you want/need Gigabit ethernet, this will be a deal breaker as the switch is only 100BASE-TX.

-No USB

-Plasticness, It feels very light, and this becomes a problem if all the Ethernet ports are used because the router will tip backwards

-Cannot be stood up vertically, This is useful in some situations but whatever

-It isn't free

Overall:

If you want 802.11n on your 100Mbps network without decimating your wallet, this is definitely the way to go.

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D-Link DIR-655 N+300 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router

• Delivers up to 14x faster speeds* and 6x farther range* than 802.11g means greater coverage for your entire home or office
• Ideal for streaming HD video or streaming multiple applications simultaneously
• Intelligent QoS technology prioritizes both wired and wireless Internet traffic to enable enhanced gaming and phone calling (VoIP) experience
• Gigabit Ports for Incredible Wired Network Speeds
• Dual active firewall protection (SPI & NAT) helps block malicious attacks on networks from the Internet.

Im sitting on this thing right now. Man oh man...im getting a "very good" signal where my connection used to be dropping...

I used to have a few problems with WiFi. The first problem was obviously the range...as I said a few moments ago, the DIR-655 fixed that...I mean, even though it claims 6x range, but I was going to be happy with just a 25% improvement...I seriously think that this router increased my range 50-75%!

I used to always be frustrated with the lack of settings in many routers. Some would have QoS (Quality of Service...something that can prioritize important internet activity like Voice Over IP...internet phone) but it didnt really work. Some would be lacking in semi-advanced routing features...others would barely have any non-novice features at all...This one has plenty of options for the advanced user to have a lot of fun screwing with settings. The most beautiful thing about it though, is that there is a wizard in the interface so that even the most novice of users can set up a great network with strong security. It also has context sensitive online help...what that is, is when you are trying to adjust settings and you dont know what something means, there is a little help button right there that you can click to get an explanation right then and there! Its kinda like the Yin-Yang of routers...

I want to mention that I have been looking at draft-N routers for a few weeks now and have been reading the reviews. The reason that I am writing this review is that it was so hard for me to find a good review on this router. Cnet doesnt even have an official review (as of 2/13/07) but it does have very positive user comments. From my homework though, (user reviews, and more importantly official reviews from Cnet, engadget, etc) every Draft-N wireless router has some kind of problem. Some dont work well in environments with more than a couple neighboring networks, some dont have good throughput, and some dont have better range. Again, I didn't want to buy this one because I couldn't find any solid review on it. After going through a couple of different Draft-N routers, Let me help you out. This is the one.

BTW...im not running an "N" wireless adapter...this thing even increases the range of "B" and "G" signals. GREAT JOB D-LINK!

Buy D-Link DIR-655 N+300 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router Now

First off, the really tough thing about wireless routers is that your performance can vary dramatically from someone elses. Whether its your hardware, your software, spyware, configuration of your house, your ISP, what type of cordless phone you use, or a myriad of other things, your experience may be entirely different from your best friend's. So, this isn't so much a review of the router as it is a review of my experience with it.

The Good

This router has all of the bells and whistles with the exception of dual band broadcasting. QoS, WISH, VPN, Port Forwarding, all levels of security, etc. It has Gigabit wired ports. You cannot get anything more elsewhere without doubling the price. It is all packaged within an attractive set up that provides hope that this will be your last router for quite some time. Set up is easy and straight forward. And, most importantly, you literally cannot get a faster router when within 30 feet.

The Bad

I really wanted to keep this router but I couldn't. My main problem was heat. After a few hours of use (just being on at all), this router was almost too hot to touch. I actually exchanged it figuring it must be a bad router but the new one was the same way. And, more importantly, when it got hot, I got intermittent lag via my wire machine on my internet traffic. Games that played flawlessly on my old Buffalo router started lagging; video started stuttering; downloads started pausing. Diagnosed it with my ISP as being on my side of their modem. When my old router was plugged in, all problems went away. D-Link tried to help me but there was a language barrier and no matter what we did with QoS and WISH, it didn't go away. I had to return the router.

The Ugly

FYI: Blue lights are pretty but REALLY bright. Seriously, you could read by them.

Like I said, I really wanted to keep it but I had to replace it instead. Your experience may vary so I would encourage you to try it because it is a very feature-rich router. Just keep your old one handy just in case.

P.S. Owned it for three weeks before returning it.

Read Best Reviews of D-Link DIR-655 N+300 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router Here

Very satisfied. Smaller than expected. Fast enough to play HD-DVDs wirelessly to my notebook (Dell Inspiron E1505, 802.11BGN, 945GM, Core Duo (2) 2GHz, Vista Premium, Arcsoft Digital Theater, D-Link DNS-323 NAS). Great speed and coverage. Also handles HDTV perfectly via HDHomeRun device.

Don't forget to upgrade firmware.

Update 11-Nov-2007: This router may be my biggest gadget surprise this year. It continues to perform better than expected, completely solving all past wireless issues and handling all tasks such as streaming HD-DVD.

Update 7-Apr-2011: Another reviewer reports that the device's adapter is no longer dual voltage. References to voltage have been removed? Interested in a versatile travel router? I recommend TRENDnet 300Mbps Wireless-N Travel Router Kit TEW-654TR (Black). It's wireless, remarkably small, 100-240 volts, has an Ethernet port.

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Wow! I used a Linksys RT31P2 for the last year or so. It was a piece of junk!! Would slow down, get constipated, and finally died. Since we are Mac family (I have been an IT consultant too long to stay PC) I used the Airport Extreme (802.11g) for a while also. It was reliable.

BUT WHEN I PLUGGED IN THIS D-LINK ROUTER, I realized that all my previous routers had been huge bottlenecks. Over the Airport, my upload speed on Comcast cable modem increased from 4Mbps to 20Mbps. Wow. Didn't even realize Comcast had opened up that much bandwidth.

So in my house we have a wired Mac, wireless Mac, wireless TiVo, Vonage adapter, Airport printserver, Airport iTunes, and they all work fine. I am currently using 802.11g and WPA2 since I don't own any 802.11n stuff yet. Signal strength for 802.11g has doubled on the fringe areas from 30% on my Tivo adapter to 60%.

I bought the D-Link vonage ATA adapter and plugged into one of the ports. I was concerned my phone calls would get choppy since the ATA is behind the router. HOWEVER, THE D-LINK ROUTER HAS SOME VERY GOOD QoS FEATURES AND USING THE AUTOMATIC SETTINGS, THE VONAGE CALLS ARE NOT CHOPPY AND EVERYTHING WORKS FINE.

Build Quality: This router is built a lot more solid than many other routers I have seen, especially the Linksys P.O.S. I just placed in the trash can (best place for it really).

Summary: Gigabit switch is awesome. Router can do SPI and even some deep packet inspection such as H.323 (Netmeeting) compatibility and QOS stuff while maintaining lots of speed. It is VoIP aware and supports SIP and QOS is tuned for VOIP. It works great in a Mac environment and I'm sure would in a PC environemtn also. VERY extensive router setup settings for the home user including INCOMING filters, flexible DHCP server with ability to reserve IP addresses for specific MAC addresses (nice). Will email you the log files, and automatically checks D-Link's website for firmware updates. Overall an awesome router for the money.

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Here's my experience with D-Link and this router: The router stopped working after two weeks. Tech support said it was dead. It could only be exchanged or repaired, not refunded. The exchange/repair process required that the router be returned with an RMA. The RMA required that everything that came with the router be returned or there would be charges for the unreturned parts. The items and charges are as follows and are from the RMA email I received:

1 x DIR-655

1 x Bottom Foot(Stand) ($5.00)

1 x Ethernet Cable ($10.00)

3 x Antenna ($15.00)

1 x Mounting Kit (Routers,APs & Small Switches) ($3.00)

1 x CD ($12.00)

1 x AC Power Adapter ($25.00)

1 x Copy of Proof Of Purchase

Once D-link received the router it would then at D-link's discretion either be repaired or replaced. The repaired or replaced router would then be sent UPS ground. All this time, the customer is without a router.

The router itself, when it did work, required technical support as the installation disk that was provided with it did not itself work properly. The technician had a difficult time solving the problem and gave nonsense advice. He also got the serial number wrong. This had to be corrected by another call and wait on hold before the RMA was issued.

D-Link is another one of those "our product, your problem" companies. Shop elsewhere.

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