NETGEAR N600 Review

NETGEAR N600 Review - Description

The NETGEAR N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (WNDR3700) delivers high performance and features for home and business networking. With twice the available bandwidth with Simultaneous Dual Band Wireless-N operating at a combined speed of up to 600 Mbps, Gigabit ports, ReadySHARE USB storage, guest networks, broadband usage meter and more, the router has the power you need and the flexibility you want for your network.

NETGEAR N600 Review - Technical Details

• Dual-band Wireless-N router provides outstanding speed and performance for serious gamers, enthusiasts, and small businesses
• Simultaneous operation on 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz frequencies for combined 600 Mbps speed
• Powerful 680 MHz MIPS 32-bit processor
• Five (5) 10/100 (1 WAN and 4 LAN) Gigabit Ethernet ports with auto-sensing technology; USB 2.0 port for adding external storage
• Device measures 8.8 x 1.2 x 6.0 inches (HxWxD)

NETGEAR N600 Review - Real User Review

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

Modifying both dual band networks for various names and passwords is easy, and I preferred to perform it manually. Once logging into the firmware, the screens are divided into 3 panels. The left panel is the list in the feature sets, like "wireless settings," or "guest network" settings; the center panel has the pick list of choices for the feature set; and the right panel on the screen explains, in easy and simple of terms, what the features and options mean. There's little need to consult with the product guide or other help. Everything is in a single place, in the suitable place.

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

NETGEAR N600 - Pros:

• Feature rich, high-performance.
• Nice vertical stand included.
• USB storage feature turns your external drive right into a network share.
• Is included with QoS (essential for VOIP), dynamic DNS, firewall, features.
• Easy to upgrade the firmware and it'll automatically check for updates.
• Good documentation.
• Dead-simple installation and you may skip the Insert This CD-ROM install method.
• Ability to set up "guest" network with separate settings along with your main network.

NETGEAR N600 - Cons:

• Traffic bandwidth monitoring is rudimentary. It is literally excellent for an off-the shelf router, but I'm spoiled by my home router which runs Tomato firmware: it's pretty graphs.
• USB storage feature needs work. You could only use your router's admin password to guard your shares. Configuring settings with Google Chrome or non-firefox, non-IE browsers may silently fail (since it did for me). The workaround is to reapply settings with IE or Firefox.

NETGEAR N600 Review - Conclusion - Great price and took no time to line-up! Very simple set-up. Do have a problem once and a while that I need to re-boot the Router once and a while cause I lose my speeds of downloading, but from what I've experienced with most Routers it must be done!!