Review on NETGEAR Centria Gigabit Wireless WNDR4700 by Jacob Richmond

Update: About 4 months after my review, this router started having intermittent problems. After another 4 months I decided to upgrade the firmware to OpenWRT to make it more stable. However, when I reset it to default and cycled it before trying to install, it didn't come back. Unfortunately, this makes it the most unreliable router I've bought in over 15 years as it died a horrible death before I even had a replacement. Now I only buy OpenWRT compatible routers. and I prefer the cheaper ones with the most hardware features. However, this router really let me down from the Netgear brand and I no longer recommend it to those who expect it to last 5 years or more. has been working great since installing it in September 2014. The speed is great and the signal is very stable for an N-based router, especially on the 5GHz band which I use for my backbone connection to my expanders. I've never had a 5 GHz network failure. Also, I've never had to specifically reboot the router to troubleshoot issues related to the device itself. The only issues I've had with it are: (1) the internal drive slot seems to overload any drives installed, causing them to die fairly quickly; (2) Same issue as (1) with any USB drive installed; and (3) the 2.4GHz band isn't as reliable as the 5GHz band, although power cycling from the menu always fixed the issue so I didn't have to restart it. This router provides the only path to the Internet. for the rest of my network as well as the dhcp service, the dns proxy service, the dynamic dns client login, and the time proxy service. As with all good routers, there are configuration options to enable risky services like UPNP, as well as port services and trigger ports directed to specific hosts. There are also settings specific to various NAT traversal protocols related to SIP, VPN, and other specialty applications. The device can be configured as an access point, router or dedicated Wi-Fi repeater [the latter option is no longer recommended for security reasons]. It supports various IPv6 protocol options, static routes and RIP broadcast, and it seems to have no problem routing the 50 or so devices that exist on my network at any given time in both IP formats. It also has options for one guest network per band, as well as various parental control options, internet availability scheduling, and a site/service blacklist. There are default QoS rules for prioritizing network traffic, and you can add more manually. There's also a traffic indicator that can show a web browser warning when you're approaching a certain data limit and turn off internet service when you reach it. The logs are very impressive for a home router. how to see all attacks with IP addresses and time, as well as local network events. and they can be emailed from the GUI or configured to automatically email using a specific server and schedule. The only thing missing in my opinion is: (1) DHCP is set to support more than Class C addresses [253]. devices currently supported by DHCP]; (2) Additional DDNS service options [seems to vary and currently only supported by DynDNS.org]; and (3) support for DFS connections in the 5 GHz band. Overall, there's a lot to like about this router, and the only way to take advantage of all the options available is to use a professional router instead of a home router. or to run a specialized router operating system like OpenWRT or pfSense. This router and its immediate family comes highly recommended based on my experience with Netgear's stability, reliability and support.