NETGEAR Centria Gigabit Wireless WNDR4700 Review

Looks cool and I like the fact that it can hold an internal hard drive and Linux file systems, but the router's performance just isn't great. File bandwidth to or from the internal or external drive seems to be limited to around 3 Mbit/s and then the router is in a good mood. It can inexplicably falter when there are no disagreements. From time to time I have similar problems with WAN. He just chokes. I'm also having some issues with the media server. The selection list contains audio tracks…

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…

After receiving the package, everything was assembled according to the instructions. The router worked fine, only turned itself off a couple of times when the power was turned off. After a power outage, I couldn't connect the router to the modem. (The power light didn't turn green, it stayed amber.) After numerous reboots and waiting, I called NETGEAR tech support. I registered the router when I received it, so tech support had it in stock. I've been told the free tech support only works for 90

UPDATE: Everything I've written below is documented and hasn't changed. However, this router settled down after the first month and proved to be reliable. It's fast and supports around 20 devices in the house, including audio, video and other high-bandwidth situations. Back then, the idea of an internal drive seemed attractive. I've given up trying to make it work. Periodically (every few months) a reboot is required, but this may well be Cox Cable's (local ISP) fault. get out with help. Still…

Pretty easy installation. I have an odd DSL setup, so not only was it plug and play, it was pretty damn close. I had to log into the device and change its IP address for it to work. But pretty easy to do. And the device found out my Telekom DSL connection and asked for my DSL username and password. The router also does an excellent job of uploading media to social networking sites. My old router crashed and wouldn't let me post high quality pictures. This router does. Reason for only 3 stars…

Setup: With the default settings, it took less than 2 minutes to unpack, plug in and run. It's amazing how easy it was to set up. I then went back to a higher security configuration and bought a 2TB Western Digital Red Sata HD separately, and again very easy and not time consuming. This is the first product I've seen where wireless is as fast and reliable as an Ethernet connection. In everyday use my wife connects to 5GHz, I connect to 2.5GHz and we stream to our PS3 via Ethernet. So far we…

I am very disappointed with this router. It's noisy and has an odd form factor (sits very tall and wide with some slant, with buttons/switches/ports in odd places), making it a "bad neighbor" with other components on our networking shelf. It's sluggish - *sometimes* we get great performance, *sometimes* we get <10% of normal download speeds, *sometimes* devices don't see/connect at all, while others connect just fine. Requires frequent restarts (spikes) - weekly, for example. The signal is…

Another device with great potential and features but poor performance and quality. I was very happy to find this device as it made it easier for me to share files, but I found it unreliable at best. Any high traffic load will cause storage or WiFi to fail. Transferring large files is not possible as this will crash and lose connection. Even using USB ports with 3 thumb drives is painfully slow and again suffers from the same disconnecting problem before the transfer is complete. The WiFi cuts…