Customer Reviews

Netgear JWNR2010 N300 Wireless Router with External Antenna

Decided it was time to move with the times, since wireless Internet arrived in our household around 7 years ago in the guise of a Bullalo GR54...oh how things have changed !

One button press on the Netgear WNDR3700 followed by a button press on, 2 laptops, Canon MP 620 printer and a Netgaeat 5ghz access point and away you go.

Also my Office PC via gigabyte ethernet, A PS3 via gigabyte ethernet, daughters pc via gigabyte ethernet.

So, So easy, no assigning IPs or anything like that, I have added a Freecom 250gb external usb hard drive to the network via the WNDR3700s USB, put a music folder, movie folder and homework folder.

This Router is superb, nothing upsets it, as I write this Daughter 1 is watching streamed movie, Daughter 2 is playing an online game via laptop and wife is watching a movie downstairs via the 5ghz link and its all running so smooth.

I paired this up with a netgear WNHDE111 access point that I got off ebay, again one putton push and away we go. That is situated diagonaly opposite in the house (ie one floor down, three rooms away 25m...ish)hooked up to this is a the new AC Ryan Playon HD player and again as I write it is streaming HD quality with full DTS sound out put.

With this setup I do not need to turn on my main PC to stream media anywhere in the house (or street)the WNDR 3700 also has a simple button on the front to press and turn off both networks, thereby saving power and reducing exposure to RF.

As soon as I hooked the unit up it asked if I wanted to update firmware, I said OK, it did it automaticaly and asked for a restart, since then pure plain sailing, no dropped connections, no glitching whilst streaming.I hope 5ghz stays this good, but as the word spreads I guess it will get a little crowded down here!

I do not know what else is out there that beats this router for function and performance, I read up, and read up and read up, then finally selected this over a dlink 855, OK it was a bit more expensive but not by much.

Bought through Amazon Marketplace, usual speedy delivery, even though it was despatched from Germany.

In summary.

Pros:
1. Big internet upload/download speed improvement over my old 3Com combo modem/router/switch
2. Improved reliability over my old 3Com - fewer timeouts and dropped VPN connections
3. Big speed improvement in wireless performance between 802.11n and 802.11g
4. VPN passthrough support less tolerant than old 3Com (also a con, see below)

Cons:
1. Requirement for an external ethernet modem (a nuisance and cost but not a big deal)
2. VPN passthrough support less tolerant than old 3Com - took several days of trouble-shooting which eventually required a Cisco VPN client upgrade - not the router's fault, but a pain
3. 5GHz 802.11n wireless range very limited (to be expected)
4. 2.4GHz 802.11n wireless range more limted than 802.11g (to be expected, but more limited than I expected)
5. Harder to see DSL connection status, faults, diagnostics when using an external modem makes fault finding trickier
6. (getting very picky now) Can light up a room with its array of very bright LEDs

Bottom line:
Excellent, dearer than basic products but works well. Not for the novice.

In detail.

I bought this as a replacement for a 4 year old 3Com 802.11G DSL modem/router/hub. I wanted dual band wireless N (with both bands simultaneously active - look carefully, many other products don't do this, the giveaway is normally the price, if it's much less than �100 it probably isn't simultaneous), but also wanted gbit wired ports too.

Having shopped around a bit I settled on this as being the nearest to my requirements. To move closer to perfection it would have had to have had a built in DSL modem, but in all my searching I couldn't find a simultaneous dual-band wireless N device with gbit ports and a built in DSL modem, there is just about every other permutation of the various technologies, but as of now, no-one (I looked at Netgear, Linksys, D-Link, Vigor and a few other more obscure brands) seems to combine all three.

The above is an important point. For those who haven't read or don't understand the specs of this device, you cannot connect it directly to a BT (or other provider) ADSL (broadband) connection. You need a separate ethernet modem. Other reviewers have marked this router down because of this point, but it's perfectly clear from the spec and if you don't understand this or what you need to use to overcome this, then it's probably not the product for you. Because of the lack of a built in modem I've combined mine with a separate Ethernet Modem (I've used a Vigor V120, but I'm sure Netgear's own product would do the job just as well).

I had a big problem getting my company's VPN client to work through this and was about to return the router as a result. However, some extensive testing revealed the problem to be with the ancient version of the Cisco VPN client I was using, not with the router. A VPN client upgrade fixed my problem and it's been solid as a rock since. The dificulty here is that the router provides very little diagnostic and logging detail and combined with the need to use an external modem, makes diagnostics rather tricky. Don't let this put you off though.

The 802.11n range on both 5GHz and 2.4GHz signals is more limited than the range of my old 802.11g device, but this is to be expected. It is quite a bit more limited than I had expected though. My old 802.11g device could happily deliver a reliable (though poor) signal through two thick walls across a range of about 30M. The 5GHz signal barely makes it through a single wall and only about 30M with no obstruction at all. The 2.4GHz signal can penetrate the walls but won't reach as far as the old 802.11g device did. However, it is running at higher data rates, so I'm not surprised by this and the beauty of having simultaneous 2.4GHz & 5GHz signals is that it doesn't matter if the range of the 5GHz signal is short because you can still pick up the 2.4GHz.

If you're connecting this to a DSL broadband connection, this is not one for the novice. You'll need to know what you've bought, what else you need to make it work and how to configure it. It's not complicated, but does require a small amount of knowledge or (heaven forbid) reading the manual.

Overall I'm really pleased. My Internet speeds and reliability have improved and the wireless performance is far better. Getting to the bottom of my VPN issues was a pain, but this isn't really the router's fault, it just didn't give me a lot of information to help in diagnosing the problem. Would definitely recommend.

Having read previous reviews I was rather disappointed with the performance of this router.
Whilst it's great when connected hard wired I found it a complete flop using it as a Wireless router (which is what I bought it for, the signal, even 2 rooms away is very poor, no higher than 70Mbs and low signal, and that's using the dual transmission speeds i.e. 2.4MHz and 5MHz which doesn't even come close to my old D-Link router.
Should have taken notice of the minority comments on this one.

I have had a wifi network for quite a few years now, and in those days I had one laptop and everything was wired(one desk top). over time I've found that the number of WiFi devices have increased in the home Wii, PS3 , PSP, Mobile phones etc.

It became evident that my network started to struggle with demand placed on it, I tried a Powerline device which did not work for me. I was looking for a solution that would cope with online gaming, video/audio streaming (from my internal network).

The "Netgear Range Max Dual Band Wireless-N" is great because you can have all the video streaming online gaming on the 5Ghz network(internal network) and general work on the other network 2Ghz. I also bought the Netgear"WNHDE111" 5Ghz access point/bridge which I used for my 5Ghz internal media network (online gaming , video streaming) which is connected via Ethernet port on the PS3 and video streamer since neither supported 5Ghz wireless.

I'm very pleased with the performance now, and when I'm working from home now I have no bandwidth issues, and haven't got to tell whoever is using the network to get off it, so I can do my work without interruption.

Please note the 5Ghz band does not have a high penetration as the 2Ghz , therefore you may need a repeater of some kind.

Bought this product after experiencing terrible speed performance with the standard D-Link router provided by Virgin Media. I realised it must be the router as my internet experience was completely different once I connected my laptop directly to the modem via an ethernet LAN cable.

What a huge difference this new router has made! Very happy with this product!

I was a little concerned to read some of the negative comments regarding this product before buying it. I needed to upgrade an ageing 54g router which had started to become unreliable. All the negative comments concern, speed of the router, wireless range, even it's capability of hooking up a USB hard disk to act as an NAS device. I have always had very positive experience of Netgear's networking products and this is no exception. For all the people who are disappointed with the performance or have problems with this router clearly do not know what they are doing. This device was a breeze to set up and works like a charm. I hooked up a 2Tb LaCie hard disk to the USB port - it worked straightaway so am able to stream HD content and uncompressed music wirelessly to various computers around a large house, My Xbox 360 saw the media streaming functions of the Router straight away there was no setup problems there, PS3 owners would also find it equally easy, I could also tune the Routers QoS functions to optimize its speed for online gaming. It has so many advanced networking features that are tailored to home entertainment network enthusiasts, and those people are who is router is really marketed at. If you are looking for something that will just make your internet quicker without changing anything else or give you greater range over a large area this is not the product for you and you need to be considering a different combination of home networking products to achieve that. Overall I am extremely impressed with the array of functions and performance of this router, I get blazingly quick wireless connection speeds on my laptop and desktop, and there are so many features to accommodate any current or future facet of wireless entertainment networking for the home, that you just can't go wrong with this device. A super-league router, that packs an abundance of useful features into an expected higher price tag, but is ultimately worth every penny.

I was needlessly nervous about setting up wireless having had nightmares with older routers in the early wifi days and having only basic technical knowledge but this was a breeze - virtually plug and play meant I was up and running within a few minutes without having to use a cd. Clear instructions included but the only omission was that near the end of the wizard although it says you are connected you will need to go into your network settings to ask your pc to recognize the netgear signal as it will initially not connect automatically - after doing this it connects immediately to both my iPad and laptop - signal is excellent but range not fully tested as always fairly close to it. Stand provided giving the space saving option of sitting vertically.

I bought this to replace my much loved Belkin N1 Vision which recently died. I paired it with a Draytek Vigor 120 and the two work perfectly together, with the Netgear handling the PPPoE connection to BT itself and the Vigor in pure bridge mode. I upgraded to the latest firmware (1.0.6.98) as soon as I got the Netager and regretted it immediately. Looking around the forums it seems 1.0.4.68 is the current sweet spot and things have worked beautifully since I installed that. The '4' and '6' in the firmware numbers appear to refer to the IP version support and I have no need for IPv6 at present so rolling back was no great loss.

So, first impressions are that the device is nowhere near as attractive as the Belkin. The pictures you see on the web flatter it and the side they don't show has labels and text and fitting holes etc. The Belkin sat proudly on my desk, whereas this device needs to be hidden. The build quality is very slightly suspect too, with the on/off switch on the back feeling very flimsy. Not too much of a worry as I leave the device on 24/7, but I have had a Netgear power switch fail before and they fail in the off state. Also, its not possible to turn the LEDs off, which is a bit of a pain if the device sits in a bedroom or you generally want it to be inconspicuous. How often do you really need to look at the flashing lights?

However, the real reason I bought this device was for functionality, not appearance, and this is where the device shines. My PS3 connects wirelessly and I can now watch iPlayer streamed flawlessly and without stutter, even while someone else is streaming Seesaw or TVCatchup on their laptop. Couldn't do that before so the Netgear/Vigor pair are certainly doing something right. Wireless N speed seems to be a steady 200MB/s in most places in the house and 300MB/s if you're in the same room as the device.

I don't make too many exotic configurations on the device, but its DynDns functionality works nicely with OpenDns. Being able to filter the more unpleasant side of the Internet gives a parent a feeling of security, even if they know its not going to be perfect. Static IP reservations was something sorely missing from the Belkin and works well on the Netgear. I've turned on QoS also, although its hard to tell what benefit that is really giving. Certainly no adverse affects. The only down side to the web interface is that the device seems to need to reboot for even the most trivial change so initial setup can be a bit time consuming.

Being a generally 'nitpicky' person, I avoid writing reviews as they would be mostly negative. However, I have been so impressed with this model that I thought I'd post my thoughts, albeit in brief. I've just switched from BT Total Broadband (ADSL) to BT Infinity (VDSL) and my house has 1 desktop PC connected by Gigabit ethernet, 2 laptops connected wirelessly (only G at this stage), 1 CCTV recorder and 1 printer both connected by ethernet. My broadband speed has risen from 1.5Mpbs to 37.1Mbps and all connected devices are working well. Wifi coverage is stable and fast. I accept that the broadband speed is as a direct consequence from moving from ADSL to VDSL but the router has been happy talking to the VDSL modem and delivering the high speed Internet to the computers flawlessly. It looks good, runs cool and is without doubt, the best piece of networking hardware I've ever owned! The configuration options are extensive; with dual band, guest logins, traffic monitoring etc., way superior to anything I've encountered before. Of course, only time will tell whether it remains trouble free but I'm certainly delighted so far. On the basis of my experience to date, I highly recommend this product to prospective purchasers.

I bought this router because the router i had before it the wnr2200 wasnt able to handle what i wanted it to do.I have set my house up so that its fully wired with cat 6 cable and everything except the the laptop has a wired connection. Before i had the wndr3700 i would try to stream movies from my desktop to my 2 xbox 360's and my ps3 if i had 1 of these going i cudnt then myself go on youtube and watch a clip or a song it would automatically stop streaming the movie to let my desktop do what it had to do. So the difference with this router is it has gigabyte ports so i can stream movies to the xboxs the ps3 my wife can look at what ever she wants on the laptop and i can do the same on my desktop also another handy little thing is my external hard drive can go in the attic connected to the router because of the usb port on it.

There is one issue and ive heard this in alot of reviews the wireless range is not fantastic. In my case it has to send the wireless signal down from my attic in a 2 story house and i got 3 bars where as with the wnr2200 i would always get 5 bars but when i was setting it up at the start with the router next to the desktop and laptop in room next door then it would get 5 bars.

All in all i wud still give this router 5 out of 5.