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My Overall Rating:

2.5

Current Category: Computers Sub-category: Networking Brand: Netgear Model: WGR614 I own it Store: Amazon.com Price: $30.00

My Level of Knowledge is:

5.0

I was asked to rate: Capacity

3.0

I added: Web Interface

1.0

Thermal Performance

1.0

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The Netgear WGR614 is their workhorse 802.11g 54mbps wireless router.  It isn't a completely defective product - otherwise I would have thrown it out ages ago - but it has more than its fair share of drawbacks, and in a market as competitive as it is in, it's not worth even thinking about.  The same money will get you a better router from another manufacturer like Buffalo or Linksys/Cisco.

 The number one problem with this router is the poor web interface.  Rather than letting you 'cut to the chase' and skip their guided setup process, it does a forced redirect to 'routerlogin.com' which is supposed to bounce over to its internal page, assuming you're using the router's DNS - which is a terrible assumption to make and a gross misuse of the router's DNS abilities.  Not every installation of this router (mine, for example) will use the router's internal DNS server.   Since I have mine set up as a wireless access point / switch only, I have to skip directly to the URL of the internal configuration page.

 On top of that, the router has some striking performance issues.  The network throughput is fair at best - it rarely acheives the full 54 megabit performance, and in the few cases where it does, it has the nasty tendency to overheat and drop wireless - for example, while streaming HD video content.  Again, I'm not even doing any real processing with this router - no QoS, no routing, no NAT, no DHCP / DNS.  It's just set up as a switch and a WAP, and it still overheats.

 I've certainly never made the mistake of buying another Netgear wireless router.  I've set up several other wireless networks where I don't have the luxury of actually living there and being able to fix a problem at a moment's notice should it occur, and in each of those cases I go for the Linksys WRT54G, which even with the stock firmware is more than up to the task.

Comments: (3)

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