Rating: 
Summary: Amazing Range, Somewhat Difficult Set-up
Review: I've been using this router for about a week now. Having no previous experience with wireless networks, and limited experience with networks in general, I was a bit apprehensive about setting this up. Setting up was even harder than I thought it would be - but that's not to say it was impossible. This biggest problem with this router is the model numbers - the BEFW11S4 is completely different than the BEFW11S4 v2, or the v4 (which I have). I almost killed my router permanantly by flashing the wrong firmware, since the version difference is not made obvious. In the end, I got the network up and running using the provided documentation, and the online knowledge base, which helped me with a minor conflict it had with my particular DSL modem (not a linksys). Once set up, however, this router works great. I am more than pleased with it. It works with my laptop that has an internal Intel/Dell 2100 wireless card $$$ at dell.com). The range is well more than the advertised 70 feet, the signal is full strength anywhere inside my 6 bedroom house, and it stays viable even beyond my neighbor's yard. With this kind of range, the built-in security is a must-have, and it also works great. Now that I know what I'm doing, setting it up for different networks is easy (I've tested it out several places, at work, at my friend's house who has a non-wireless linksys network).In the end, this gets 4/5, losing one point because the 6-hour headache of a set-up it gave me. I would not recommend this for people new to networking, but if you know what you are doing and are looking to give wireless a go, this is a great router to use.
Rating: 
Summary: Keep it all the same
Review: I recently bought the Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router w/4 port switch and wireless PCM/CIA card. I just love how easy the setup was with my Comcast High Speed Internet. All I had to do was power cycle my cable modem and plug in the router and the PCs connected through the switch were instantly online. It only took about 5 minutes to configure the wireless connection with my desired settings. I don't think it could have been any easier.
Rating:
Summary: A little frustrated with the original firmware
Review: I bought the BEFW11S4 Version 4 to connect a wireless notebook (XP home edition) and a desktop (Windows ME) to the internet over a cable modem. The desktop has WMP11. The original firmware (April 2003) kept dropping the connection. The tech support suggested to change the channel. Which helped for about 15 minutes. Then I had to change to a different channel and reconnect over and over again. I have upgraded the firmware to the beta version (July 1,2003). The router has worked without intervention for a week now. The signal quality is good in a two story small house, with lots of 2.4GHz devices and neighboring wireless networks around. Linksys should release a non-beta version of the firmware and should drop that "we won't support the beta firmware" scare. Before the firmware upgrade, get a backup of the flash in case the new firmware does worse for you. Log onto the router and choose firmware/upgrade-backup.
Rating:
Summary: No more NETGEAR! Get this!
Review: Since installing Netgear's MR814v2 as a wireless router, I've had nothing but problems one after another. Only thing I wanted to do was to connect my desktop with Win 200-pro and a laptop with XP through the router, but I contined to have problems of getting cut off from the connection (on the laptop). Their tech supports were actually nice -- though normally 30min hold before reaching them, yet after trying everything, i.e., downgrading my cordless phone to 900mHz from 2.4GHz, disconnecting any RF units like wireless mouse, stereo, and upgrading firmware etc., etc., I finally decided to ditch the Netgear and got Linksys. This version 4 works absolutely great with no interruption in connections, stronger signal than Netgear, and less than 5 min to reach their tech support.
Although the appearance of the system is much less attractgive than that of Netgear, as long as I can go on-line smoothly from my laptop, I think I can live with that. I am not saying Netgear makes bad products. It didn't work for me, but Linksys does.
Rating: 
Summary: Works, but not ready
Review: We have the Linksys working just fine now with a PC laptop with a cheap wireless card and a Mac going directly into one Ethernet port. It's been stable for about a week solid. However, out of the box, it had the same connection-dropping problems that you'll read about here and elsewhere on the web: it would work for a few minutes then drop the connection. We'd have to restart it to get the connection back. That was solved by upgrading the firmware to 1.45.3 (July 1 version I think). That was a painless process that took about two minutes. However, this firmware version is explicitly called a beta release and is not supported by the company. So, if you want your wireless router to work, you have to pretty much give up any hope of future tech support. To me, that's reprehensible. Linksys is knowingly selling a broken product and requiring customers to take a chance on making it work on their own. My advice: don't buy this until a new firmware is officially released *and* you start seeing consistently positive reviews of this product.
Rating:
Summary: No-pain wireless networking, plus Ethernet ports
Review: I've replaced two home network routers with Linksys gear because they allow me to log onto my office VPN, something the other two couldn't do consistently. The BEFW11S4 is in a fairly new wood frame house. It installed with zero pain, and my family no longer trips over the Ethernet cable than ran along the floor. The range is fine for a 2000 sq. ft. house. The printed instructions are OK and there's a good manual on the CD that comes with the router. It's slower and less costly than the newer and more expensive "G" standard routers, but the limiting factor in most home networks is the speed of the Internet connection and even with broadband, 11 MB is three or four times faster than needed.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Router
Review: This Router has given me no problems. The Wireless is slower then the Ethernet but most internet connections are lower so the speed difference will not affect you if the internet is concerned. I recommend this router.
Rating:
Summary: It Came, It Saw, It Connected
Review: Even though I can lay claim to the title of 'techie,' networking is something that I understand only in theory. When it comes to practice, I am a klutz. Having barely managed to set up a wired network for three computers in one room, I've been studiously avoiding shifting to wireless. Despite the hopeless mess of cables I put have to put up with. The purchase of a new portabe changed all that since I wanted to be able to tote it about the house. After much incantation with a networking specialist I decided on the Linksys BEFW11S4. With for Ethernet ports it could take over for my existing hub, and the portable already had wireless built in, making this the ultimate in low cost networking. And the cable/dsl connection fell right into my connectivity improvement plans. So in short order I was sitting on the floor of the 'computer room' with the router in one hand and the quick start instructions in the other. Much to my amazement, everything worked. The existing Ethernet connections never even blinked, and in no time the portable was talking to the router's handy, HTML-based setup and administration pages and to the other machines on the net. Since then I've added a cable modem and a wireless printer server. Each time, whatever problems I had were never due to the router missing a beat. The router's manuals are adequate, but reticent about the more complex built in facilities. Perhaps rightly so, since an innocent playing with low level network protocols is an invitation to disaster. They do spend some time on setting up security, and this is important - an unprotected wireless network is vulnerable to any machine that knows its internal name. Plan on installing a firewall on every machine in the net, and lock down shared drives with passwords. I'm not a veteran router wizard, so I can't tell you that the Linksys BEFW11S4 is better than everything else on the market, but it has left me completely satisfied. Now that the availability of the new 'superfast' routers has driven the price of these down there really is no excuse not to start out wireless right from the beginning.
Rating: 
Summary: Not compatible with IBM TP X31 Centrino
Review: I have tried two wireless routers to date with my IBM Thinkpad w/ Centrino wireless. My first, the Linksys BEFW11S4, never sustained a connection for longer than 30 seconds before dropping the connection, then re-establishing, then dropping, etc. Impossible to download large files, get booted off IM constantly, and took forever for simple websites to open. Linksys technical support even tried to dump me off to IBM technical support, but I just didn't buy it, considering my wireless connections have been fine elsewhere. I have also seen many websites offering this suggestion and that, tweaking the connection software, upgrading firmware, blah blah blah, but honestly, how hard does it have to be to get my wireless network up and running. The D-Link DI-614+ has since worked like a charm. Easy to setup. No dropped connections. Seems like it works fine with my Centrino.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible tech support, no AppleTalk support
Review: This router is disappointing across the entire board. To start with, this router is unique amongst routers in the industry in that it does NOT support the AppleTalk protocol, so if you're trying to use this on any sort of a Macintosh network that needs AppleTalk to communicate (or a printer that needs AppleTalk), you are completely out of luck. But to make things worse, Linksys' tech support is absolutely horrible. I've tried calling Linksys tech support on many occassions, only to be shoved into a queue that lasts over an hour, finally forcing me to hang up. I've emailed them on 3 separate occassions, never to receive any response. And the "live chat tech support" on their website is just as bad: I waited 90 minutes just to move up from #37 to #23 in their online queue. I've seen another review here from somebody with "only 5 minutes wait on hold", but that has NOT been my experience at all... I recommend that you try calling Linksys tech support yourself before purchasing this product. The product itself is very flimsy -- very light and non-industrial. It seems to have mixed results when wireless machines connect to it, too. Overall, I was very disappointed with this router and returned it within 2 weeks of owning it. I now own a wireless router from Asante, and I'm MUCH happier with that router. Not only do Asante's routers offer 100% Macintosh and AppleTalk support, but they also have ultra-responsive tech support. As a result of my experience with this router, I would never buy a Linksys product again.
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