Rating: 
Summary: Great performance, range, setup, size and value
Review: Great performance, range, setup, size and value. It installed in just a few minutes. I took my laptop all over my back yard and was still getting fantastic performance. I was impressed with how small the router was, especially standing on edge with the stand that comes with it. The status indicators were very easy to read because they light up with meaningful symbols rather than simple LED dots. this makes it easy to read in the dark. I only changed a couple default setting. Before I purchased the router, I found one support item ...that mentioned there could be a problem for the router calculating the correct WAN speed to the cable modem. so I changed the WAN speed from auto to 100M. I changed the default wireless mode from "g and b" to "g only". Having a mixed g/b wireless will significantly slow down the 54Mbps 802.11g adapters. I only plan to add more 802.11g adapters. For security, I limited access to only recognize my laptop's MAC address. I found this extremely easy since I did not have to manually enter the MAC address, I only had to select it from a list of discovered adapters. Customizing WEP Encryption, which I recommend, was simplified by allowing me to enter a passcode, which automatically creates the encryption keys. This made WEP setup extremely simple because I did not have to manually enter the encryption keys on either the router or my netgear adapter.
I plan to monitor the netgear web site for firmware updates, which are sure to come, as the 802.11g standard finally becomes certified. The 4 Ethernet ports, allows me to easily to connect my existing network without purchasing more wireless adapters. I connected a desktop computer and a printer server.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably a good router, but not if you're running Mac OS X
Review: I want to like this router, but it's been tough. This is my fourth router and set-up time for this one is triple all the others combined. It took a lot of time fiddling with the WEP settings before my powerbook g4 airport card would communicate with the router. Something still isn't right and I'm forced to power cycle the router (pull the plug) every third time the powerbook wakes from sleep. It's not possible to print from the wireless powerbook (unless my desktop computer is on and printer sharing is on). Finally, after a long call with tech support -- easily an hour long -- I've now found out that there is an "issue" with AOL. This router and AOL do not mix, at least on the Mac. I was told that Netgear are aware of the problem and that they are working to fix it.... In the meantime, I'll purchase another router.
Rating: 
Summary: USELESS AND CRAPY PRODUCT-DO NOT BUY
Review: Netgear product really sucks. Do not buy any products form NEtgear. There are thousands of users of this product and all compalins about dropping network connections. And to top that off, they charge shipping to replace the router. I would never buy a product from Netgear again. The products are unreliable and really crappy.
Rating:
Summary: Great Price, Great Performance
Review: This product has worked flawlessly out of the box. The instructions were extremely easy to follow and set-up was a breeze. I was worried this router would not know how to handle PPPoE but it connected to my ISP with no problems. The router's web-based configuration program has great explanations of everything and setting up the WEP encryption was surprisingly easy.The router itself is extremely small (it fits easily atop of my computer tower, although close contact to metal is not recommended to improve signal). Even at the point in my house farthest away from the router (I live in a two story house) the signal strength was still "Good". I'm sure if I positioned the router in a better place the signal strength would be better. I had a bit of trouble getting my Windows XP and Windows 2000 computers to recognize the shared network resources (ie: filesharing across the LAN). It turned out to have nothing to do with the Netgear router, but rather software firewalls on the computers. After several hours of searching the internet for information, (The wizard in Windows XP allows you to create a disk for use in setting up filesharing in non-XP computers.. however it doesn't work in Windows 2000 and possibly NT.) I finally realized it was my software firewalls on both computers that was throwing the whole thing off. Since the router comes with dual firewall protection I would recommend at least attempting to close the software firewalls if you are having trouble accessing shared resources. It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Ultimately this router performs very well and is quite a bit less expensive than its competitors. It is space-conscious and easy to set up. I have been very pleased with this product.
Rating:
Summary: YOU MUST DOWNLOAD NEW FIRMWARE!!!!
Review: I FOLLLOWED THE INSRUCTIONS GIVEN AND NOW MY ROUTER NEVER DISCONNECTS. U MUST DOWNLOAD THE NEWEST FIRMWARE AT WWW.NETGEAR.COM.
before i downlaoded it, it would say i was connected at 5 bars of reception, yet internet still would not work, and it would cut off intermittnetly
i just downloaded the firmware and it is working like a charm!!!
thanks to all the previous advices!
Rating:
Summary: sometimes it works
Review: I have a brand new iMac with an AirPort Extreme card installed. I finally got around to purchasing this wireless router to go with it. I have been using the non-wireless 614 router with no problems and figured moving to the wireless version of the same product would be a piece of cake. Well, it wasn't exactly plug-and-play.
First off, I'm a software engineer. Tinkered with the hardware side a bit as well. Have been Unix sys admin before. I'm no dummy. As a _wired_ router, I've had no problems with this unit. Wireless, on the other hand, hasn't been so great. I would say that, very reliably, my wireless iMac can detect the presence of the router. But trying to connect to it hasn't worked very well. Once I enabled the AirPort card in the iMac, I was able to detect other wireless transceivers in the building and surf the net on their ISP's. (There's one called 'linksys' that's always worked.) I could also detect my own NETGEAR router, but the connection would fail. Usually. This is the second time (I've only had it 24 hrs but have played with it almost constantly) that I've made a connection with my router. I've done all kinds of resets and playing with configs, moving the components into different rooms, and honestly, nothing happened between my last failure to connect and now. I mean, it is capable of working, but my neighbors' wireless routers have been more reliable than the one I bought for myself.
1.5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Be careful with this router if you are using Mac!!
Review: I've been using this router for about a month or so, and have started noticing problems with it. I am using SBC/Yahoo! DSL services in San Jose, CA and have iMac and IBM ThinkPad on my home LAN. Yes, it is true that it was easy to set up at least to the point where I just needed to get the internet connection. Then, I had to adjust (or sweak) some router's default settings. For example, by default it sets MTU size to be 1500 bytes and I had the problem with upload speed. (i.e. uploading photos to Yahoo! photo album took forever.) After resetting it to 1492 bytes for PPPoE, then, the upload speed got much much better. The router does auto-detect the configuration setting for your particular ISP and auto-configures itself. Just don't assume that is all you need to do. However, even after many sweaking and re-sweaking the router settings, whenever I tried to access iTune Music Store on my Mac, it is just very slow, and sometimes it refuses to connect. I know this is the problem with the router because when I connect the Mac directly to the DSL modem, I don't have the same problem. But, for some reasons, I don't have the same problem when doing the same from my ThinkPad. Another problem I am continueously experiencing is that randomly, it refuses to connect to the internet both from PC or Mac. The DSL modem just stops recognizing the router is hooked up to it. Whenever this happens, I will have to power-cycle my DSL modem and, sometimes, the router, too. And, on top of all these, the unit I am currently using is the replacement unit that Amazon sent to me since the first one was DOA. Netgear used to make pretty decent and reliable products, but I will avoid their products in the future. And, as many have already expressed here, their technical support is just useless. (this is probably understatement.)
Rating:
Summary: If it works, fine, if not, good luck getting support
Review: I purchased this item and installed it on my network. The installation went smoothly. Wireless connection to my laptop worked well.
HOWEVER, I found that my internet connectivity performance became crippled with this router. It went from about 4 GBps to about 280 KBps with the router attached.
I assumed that this was some sort of configuration problem, so I reset the configuration to the factory defaults. Still the performance was awful.
I attempted to call NetGear technical support to get the issue resolved. That is when the nightmares really started. The NetGear 800 support number drops you into a voice response menu system that is five layers deep to get to the point where your call might be transfered to a technician.
Each time I called, navagated down the five leves, and was told I would be transfered to a technician, the call was dumped. I tried most of the afternoon to get a successful connection to a technician. No luck.
Finally, I went out and purchased a D-Link Wireless access point and RMA'd the NetGear back to the company I purchased it from. That cost me a re-stocking fee, but that is minor compared to the frustration of not finding support from NetGear.
Do yourself a favor. Before you buy this item, call NetGear support and see if you can get through. Who knows, maybe they will get better....
Rating:
Summary: Piece 'o junk - your money down the drain
Review: Router setup was fairly easy and it worked like a charm for the first 2-3 months. Then, I began having intermittent wireless connectivity issues (connection would drop or worse, I couldn't connect at all). Issue was definitely with the router.
Netgear support (phone and e-mail) was pathetic at best (and costly if you are out of the first 90 days). Their solutions never worked and they never offered to replace the router.
In the end, this was a complete waste of money. I decided to purchase the Belkin Pre-N router, which has worked like a charm and has incredible range.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost gave up on a great router
Review: Like many other reviewers here, I also had problems with the router (WGR614v4) dropping the connection to the internet while the status indicator on the taskbar showed that it was 'Connected' at 54Mbps with 'Excellent' signal strength. This would happen 3-4 times a day. After a year of putting up with it (no help from NetGear support), I was ready to throw it away and purchase another (not NetGear) router. Before I made the final decision, I went back to the NetGear website and discovered that my router was two firmware updates behind.
So I downloaded the latest, updated the router, and changed the security from WEP to WPA-PSK. In addition, while I was in the updating mode I discovered that the wireless adapter (LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g miniPCI) in my laptop also had a newer driver available. The new driver was supposed to "improve connectivity with a Wireless Access Point", so I updated the laptop as well. Since these changes, the router has not dropped the connection--not even once! True, it has only been a couple of weeks since the changes were made, but prior to the changes the connection would be lost after only minutes of use. Therefore, based on my experience with the router I am inclined to believe that the hardware is OK. Whether the problem was fixed by the router firmware update, or the
adapter driver update is unknown--maybe a combination of both.
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