Rating: 
Summary: Don't let the reviews scare you, this is a great product.
Review: This was my first go around with the new 802.11g wireless technology. I have a cable modem at home and was able to hook up several other computers to my connections without having to pay the cable people for extra computer connections (i.e. modems, they don't care about routers.) There was a little bit of a learning curve, however, this was my first time I ever used or touched a router. I think that with any system that is new, and more so new to you, there is a small learning curve to get things working best. I heard many good things about Netgear and they have all lived up to be true thus far. I would recommend that if you are a first time wireless user that you hook up your system via actual cables and get use to your setup before trying to log on to your wireless connection. Just make sure you secure your connect (which was easy) so Joe Neighbor dosen't download Britney Spears from kazaa off your connection. One more thing, make sure you purchase the compatible part's and they are "g" or both "g and b". Same name brands might also help a little in other areas too.
Rating: 
Summary: Stay away
Review: This router works wonderfully but only when it works :(. I have to recycle the power at least once in 2-3 days. Already went through one exchange - same problem again. After 90 days, Netgear does not provide support - so I don't know how will the 3 year warranty work. Seems like after 90 days, one has to go though the premium support first ($2 per min) and if they agree later that there is a hardware problem, they will refund the support fee and replace the product, otherwise ......
Don't buy this router if you are looking for a reliable and troublefree router. D-link, US Robotics may be a better choice.
Rating:
Summary: I gave it a try and I got more than what I expected
Review: Before I bought this router along with the Netgear card, I've done quite alot of research about other brands. It took me about 30min to get it working but the performance of this combo have been amazing so far. I installed the router in the basement and went browse the web on the 3rd floor with no problem so far. I've gotten at least 24Mbps. It's either my house construction material is cheap or this router really works great.
Rating: 
Summary: Trouble connecting possible workaround.
Review: I finally got my Netgear wireless upgrade to work, and I wanted to post here in case anyone else is having this problem. I upgraded to the WGR614v3 router and in my remote computer I upgraded to the WG311T 108Mbps wireless adapter. I have Win XP on both computers.I could not get the remote (wireless) computer to connect to the internet through the router. The local (hardwired) computer worked just fine through the new router. The remote computer's "Netgear proprietary" status display showed the connection was fine. However I couldn't even ping the router from the remote computer. After trying different PCI slots, de-installing and reinstalling the Netgear software and drivers, and everything else you could think of, I finally found the problem! The Netgear status display software was screwing up the connection. Their own software, and they can't get it right. So, DO NOT USE the Netgear status display software from the CD that comes with your wireless adapter! If you do the normal installation from the CD, you will automatically get this bad software installed on your computer. So don't install straight from the Netgear install window that pops-up when you insert the CD. If you already installed it, go to "remove program" and delete it. Take the CD out of the reader. Restart the computer. Let Windows sense the device and pop-up the "install new hardware" wizard. Now insert the CD and point the wizard to the CDROM to get the drivers. Now you have the correct drivers, without the problematic NETGEAR status display. Good luck. Took me 7 hours to find this out, I hope I helped someone. By the way, the network now has a stronger signal and much faster internet.
Rating:
Summary: Signal strength is questionable
Review: After some difficulties setting up the router due to a defective Netgear Ethernet card in the PC, the router worked fine.
I think the range of the router is overstated because at some points farthest in the house I lose the signal to my laptop. (The house is only 30 feet long with 2 floors.) If you have a 2.4ghz cordless phone in use, you can almost guarantee you will have the router's signal interrupted by it.
Techsupport was knowledgeable but the language barrier with the offshore call center made diagnosing the problem a little more complex than it was.
Rating:
Summary: Great Router
Review: I purchased this router because my older Linksys router wouldn't work well with Vonage (an internet phone company). This new router works great with it. I also share my internet connection with another computer and a wireless laptop, both of which work great.
To get the router to work you have to follow the directions word for word (duh). I think why many people have problems getting their router setup is because they do not turn off their cable modem.
All in all it's a really great router that is small and easy to setup.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't work with a $4000 new laptop?
Review: I bought this item and installed it in my apartment. I am running a Dell Latitude with XP and all the bells and whistles. The unit worked great for about 20 minutes. Then the laptop couldn't find the wireless network (despite the fact that it found five wireless networks operated by my neighbors). After an hour on the phone with Netgear, they advised me to do a firmware upgrade (uploading new software into the unit) despite the fact that I had just bought it. After another hour, this didn't work. They finally admitted that "there's a problem with the latest XP software running MSN Messenger" and that I should return it. Lots of time wasted. I won't buy another Netgear product again.
Rating: 
Summary: Intermittent connection
Review: I purchased this router 3 days ago. It is my first router and set up was a breeze. Within a day, though, I started losing wireless connection to the router repeatedly. I called Netgear customer support. Yes, they are in India, and yes, they are hard to understand. But I found them courteous and pretty helpful. After resetting my router, the problems continued. The router is definitely usable, but I do lose connection 2-3X a day, at which point I either restart my computer or pull out the PC card and slide it back in. This is incovenient to say the least. Again, this is my first router, and I cannot compare it to any other. But I did do a lot of research before buying the Netgear and found out that no router seems to be perfect. Every router seems to draw praises and horror stories from different users. Even though setup was easy, be ready to delve into the details of wireless networking to make this router work. There seems to be too many factors involved to pinpoint why a router works for some and not for others: luck of the draw in terms of actual hardware, modem, operating system, and computer proficiency. My advise is this: Buy this router from a local retailer. That way, if this router is not for you, you can always exchange it and try another one. I think Amazon has a good return policy, but you might have to go through 2 or 3 routers before you find your gem. In my case, I might be returning my Netgear router. The intermittent connection is annoying. I will probably give it a few more days and if the problem continues I'll exchange for a Linksys.
Rating:
Summary: Customer support is atrocious
Review: I purchsed this item in November 2003 and had just called customer support in March 2004 to find out why the router keeps disconnecting all of a sudden. First of all I was put on hold for about 20 minutes and then after being transfered from one department to another I was informed that they will not support my call because it is over their 90 day support period and that I could either email them or pay for the service. I then emailed them and was just sent a generic response to my issue.
If this is the kind of support you want then I urge you to buy Netgear products but let me tell you that I also own a Linksys router and they still support my calls after 5 years. I will never purchase a Netgear product again. By the way they route all their calls to India to save cost.
Rating:
Summary: Much better than I expected
Review: [...] Well, all I can say is I am extremely pleased with this so far. Although I haven't really had it long enough to say that it's reliable, it has maintained a fast enough connection both wired and wireless so far, with no fade outs and no resets. This is WGR614v4, so perhaps many of the problems people have had have been sorted out. Fortunately, for my sake, I am not an early adapter ... I prefer to wait for new technology to stabilize before adopting it. Setup was so easy it was done almost before I knew it - less than 15 minutes from plugging it in to being able to use my laptop in the next room. That's including WEP setup - no WPA yet, unfortunately. One of the concerns I had from reading other reviews is that of its speed being much lower than advertised. But now I am wondering if some of the complaints people have is because they don't really know what to expect. I get the same download speed connecting to the internet through the wireless connection as I do with a direct wired connection - up to 160 KBytes/sec, or about 1.3Mbs. If you have only one computer, there's no point in buying a Wireless g product since you are never going to push it to anywhere near the maximum bandwidth - get wireless b and spend the money on something else. Only if you have a home network do you get the advantages of a wireless g network. I have a small home network, with two computers (one WinXP, 1.8GHz, 7200rpm HD, the other Linux, 400MHz, 5400rpm HD) wired directly to the router and one laptop (Win2000, 350MHz, 4200rpm HD) with the wireless PC card. I decided to do some speed tests to see how the network held up, so I enabled the FTP server on the Linux machine and FTP'ed large files across both the wired and wireless connection. FTP gives you close to the real network speed because of low overhead, but still depends on the speed of the hard disk since you're writing to disk. I got these results: WinXP <- Linux (wired): 72Mbs
WinXp -> Linux (wired): 44Mbs
Laptop <- Linux (wired): 16Mbs
Laptop <- Linux (wireless): 11Mbs
Laptop -> Linux (wireless) 11Mbs If I didn't know any better I would be complaining about the speed of the wireless connection, but since the wired connection to the same PC was only 40 % faster, it's obvious that the network speed has much more to do with the CPU and disk speed than with the wireless connection, so I'm very happy with this. It just means I now have an excuse to go out and buy a new laptop to replace my 5 year old IBM. So, can I recommend it? Yes, very much so. But bear in mind that it seems that whether this works depends on your circumstances. You may just have to try two or three different routers to get one to work.
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