Rating: 
Summary: couldn't ask for more
Review: First time I have ever set up a wireless network. It was a breeze. I have it working for my Yahoo DSL in a 2 story home with the router downstairs in the kitchen and a d-link 520+ pci card in my computer upstairs. I get between 80~95% signal strength all the time with 128bit encryption.
And I paid $20 for it after a rebate. What else could I want? A second one for my parents!
Rating:
Summary: Get this if you have no tech knowledge
Review: Let me tell you, prior to shopping for a router, I had no, absolutely no, knowledge of networking, routers, PC cards, etc. After asking around and researching on my own, I went with my first choice, the Netgear router. It was a topseller and had a rebate and worked with Mac OS 10 and Windows XP. I, of course, hooked it up incorrectly--which is hard to do because there's only one way you could mess up--but as soon as one of my friends fixed it for me, I was up and running. The Mac immediately recognized the router's IP address and I didn't have to do any configuring at all. Lovely. I messed up because I didn't read the simple diagrams correctly in my hurry to be connected. This may seem basic to most, but for those that it isn't: plug the computer's ethernet cable into that first, lone "jack" or whatever it's called. Then take the purple ethernet cable that comes with the router and plug it into one of the four "jacks," numbered 1-4 and then into the cable modem if that's what you have. (I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.)I don't know anything about DSL. Within seconds my Mac was back online and running smoothly. The router is small, sleek, and unobtrusive. With its antenna, it's supposed to have a range of about 500 feet so you should be good to go. Just make sure you have a firewall enabled on your computer. I used the Netgear USB adapter to go along with it. Great choice! No regrets!
Rating: 
Summary: Affordable wireless solution
Review: Well I've been using the Netgear MR814 Wireless Router for over 9 months now and it is a pretty good router. I have 2 PC's (one wired and the other via wireless USB) and 2 laptops (both wireless pc card) hooked up to this router. It is a reliable router most of the time. However, sometimes I do have problems connecting to the router from my wireless laptops or pc. The range for the wireless is limited and only works great if you are connecting from directly above or below the access point. Otherwise, the connection is poor and can make you extremely frustrated. But if you consider the very cheap price for this router (it cost me twice as much at the time of my purchase), it is definitely a no brainer. One last note - DON'T hold your breath for the rebate, I'm still waiting for mine after 9 months!
Rating: 
Summary: Too many problems with this router
Review: I was working on a wireless network that had the MR814 wireless router from Netgear and it was a real mess. The network had two computers on it. The first computer was plugged into the router along with a cable modem. The second computer accessed the network via a Netgear wireless USB hub. The first problem came when the router refused to allow the first PC to access the Internet. After much time I finally got the router to allow the connection and both computers were able to connect to the Internet. Then another problem came up where the second computer, and the first computer could not talk to each other so they could exchange files with one another. No matter what was done the two computers still had problems communicating except when it came to the Internet. I would not recommend this problem as it doesn't seem like a very good one. Two XP machines should not have this much difficulty connecting to each other. Also forget Netgear tech support as you can't understand a word they are saying because they have it based in India now. I had to repeat the router info 3 or 4 times to them even though I went as slow as a turtle reading the numbers. If you find something better than Netgear then grab it. I can't possibly think of a worse product out there.
Rating:
Summary: Well, it's better than the Linksys...
Review: I picked this up after returning the equivalent Linksys product because that router wouldn't play nice with my girlfriend's ancient cable modem. The MR814(v2) installed without a hitch -- I did have to unplug the cable modem and let it reset before I could get the router to pick up a DHCP address, but it's been smooth sailing since then. I like its web interface more than the one on the Linksys router -- there are fewer screens to navigate, and it has an autodetection mode for quick setup. It works great -- as long as you're on wires. I'm having the same problem that some other reviewers are seeing -- the wireless connection occasionally drops out whenever it's being used, causing annoying messages to pop up in Windows XP, and generally making web surfing unresponsive. I'm sure it would interfere with FTP, etc. as well. I've also had it "lock up" once -- my computer (a Dell Inspiron 600m with the Intel Centrino 802.11b card) disconnected from the router, and although it still showed up in the list of available networks, it wouldn't reconnect (the wired network continued functioning flawlessly, though). Resetting the router fixed it, and it hasn't happened again. When it works, though, it's fast. Range seems okay (though the Linksys was better with its dual antennas) -- I did have to try a few different channels to get one with a stable signal throughout the house. I'm still trying to figure out if maybe there's something causing interference nearby, and I haven't spoken to Netgear's tech support yet either, so I'm still hoping this can be resolved. I did upgrade the firmware, which didn't help. In short, when it works, it's good, but it seems a little flaky when used with non-Netgear hardware. It does *work*, though, which is more than I could say about the Linksys router. UPDATE: I found some more information on what was wrong, and seem to have fixed my problem. The issue is apparently that the Intel Centrino wireless card (the Intel PRO/2100) has power management features that do not work properly with this router. The recommended workaround was to disable the power management (by setting it to "manual" and then putting the slider to "maximum performance" in the Intel configuration utility). That helped a little, but it was still not quite right. However, Netgear released a new beta firmware for this router on October 15th, and after installing that and updated drivers for the wireless card, it seems to be working fine now. The router still says it has firmware from July (when the last official one was put out), but I'm sure it loaded the new file, and it works. I'm not sure why it took this long for them to fix it (this is one of the most common 802.11b wireless solutions), but I'm happy that it works correctly now.
Rating:
Summary: I thought it was great....
Review: I thought it worked great until I tried using it for more than half an hour. I upgraded the firmware, too.
anyways, like every half hour, connection drops. I have to unplug the router and restart everything to make it work again. It's annoying. Someone else also mentions this on the review so obviously it's not just me. I called NetGear. I got a ticket number for the 2nd level technician to call me back, but I didn't hear a thing back from them. I'm returning this. Don't waste your time. I heard LinkSys works great, but I wouldn't know for sure.
Rating:
Summary: very bad compatibility
Review: There are many people like me who were screwed by this router. When I bought it, installation was not hard, and the signal was ok. But it kept dropping my ftp and ssh connections. Then they published the upgrade version of the firmware, I then upgraded. This time, it is even worse, it continues the have the old problem, and it now goes dead every 30 minutes, you have to unplug the power to restart it before you can use the router again. It happens not only to wireless connections, it happens to the wired connections. I tried different wireless cards, it seems only netgear's own wireless card works ok. The customer support people were not responsive, and they are totally useless, if you receive their mail, they just ask you to upgrade firmware. I found a website with a forum, there were so many people having the similar problems, some solutions are provided, but none of them works for everyone. Eventually, I downgraded the firmware, and decided to suffer only from ftp connection loss rather than having to cold boot the router.
Don't buy it if you don't have their wireless card.
Rating:
Summary: Buy me!,Buy Me! BUY ME!
Review: Never even knew what wirless was before i bought this. From the time i took it out of the box to the time i had it running the internet on my laptop and desktop was about 15 minutes. It is so easy to use, works flawlessly and the admin setup screen teaches how to secure your connection. Haven't had any experience with any other wireless product but for this price i dont' know why you'd buy anything else. It really is phenomenal.
Rating:
Summary: Quick and easy setup
Review: I purchased this router for setting up a wireless network at home for both my laptops. I would suggest setting up the first by direct wire connection initially to make sure the installation is good then go wireless. Anyhow, it took me about 10 minutes for the entire process. If you have an integrated Wifi card, it's even quicker. No complaints so far!
Rating:
Summary: Great product
Review: I have been using Netgear MR814 802.11b for the last 5 months. It is a great product. The web base admin was straight forward and easy to set up. All standard features (MAC filter, 128bit encryption, etc.) are all there. The range is also a big improvement vs. the D-Link Router that I bought and returned within 2 hours of usage. The only problem I have so far with this router is once a while (a long while so) it will somehow crash or something, making internet access unavailable. Unplug and plug the power back does fix the problem, and the unit works flawless most of the time.
Overall, definitely recommended.
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