High Performance Netgear Wireless Simultaneous Dual Band Gigabit Router

One of the leading wireless router manufacturers is Netgear. With the latest wireless N technology, Netgear introduces many types of high performance wireless routers including WNDR3400 N600, WNDR3700 N600, WNDR3800 N600 and the fastest one is WNDR4000 N750. They are all simultaneous dual band gigabit routers except WNDR3400.

The table below shows the spec comparison – only the major features that you need to consider in deciding to purchase the wireless router.

Other standard features all the wireless routers must support are not listed in the table. The standard features like dual firewall feature (NAT & SPI), DHCP server (providing IP address configuration automatically for all computers on the network), latest industrial wireless security encryption (WPA/WPA2) and VPN pass-through. VPN pass-through is not VPN natively, but the router passes the VPN protocols including the IPSec and PPTP.

The other good feature the wireless routers should have is the guest network feature (multiple SSIDs), it’s like VLAN in wired network. Guest network allows you create guest network separate from your private network. You grant internet access to your guests without providing access to your local network resources. You can create guest network each bands. Even the new generation of TEW-692GR supports four SSIDs each bands. All new generations of Netgear wireless routers (including WNDR3400 N600, WNDR3700 N600, WNDR3800 N600 and WNDR4000 N750) support guest network.

Wireless Technology

All the three WNDR3400, WNDR3700 and WNDR3800 are powered by wireless N600 simultaneous dual band technology.  With N600 technology, the routers deliver the high speed up to 300Mbps each band. On the other hand, WNDR4000 is powered by wireless N750 technology delivering different speeds each band, in 5GHz band the speeds up to 450Mbps and in 2.4GHz band the speeds up to 300Mbps. Both bands work simultaneously, doubling your bandwidth demand.

Ethernet Ports

Except the Netgear WNDR3400 N600, all the routers are equipped with the gigabit Ethernet ports both LAN and WAN interfaces. Any computers with gigabit NIC adapters can take advantage of this Gigabit-switch for maximum data rate throughput.

USB Ports

All the routers are equipped with one USB port to let share the storage across the network. Except WNDR3400, all the other routers are DLNA compliant to assure that the router can connect seamlessly to any DLNA-compliant devices including Blu-Ray players and HDTV.

Unfortunately, except WNDR3800, all the router’s USB ports cannot be used to host any USB printer for shared across the network. You can consider the Asus RT-N56U that supports two USB port with the capability of sharing the storage and printer at the same time.

The Performance

As shown on the table, the Netgear WNDR3700 and WNDR3800 are powered by the same 680-MHz MIPS 32-bit processor, 16MB flash and 64MB RAM. Interestingly, the fastest WNDR4000 N750 includes only 8MB flash as opposed to 16MB flash in WNDR3700 and WNDR3800. Flash is non-volatile but programmable memory containing the proprietary router operating system program. RAM is volatile memory containing the running operating system and configuration information.

What about the customers opinions about the products they use? You can read the reviews for example in Amazon. WNDR3400 receives averagely 3.6 out of five stars customer ratings. 4.3 stars customer ratings for range, speed, security features but 3.8 stars for software features.

WNDR3700 receives averagely 3.8 stars customer ratings. Averagely 4.3 stars for range, speed, security features but 3.8 stars for software features. WNDR4000 receives averagely 3.7 customer ratings. Averagely 3.9 for ease of use, speed and range.

See also:

1. NEW DGND3700 N600 ADSL2 Wireless Modem Router
2. Linksys E-4200 Dual Band Gigabit Router
3. MWN-WAPR150N Medialink Wireless 150Mbps router is the best value router
4. Linksys E2500 Vs Linksys E2000 - the new Linksys E Series
5. Computer network with Netgear N600 routers