Netgear EN104TP 4-Port 10 Mbps Ethernet Hub RJ-45 with Uplink Button
by Netgear
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List Price: Our Price: $25.00 You Save: $14.00 (36%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Netgear EN104TP 4-Port 10 Mbps Ethernet Hub RJ-45 with Uplink Button
Customer Review: A solid hub, but 10 Mbps is too limiting today.
Summary: 4 Stars
Our office used to use a handful of the EN-104 4-port hubs and some of the EN-108 (the 8-port version of the same product).As 10 Mbps hubs go, the EN-104's are really nice.
The quality of NetGear equipment has always impressed me:
- Nice sturdy metal construction instead of plastic.
- Status indicators built into the jacks, so you can easily tell which cable is connected and is active.
- Right-angled barrel power connector which reduce the likelihood of disconnecting power accidentally.
- With an easy-to-access switch, Port 1 toggles between station mode and uplink mode. Unlike some hubs where two jacks are wired together, this design prevents accidentally shorting a station to an uplink.
- Screw-mount notches on the underside allows for easy attachment to the wall, underside of a counter, etc.
If you want to set up a network without spending much, these hubs work well. However, I suggest you buy a 10/100 Mbps hub instead.
Here's why:
Practically all new networkable devices today support 100 Mbps (FastEthernet) as well as 10 Mbps (Ethernet). The EN-104 hub (and other 10 Mbps hubs) will limit you to the slower speed.
As 10/100 Mbps hubs are readily available today, and are quite affordable, I think your money is better spent on the faster hub.
Is there a noticeable difference between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps? It depends on your usage, but if you regularly work with files larger than about 300 KBytes or larger, you'll notice a tangible difference. For truly large files (like graphics/movies, or when installing an application via a network drive), a 10 second transfer at 100 Mbps will take well over a minute at 10 Mbps.
If the NetGear 10/100 hub (DS-104) is a bit too pricey for you, you might consider the Linksys EFAH05W 10/100 hub. Though not as "nice" as NetGear equipment, the Linksys 10/100 hub is only a few dollars more than this NetGear 10 Mbps hub.
Customer Review: Useful like a light bulb. Until it burns out
Summary: 3 Stars
Like most consumer electronics these hubs eventually fail in a slow painful death. I believe you can expect around 3-5 years of faithful service before these cost-effective hubs give out.
I wept when the first port stopped lighting up, and only three ports remained working (2 useful for my hw, 1 uplink). But my sympathy for a long-lived product went out the window when the thing got extremely hot and then all the lights went out.
:| It made a resounding thud when it hit the insides of my rubbermaid garbage can. The case is metal and extremely durable. I once used two of these as a monitor stand.
The power cube is still functional, and continues to power my home-built electronic hobbies to this day.
Not a bad product but I'd recommend a 100Mbps / 1Gb hub, and for slightly more money you might as well go with a wireless / wired router or WAP.
Customer Review: Great Hub, Netgear Tech Support could be better.
Summary: 4 Stars
While I have never really found huge differences in hubs based on the name brand, I have generally been very happy with this Netgear Hub and my new Netgear Router. It is built very solid (which is not true of all hubs) and seems to stand up well to some heavy use. (I'll sometimes have to take it into work and I move it around frequently when I rearrange my office...so it gets more `mileage' than most hubs!) The one weakness I've found with Netgear is the Tech Support. Their web site is not the most user-friendly site and it can be a bit of an effort to find a driver or anything. But it is all there and you can get PDF copies of the manuals and such, so that is helpful. The one time I've had to contact Netgear phone support (related to a wireless network card) it was not impressive at all. But for this hub, you should have no need for Tech Support and it is an excellent hub.
Customer Review: Great for Home Network!
Summary: 4 Stars
I have bought two of these for home and office use. They work flawlessy and for the price you cannot beat the functionality. I was running at least Windows 98 on all computers I hooked up to the ethernet hub. Windows makes it easy to set up file and printer sharing. After you are hooked up to a network you will not need to swap disks all the time in order to exchange information or to move files for printing. You can transfer a hundred megabytes in a minute or two depending on the kinds of files.
Setup is a breeze if you have ethernet cards installed already. Even if you do not have cards installed already there are instructions to walk you through step by step.
Customer Review: This Hub Rocks
Summary: 5 Stars
For this price, you can not expect more: compact size, the easiness to install, and the very clever design making it a perfect home network product. If you've already had NIC installed, you network can be up and running in less than five minutes. It's that simple. Keep in mind that this hub is 10 based, if the speed is important to you, then you should consider the 100 based hubs. If you're trying to connect Windows 9x and Windows 2000, make sure to load the NetBUEI protocol into you Win 2000 machine. In general, NetBUEI is one of the default protocols on Win 9x, but not on Win 2000.