Netgear WGR614 Wireless-G Router
by Netgear
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List Price: Our Price: $33.99 You Save: $25.00 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $15.95 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Netgear WGR614 Wireless-G Router
Customer Review: 3 years and still going!!! I use it like no other as well...
Summary: 5 Stars
First, let me tell you that my background is in IT. I am an IT manager, so i know all about networking and IT.
I bought this router back in Winter of 2006 i believe. So i've had it for a solid 3 years now. I've put it to good use. My network consists of multiple computers (Lan and wireless) and a ps3 and xbox 360. In my house its not uncommon for 3+ of those devices to be used at the same time. I bought this router originally because it was a) cheap b) i was going to buy a gaming router but didn't want to put one in my apartment. I never ended up buying that gaming router because:
1) The router is fast. It's only wireless G, but its still pretty fast and as long as you keep your wireless cards updated on your computers, signal reliability shouldn't be a problem. I can have my ps3 online at the same time as my XBOX 360 and have no lag at all on either, plus i can have 1-2 laptops all on at the same time. For example, from a speed test on my laptop (This varies depending on your kind of broadband connection too though) with my ps3 and xbox 360 online, with 2 laptops online i can still download at about 1800 KB/sec and upload at about 950KB/sec which is really good. I barely notice the decline in speed even when the router is in full use.
2) I never had a problem it in these 3 years. It's never stopped working or turned off on me. I was surprised at what this cheap router can do. You really are getting a lot out of a little with this puppy.
3) It's secure. You have WEP, WAP and WAP2. I keep my network on WAP2, the strongest encryption that (to this day) is still unbreakable. It's extra piece of mind knowing i can do my online shopping and banking worry free of anyone intercepting my wireless data.
4) After a year i decided to start shopping for the gaming router. I went out and saw they sell for about $150...Sure they have all the latest features but do you really need an LCD screen ON your router? its worthless. I realized that for that year my WGR614 had been working fine. So i stuck with it. Best decision ever. It's been 3 years and still pulling strong.
5) The range is perfect for my apartment. I can go anywhere in my apartement and outside (its about 1600 sq. ft.) and i get no less then 3 bars of signal out of 5 at the furthest point i use it at which is through 3 quite thick walls.
6) Firmware upgrades are super easy. My younger brother can upgrade the firmware and that really says something because unlike me he has no idea about anything network related. Netgear fixes the main issues you have with their updates which really means im getting a quality product and Netgear is actively fixing user issues as they are reported. A Firmware update takes about 5 mins and my internet speeds always seem to go up a little with every firmeware upgrade.
The only cons with this router are:
- It's antenna probably wouldn't be good for long ranges. So if your home is larger then probably around 2000sq. ft. you'd be looking at weaker signal or maybe no signal at some ends of the house.
- Wireless encrpytion is easy to set up for me, but for some they might find it challenging. If you just follow the instructions, it's pretty easy to to get it set up though. I can't really say much about the issue because i am IT person so its butter for me, but i could see why the average non-tech user would be lost in the installation.
- It feels cheap. It's lightweight and feels like its going to break easily but hey i've had mine for 3 years without issues so its not really a con for me anymore.
I'm switching to wireless N soon so this router won't be around for much longer, but i can probably safely say that it will be in working condition even when i replace it. I'll keep it around just in case i have issues with my wireless N router because a lot of people are reporting issues with them. Sure wireless N is faster, but very few N routers are as bug free as this little G router.
Customer Review: Disappears from network, UPnP doesn't work right
Summary: 1 Stars
I have the v5 of this router. I put the latest firmware on it. None of this made any difference to all the tests I discuss below.
I am a very experienced software engineer. I just want you to know who was doing these tests.
Since my initial testing about 2 weeks ago, I must correct my
initial assessment that the router's throughput is bad. Actually, it's very very good. I was having problems with a wireless notebook card. However, the rest of my negative
opinion stands, and I'd still say "get another router".
If all you want to do is surf the web and read email, this router will work. If you want to do ANYTHING ELSE, run, do not walk, to the store, and get yourself a different router.
I'm in a lab, with perfect Ethernet connections on both the WAN and LAN sides of this router (no ISP involved), and my wirelessly connected computer is sitting feet from the thing, so there's no "bad signal" issues.
Here's what's wrong with this thing:
1. Discovery is awful. Using it in wireless mode: now you see it, now you don't. Discovery by the Windows wireless manager fails a lot.
2. UPnP doesn't. It times out, locks up, and loses UPnP entries at the drop of a hat. So you can forget chat, messenger, videoconferencing, and any other tools that use the handy UPnP setup to open the port forwarding entries.
3. Every setting you change in the web interface requires the router to restart and it takes FOREVER (like 30 seconds).
4. Out of the box, the wireless doesn't work, BY DESIGN. You have to use some obnoxious "configuration" program they include on a CD, or, connect with the WIRED side, and go to the main config web page.
5. Change the wireless SSID from the default "NETGEAR" and it's goodbye wireless LAN. You won't be able to connect to it every again, until you connect using the wired side, change the name BACK to "NETGEAR", reboot, and then change it again to what you want. Then it finally works.
6. When you change "some" configuration settings, it will spontaneously lose other ones. When you change settings, "sometimes" after it saves them and reboots, you won't be able to find the router again until you power it off and on.
You might think it's just a defective unit. But don't bet on it. Like I said, if you just set it up and use the web and email, it never hiccups --- very unlikely if it had a hardware problem. But if you do anything else to it, it's a total piece of junk.
My experience a week ago with support for their older MR814 router led me to NetGear's useless tech support call center in India (no, this isn't racist, it's really in India). And what do you get?
1) You have to go through an arduous web page "registration" process before the call center will even help you.
2) The web page registration would not work, insisting that the "purchase date" I entered was invalid, even though it's not.
3) The call center person told me they would register my router for me, and that I would have to call back in 20 minutes after the registration had time to get into their database.
In short, their tech support is such agony, that I am not going to call them on THIS router. It's going in the dumpster.
I am in the process of reviewing routers for a videoconferencing software product my company sells. Specifically, I'm looking for ones that support UPnP well, because I want to set up the ports on the router to let video get in without making the user setup the router themself.
As a result, I have a big pile of different routers here, and I can tell you that this one is the worst, bar none.
Stay away from the D-Link DI-624 too, while you're at it.
The Linksys models I've tried work the best, by far.
Customer Review: Excellent router with no problems whatsoever
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an exceptional router and at this price you can't find a better choice. I see a lot of disgruntled people here who can't connect to the router wirelessly after changing settings. I would like to give a couple of tips. First of all, make sure you configure the router when you are hard wired. You have to ensure that you are connected to the router via a LAN cable whenever you are making any changes to the router's configuration. This way when the router restarts etc. you will still be connected to it. If you are carrying out any changes to the router through your wireless card, for example if you have changed the WEP encryption code in the router, then once you submit those changes, the router will not let your wireless card connect until your laptop's card is configured for the same WEP key. So once again, please ensure you carry out changes to the router only when hard wired. The moment you get your router, I suggest you carry out a firmware upgrade (go to netgear's support site and download the latest firmware for your model from there). Once again follow instructions and make sure you are connected through a cable to carry out the same. Now log onto the router and then do a couple of things.
First of all, rename the SSID to anything you want (eg. Joan's Arc). Then go to the wireless settings, then to wireless access, and click on 'Disable SSID broadcast'. This ensures that the SSID is not broadcast to others around you who have a wireless machine. So when their software searches for a wireless access point all they will see is a blank name. To be able to connect to your network they would have to know the name of your SSID (Joan's Arc in this case) and manually type it in their machines (Highly unlikely that they will be able to think of the same name as you do. You can make your name even harder to obtain by simply using numeric characters in it.. for example Joan's Arc2004). Secondly, to make it secure use a 128 bit WEP key (this has to be a 26 digit key consisting of alphanumeric and numeric characters. You can use only certain alphabets in small and large case so you need to check that out. Also remember that you have to feed the same WEP key number in your laptop wireless card software (or the windows wireless settings if you are not using your wireless card's software). Finally you can ensure that only the wireless devices you specify can logon to your router. Go to the Wireless settings, then to wireless access setup and then click on 'enable wireless access'... Thereafter click on 'Setup access list'. Once there add your wireless device by using its mac address (the mac address is a unique number given to a wireless device, very much like a phone number- this enables the router to identify the device trying to connect to it). The mac address will be listed on your wireless device and you can also see all the devices that you can allow to connect to your router in the router's configuration window. (One important note to remember is that if you have already enabled WEP then you will have to first feed in the same key into your wireless device software settings before the router will display it in it's list of devices). Select the device that you want to allow to connect to your router and apply.
Hope this helps to a certain extent to configure your routers. Trust me, this is an amazing router and if you are having connection problems, it most likely is due to the settings in the router- not because the router is faulty.
Customer Review: worked fine, then abrupt and complete disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
I got this device about two months ago, and up until tonight, it performed admirably. Setup was easy, I got my internet connection up and running in about 5 minutes, and got all my wireless security settings up and running in another 15.
Up until now, it has performed well. However, its failure tonight and subsequent wading through Netgear's technical support offerings turned me off of this product forever.
I was playing World of Warcraft, and after about an hour, my connection abruptly died altogether. No internet, I could not even access the router's internal setup page to check on its status. It seemed to be in some sort of hard-locked state. Rebooting it didn't improve things.
I broke out the CD that came with the device, with the idea of looking at the manual (they don't give you a paper copy, it's all on the CD). Pretty basic stuff, checking connections, etc. The troubleshooting section was full of hints on how to make sure that it isn't a problem with another component in your system before daring to blame theirs. I have a more surefire method. My old trusty Linksys Etherfast cable/dsl router had no trouble getting me back online.
So I went to netgear's website to download the latest firmware.
With the firmware image ready, my next task was to get the Netgear device back up and running so I could access its setup page. I discovered that if I disconnected the WAN cable going to my cable modem, the device would actually stay in a usable state. If I connect the WAN cable, it seems to die within about 15 seconds. Ordinarily I'd suspect something to be wrong with my cable modem here, but my Linksys router has no trouble with it as I have been online problem-free for over an hour using it now, as I'm writing this review.
Anyway, I got the thing to boot, and loaded the new firmware image on it, then restarted the router. I hit the setup page again, only to discover it has been replaced by a "wizard". The wizard was unable to get an address via DHCP, and so guessed that I use a static IP. Or at least, that is what I am imagining happened as it displayed "we are now detecting your internet connection settings" for several moments and then announced that I needed to enter static IP information.
The thing that most galled me about this is that they don't provide a way to say "no, that's not correct. I use DHCP. And where the hell are the rest of the menus I used to use?" I discovered you can get to these if you forge static IP settings and tell it to continue. On the failure page that results, you can find a link that takes you to the "basic settings" section, which is essentially the menu system the old firmware used to set up the router.
The summary of this complaint is this: the device and its associated software go to great lengths to make setup easy, and to minimize the steps necessary to get things running, *if everything is working.* I imagine many customers can just breeze through the wizard and get themselves online. However, if something goes wrong, the "wizard" is useless. For one thing, almost all of the technical support documentation's suggestions are impossible to carry out without fighting your way past the wizard into the normal configuration.
So for now I'm back on my trusty Linksys, without wireless support, but given the reliability I've experienced between the two brands, I'm going to buy a Linksys wireless router instead.
Customer Review: Great product for the price
Summary: 4 Stars
I'll be up-front in saying that price was the major motivation in purchasing this product vs. some other. At the time, the reviews were split pretty evenly between 4-5 stars and 1-2, so getting into it, I knew it could be a mixed bag.
I personally have not experienced the problems mentioned elsewhere with random dropping out, failure to work after a few weeks, and I haven't had the "pleasure" of speaking with Tech Support.
What I like:
* The process of going from opening the box, to setup, to having a working wireless router was quite painless. Throwing the security features into the mix makes the overall process longer, but more on that in a bit
* The documentation on the CD actually contains a lot of good information on more advanced stuff. I realize not everyone needs to/wants to fool around with tweaking the settings, but sometimes you just have to.
* Supports keyword filtering. For someone with young kids, this is a neat feature - although you have to pick fairly specific words, as 'sex' and some other words get used in a wide variety of ways
* Generating a WEP key using a passphrase worked well for me, since I also have a Netgear wireless adapter. I used the same passphrase in both places, and they both resolved to the same WEP key.
* Sounds stupid, but I like the product itself -- it's a nice shape/size and (more importantly) has passed all the security tests I've thrown at it.
What I don't like:
* Web pages inside the configuration utility aren't great -- having the CD handy with the PDF file works better. I'd like to see links back to the Netgear website -- i.e. 'click here for more information' type of stuff
* Web site blocking/allow is clunky. There's no way to possibly list every site you'd want to block, yet that's the only mechanism available for blocking entire sites. I'd like to see some sort of integration with Cerberian or something of that ilk that offers content filtering as part of their main business.
Lessons Learned:
* Make sure you know the difference between the WAN and the LAN before you start setting up the router. This may seem obvious, but it was just confusing enough that I got it wrong the first time.
* Get the thing running in an unsecure mode first -- i.e. no WEP, MAC address filtering, etc. Ideally you want to have a computer connected to one of the hub ports so you don't have to reset the router if you botch/forget a security setting.
* As part of the process of adjusting the parameters of your router, do a site survey and see what your neighbors are using. You should change the SID anyway (or even better, turn it off), but make sure it doesn't match something a neighbor has. Along these same lines, but even more importantly, pick a channel frequency that none of your neighbors has. I found this very helpful in avoiding signal loss problems.
Final thoughts:
Hard-core network engineers will find this router to be too limiting to work with, but the average home user will find it well-suited to the basics of sharing a broadband internet connection and securely sharing files over the LAN (just remember to configure your security!!)
For the price, I don't think there's a better product on the market.