NETGEAR WNDR4300-100NAS N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router - Premium Edition IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, IEEE 802.3/3u/3ab NETGEAR WNDR4300-100NAS N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router - Premium Edition IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, IEEE 802.3/3u/3ab

Pros: Has been the most consistent wireless router I've owned to date (besides the old WRT54G from 2007). My D-Link DIR-655 was a bust. 2.4ghz band gets great signal even downstairs in my basement. Coverage is pretty much 4-5 bars throughout the whole house. Worked flawlessly while on firmware 1.0.1.34

Cons: 5ghz band only gets 3 bars in the same room as the router. Once I updated to firmware Firmware Version 1.0.1.42, the router would suddenly disappear from the SSID broadcast lists of my phone, the Wii, and our laptops (this started noticeably about 2 months after I upgraded).

Other Thoughts: I have since downgraded back to firmware 1.0.1.34. A couple people on another online retailer (A.....) posted similar problems with the newer firmware, which is what prompted me to downgrade. Hopefully it fixes the issues I started having. We shall see...

Pros: This router performs very well, and was at agood price for such a high end router (with a newegg promo I got it for about 100 dollars). The Wireless performs so much better than any of my previous router, and the only router I've used where I get a good 5ghz signal upstairs. I get a constant 300mbps link speed and good signal on the 5ghz network on the second floor, nice to be able to get good speeds and signal without having to resort to 2.4ghz 40mhz channel bonding which is finnicky and causes a lot of interference (this router does suport 2.4ghz with channel bonding though if you are so inclined). The gigabit lan works as you'd expect, a good upgrade over my previous 10/100 routers. The router looks nice and I like the included vertical stand.

Cons: The firmware. The firmware is user-friendly and has all the features you'd expect but seems kind of buggy/slow. applying settings takes forever. For the most part it works fine, but the port forwarding is especially bad. Whenever I add a new port forwarding rule, I end up having reboot the router for it to take effect, which is rather annoying. My previous cheap tp-link router the rules would take into effect instantly and I never had any port forwarding issues. After rebooting the rules seem to work fine though.

Pros: I have a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.8.2. I got fast wireless especially at close range with the 5GHz Wireless.

Cons: Because I have an older model (Early 2009), I was unable to connect at 450 because my Mac does not support this feature. I was able to connect at 300 speed and it was hugely faster than my D-Link DIR-655 Rev. A (not a dual band router.) I set up and ran time machine 3 times and it was successful at first each time making backups. However, subsequent backups failed. I could read and write to the external drive easily, BUT time machine could no longer find the router's attached external drive. In the finder I could no longer log on to the volume as an administrator. I spent about three hours on the phone with NETGEAR support at level one and two, but no solution was available. Shout out to NETGEAR support for their courtesy and willingness to help. They even remote connected to re-setup the router. Hopefully they will find the bug and they were willing to attempt to replicate the problem in their labs. I was satisfied with their service even though they were unable to fix the problem.

Other Thoughts: I returned the product to the retailer (not newegg).

I hate the Apple Tax but I feel like the best option right now is to go with the Apple Time Capsule. Better yet, I'll wait till Apple supports wireless ac.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the kind words about our support team. We're glad they did what they could to try to help, and wanted to let you know that we're here if you need support with a product in the future. If you ever have a NETGEAR product and support is unable to resolve the issue, please follow up with us on the case at newegg@netgear.com.

Thanks again for your business and we hope you will be a customer in the future!

Regards,

NETGEAR Team

Pros: Setup of this router is no more challenging than others. The average user should have no issues setting up this router and getting it to work on their network.

After getting it setup the first thing I noticed was that unlike most routers the LEDs indicating connectivity are solid and not blinking when accessed like most routers. I personally find that to be a huge pro because the constant and random blinking can get annoying.

As far as performance goes this router is great. The gigabit network works great for inter network transfers; the limiting factor for me at least was hard drive speed not network speed.

Wireless network is stable and works great, range is a bit to be desired but that will come later.

I have had it running for almost a month straight and have never had it power cycle or any disconnection issues with it like one of the other routers I reviewed.

Cons: Wireless range leaves something to be desired but that is relatively standard with routers in this price range. I have the router in the far corner of my house and on the other side the signal drops 2 out of 5 bars. Not a large house either and the second you step out the door it’s gone. So for someone looking to cover their backyard or something like that look elsewhere and good luck.

Other Thoughts: This router would be great for parents that want to monitor their children’s internet activity to filter them from some of the bad things that exist out there on the internet. The included software integrates with your cell phone and allows you some rather high level of control. So far this level of control and the ease of control via phone are unique to my reviewing of routers so far.

I plan on continuing using this router as my primary router at home. For the price and the feature set it is a great buy.

Pros: I test these routers as an inexperienced user would, there are enough IT professionals giving us a very lot of technical results that are terrific to read and give us very good info, but I am of the conviction that average users are the majority of the buyers, and try to give them a take on how much trouble they might run into.

MOST problems are easy fixes, but the easy is AFTER finding out the way to fix it.

This is a fine wireless router, with sufficient power to broadcast most internet and file transfers over a pretty good sized house, with a LOT of nice additions to allow you to configure to your hearts content. IT also has a very nice BASIC menu for most users to set up parental controls, guest networks, NAS type USB 2.0 sharing, and wireless radio off and on and other basic things an average user might want to try out.

IT has an advanced selection menu to tweak out all the thruput you can within the Genie software.

Readyshare use of the USB2.0 port was cleanly done in software for people to access the port for NAS type operation even from afar, via smartphones and tablets. Kinda like your own slightly slow (USB2.0) cloud. Note to Netgear, make the next one USB3.0 please.

Read Tom's Hardwares take on AC routers out recently, it will open a door to a new spectrum of performance. Very eyeopening. OR just read the conclusion.

This was the easiest of three similar classed routers to install and configure using supplied software, notably the Genie accessed thru the browser and Readyshare application. See below for the one problem I encountered I need to tell about.

Netgear is a good brand with good history.

Cons: The paper work says to insert the included Readyshare CD into the computer to access the USB2.0 port options. There is no CD included. They know and are changing the stuff that goes into the box. Just forget the CD, you don't need it.


To access Genie, go into browser and type routerlogin.net after configuring and wiring according to the well written Installation Guide. This will allow you to access everything you need to do. IT will work by just setting up everything according to the Guide and turning everything back on in the right order.

Give everything minutes, not seconds to set up and configure itself before going to the next step, these things all take forever it seems to do anything, all brands included. Even turning on and off the wireless radios you have to hold in the button for a while before the light turns off or on.

Other Thoughts: Very nicely done router, can mount on wall, no exposed antennae, good light info on front, has 1 Gb wired switch for four lines out, has WPS pushbutton connection for easy connection and configuration.

The Readyshare USB function works better than any I have seen yet, tho should be USB 3.0. But you can access everything on a 1T portable WD Elements 2.5" drive from your desktop or tablet, good going there.

As I said before, read the Tom's Hardware article on AC class routers before you buy, if you want to supply more than one or two HD streams you might want to pay a little more for performance of the AC class, but they are not all great.

This router will deliver 25Mbps I get over the internet thru 2 walls and 30feet wirelessly without problems I can see. Also works well with a USB2.0 add on adapter client for 2.4Ghz only.

Pros: The Netgear WNDR4300 router offers theoretical speeds up to 750 Mbps (300+450 Mbps) which makes it ideal for larger homes.

The measured signal strength using InSSIDer was excellent on the 2.4 Ghz band. It measured from -20 dBm within 3 feet of the router to -52 dBm through one wall 50 feet away.

The 5 Ghz band did not do as well. It measured around -35 within 3 feet of the router to -67 to -80 dBm going through one wall and being some 50 feet away. However, with all things considered the signal strength of this router is above average and should be more than adequate in most homes.

A LAN to LAN test was made between two wired gigabit connected computers connected to the WNDR4300 router. The tests were made using the free version of LAN SpeedTest and a 20 Megabyte file. The router showed excellent throughput on the test. The write speed measured 565 Mbps and the read speed was 649 Mbps. A LAN to the ReadyShare USB drive measured a write speed 68.50 Mbps and a read speed of 139.48 Mbps.

Netgear has taken a novel approach with the WNDR4300 router when it comes to user documentation. Provided with the router is a minimal instruction guide containing the necessary steps to connect the cables and power up the router. Step 6 of the instructions says to open a browser. That is where the magic begins. When you open the browser you should be presented with a Netgear genie welcome screen. In my case the router changed the IP address to avoid conflicts with my ISP so the first screen was an informational screen advising me of the change. Clicking continue starts a test to see if there was an internet connection, which if successful, results in display showing the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz SSIDs and password. Selecting the option “Take me to the Internet” takes you to a congratulations page with four premium feature icons. If you stop here and simply go to a URL you will miss out on the additional documentation. Selecting the Netgear genie icon takes you to a screen where you can download the Netgear genie software for your PC or MAC and provides additional instructions for your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Each additional icon takes you to the appropriate page where you can download the instructions for each feature (Ready share printer, ready share cloud, ready share vault, etc). This makes the setup very easy for the novice.

It is also refreshing to see a company supply a cat 5E cable with their router. A number of companies simply supply a cat 5 cable with their gigabit router which is only rated for Fast Ethernet (100 Mbit/s) instead of Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbit/s).

Cons: Nothing in the documentation provided with the router advises you that there is a user’s manual available or that you have to go to www.support.netgear.com/product/WNDR4300 to get it. Without the user’s manual, or prior experience, adjusting the router settings is rather hit or miss. Netgear would eliminate lots of user frustration by providing a CD with the router containing all of the documentation that is available for the router. Especially when you are trying to find information about the readyshare feature.

Other Thoughts: The default setting for the 2.4 GHz wireless mode is 130 Mbps. To change this setting you have to locate the advanced settings in the router and change the setting. Several attempts were made to change it to 300 Mbps and each time the router indicated that WPS was active and to try again later. Once I turned off the wireless bands (press and hold the wireless button until the bands are turned off) then I was able to successfully make the change. This was also necessary to change the channel that was being used. Nothing in the user’s manual indicated to turn off both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios to turn off the WPS feature so I am thinking this is a firmware bug. I contacted Netgear about this issue and they are investigating.

For the person requesting help on how to connect to the ready share USB drive on a NewEgg user review. There are several ways of connecting to the USB drive. If you are using a Windows system you can select the option to map a network drive. The drive should appear when you attempt to share a network folder so you select it and click okay. From that point your shared drive appears as a drive letter on your machine. If you have no other mapped drives it should appear as drive Z. Or you can go to Window explorer and type in \\readyshare in the address bar and the USB_Storage folder will appear. There are more ways than these to access the USB drive. You can go to www.netgear.com/readyshare and find additional setup instructions along with a PC utility to help you connect as well.

All in all this router is easy to set up and has excellent range on the 2.4 Ghz band. I am quite pleased with this routers performance and I do not think that you would be disappointed if you purchase this router.

Pros: 1. Super-easy setup: Unit, clearly labeled CAT-5 cable, power adapter.
2. Space saving design: bracket for standing up the unit to save space
3. Mounting holes on the back to mount to wall
4. Netgear ""Genie"" is very easy to use and well organized.
5. Range is improved over the Netgear WNDR3700 and other comparable routers for 2.4G.
6. Low latency
7. Strong signal strength for 2.4G (-30dBm) when in the same room with lots of electronics and wireless phones.

Cons: 1. Power adapter is at the plug and horizontally oriented to take up 2+ outlets on a power strip. (Why do they keep making this bad design choice?)
2. 5G signal strength could be stronger (-40dBm in the same room and drops quickly when moving away from router). Connection was slow or dropped when too far away.
3. No marked performance improvement over earlier model (WNDR3700)

Other Thoughts: 1. The router software (Netgear Genie) is a welcomed improvement over previous Netgear software.
2. At the furthest point in my house to the router, I was able to connect and maintain 78Mbps with the WNDR4300, whereas I had no signal in the same spot with the WNDR3700.
3. Speedtest.net on wired connection for comparison on Comcast network. Tests run 3 times (avg shown):
WNDR4300 - Ping: 10ms, Down: 52.90, Up 10.70
WNDR3700 - Ping: 14ms, Down: 52.92, Up 10.64
4. Using a WiFi analyzer, I was able to find channels that were less crowded, which gave me the optimum connection speed and lowest latency.
5. Not enough has changed from previous models to warrant an upgrade.

Pros: It comes pre configured with the wireless SID name and password labeled on the packing material. So this can be plugged in and in minutes your ready with a secure wireless network. I followed the included quick set up instructions and hook everything up and it took about 10 min and one reboot on the modem to get working. I opened up my firefox browser and Netgear Genie took over from there. It started up a user interface let me check all my settings and set my password for my two wireless connections 2.4MHz and 5.0 MHz. The WNDR4300 has all the futures of a high end router including dual band guest networks and well as the two standard networks. That's 4 separate wireless networks. Also a USB 2.0 for sharing an external hard drive to your network. It has gigabit ports, QoS, IPv6, WPS, Power on and off on the back. And WiFi on and off in the front. A nice addition. The unit is esthetically pleasing and will lie flat as well as stand vertical. There are 7 lights on the front. Not a plus as I tend to not like lights. But they are clearly labeled and not too bright. The network speed on the gigabyte ports was good. Transferring a 10 Gb file in less then 2 min. Wireless speeds were also good and solid. The 2.4 GHz maintained a good connection and transferred a 10 Gb file without interruption. The 5.0GHz was extremely fast but signal distance was average and not great. The USB 2.0 plug and easy share ability worked flawlessly. I was able to access all my files from any PC. Easy share also has the ability to create access from anywhere on the net with password protection. The biggest plus was the support from Netgear. I e-mailed them with a couple of questions and within one day I had a response from there support team with the answer I was looking for. They were friendly and helpful. It was obvious I was talking with the actual people and not some paid contractor to give support.

Cons: Limited instruction included with product. But the website was packed with helpful information in the support area. The Netgear Genie install program is recommended (not required) for every PC but it is not included and must be downloaded. You can download the Genie app from the web site but I had to look around for it. This was also not explained in the included instructions. The 5.0 Ghz band distance was fair but in side by side comparison with a Cisco E4200 it came up short. It was able to cover approximately 50' and up one floor. But not both. Standing the unit up did help. The speed of the 5.0 Ghz band was 30% faster then the E4200. The 2.4 GHz band had excellent distance and speed. Clients were able to connect to it without issue. Smart phone, tablet, laptop, all connected easily. It also has a gloss finish that fingerprints easily.

Other Thoughts: A nice router for serious users. Nice added security features to prevent DOS attacks and a firewall is a plus. Setup is painless and its loaded with features. Easily share a USB hard drive with everyone. DLNA ready so consoles are supported. The 5.0 GHz range was a little lacking but both networks were extremely fast. I was really impressed with the support from Netgear on both there web site, forum and e-mail.

Pros: Great to see that newer mainstream routers are becoming available with Gigabit ports means I can put away my gigabit switch, this router is also IPv6 enabled so whenever someone somewhere decides to throw that switch it will be ready. The router is very easy to set up, the instructions, when downloaded (!!!!) see Cons below, were easy to follow and little user input was required. My wireless and wired network were running, before tweaking, within 5 minutes of prising the box open. If you do tweak your router then you will not be disappointed, there are oodles of options that can be adjusted to allow you to maximize the throughput/security to your particular preference. Wireless hookup of my tablet, phone, laptop and a wireless desktop was very straightforward. With the router in the basement, reception throughout the house was well above that experienced using my old 2.4 GHz router. Bandwidth was able to cope with several wireless devices operating simultaneously, but not in all situations see Cons below. Nothing has arisen that has necessitated a router reboot… yet! The USB port allows the attachment of some external storage that can be used as a network attached drive. To access this you just need a SAMBA capable device, pretty much any wireless device will do this, if not natively then with the addition of a SMB app of some kind, certainly this was the case with my android tablet, don’t expect stellar file transfer speeds to and from the attached storage but hey it’s better than not having any! USB device removal requires safe removal somewhat akin to the way you unmount a flash drive in Windows. What effect just yanking the plug would have I haven’t tried as I don’t fancy sacrificing a flash drive to the cause! A printer can also be attached to the USB port, not something I did as my printer is hard wired into the network. The guest network is very useful, I fix a lot of laptops etc. for family, friends etc. and as I run a fairly tight network in terms of security it is a real pain in the proverbial to be constantly adding MAC addresses to my router’s configuration, the guest network feature is very convenient and the wireless isolation option removes access to your connected devices from your guest network.

Cons: The box I received didn’t have a disk or any documentation, all of this is easily downloadable of course but no documentation this is a big deal if you are replacing a busted modem. If I had been in that situation I would have been very annoyed to say the least. During the messing about phase, usually my first couple of days with a new piece of technology, I noticed that if you use the AUTO selection on the 2.4GHz wireless network then the router does not always use the optimum channel. Manual configuration of this to channels 1, 6 or 11 will minimize cross device interference (my preference is 11 due to historical issues with cordless phones). Multiple clients (read two!) streaming HD simultaneously caused issues, so a single client streaming HD is fine but any additional HD load seems to exhaust the bandwidth. In my house this is not a biggie as with only two residents it is not likely that we will be streaming HD content simultaneously to two separate wireless devices, neither of us likes viewing video on laptops/tablets/phones etc. as we tend to use our hardwired connected TVs. Even activating the WMM QoS options within the router did little to alleviate this problem. In a house with more users or a couple of teenagers I think this would fast become a serious complaint. Vertical mounting of the router increased the signal to the floors above, and I wonder how much could have been gained if there was an option for utilizing external antennae.

Other Thoughts: On the whole I am quite satisfied with this router. A gigabit, IPv6, dual band wireless router with good bandwidth, (providing you are not overdoing the Netflix!), with USB Port to which you can attach storage or a printer using the ReadySHARE feature. All of this for a very competitive price, this can’t be anything but a good thing! As to the bandwidth I experienced: my laptop was able to pull down about 16 MBps on the 5 GHz network while it achieved 2.6 MBps on the 2.4 GHz network, so my recent upgrading to a dual band mini PCI-E card (Intel Centrino 6230) was well rewarded! These figures were achieved through a floor and a partition wall at a distance of about 15’ with no other active wireless devices, moving within the confines of my house I saw some signal degradation with increasing distance and intervening walls but the lowest I recorded inside was 9 MBps on 5 GHz and 1.1 MBps on 2.4 GHz, this was at a distance of about 20’ through two partition walls and a wood floor. I didn’t venture outside as we have about 18” of snow with temps hovering around 12 F just now. The guest network is very handy and seems to be becoming a common feature in mid to higher end wireless routers, I would, however, like an auto shutdown on the guest network, i.e. the guest network would switch itself off after so many minutes of no clients connected as I believe this would minimize the risk of opportunistic hacking. For me personally, the issues with wifi HD streaming to multiple clients is not a deal breaker. With an established hard wired network in my house, my wireless is for portable devices only and for me and my ailing eyes tablets etc. are not suitable for viewing anything except short youtube clips. I am dropping an egg however due to the lack of included documentation, especially in light of the unique way this router is configured. If I had been in a broken router situation and found I needed to download documentation I would not be best pleased. Seriously no usable documentation in the box! I think Netgear needs to give their customers a break, either include an electronic copy or a printed copy a mass produced CD can’t cost that much!

Pros: Fast. Basic set up was quick and easy, and using a few advanced features also took little time. Where my basic, cheap router got 18Mb/s down on a PCI wireless N card, this router shows 28.5. Forty feet and a couple walls away, my tablet showed 23.5 down and 5.4 up; three feet away it was 24 down and 4.8 (slower!) up; with a 20ms ping. Subjectively, my wife commented on how much faster her connection seemed, and she uses a Powerline connection.
USB connection for hard drives; my wife and I can share a WD Passport I have plugged into it.
Stands upright, taking very little space. Indicators clearly visible, but not painfully bright. Could also mount on the wall.
Decent security settings, including WPA, and the usual parental controls, ACLs, etc. Nothing ""missing."" Underside only slightly warm.

Cons: I haven't found any yet.

Other Thoughts: For the price premium over a cheap router, this was absolutely worthwhile. Wired speeds were about the same, but if you have wireless devices, this router will significantly boost your throughput. I just bought my tablet, and getting stuff loaded on it has been lightning fast.
I waited over a week since getting this to review it to check for dropouts or interference, and there has been none of that nonsense. Count that another Pro.