June 9, 2011 Netgear N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (WNDR4000)

I want to state outright: I have never seen faster throughput at the 5GHz band than with Netgear's N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (WNDR4000) ($130, street). The vendor claims the router can do 450Mbps at the 5GHz band. In the lab, due to high performance throughput testing and real-world RF interference, if the product tests out at even half the vendor's touted rates, I consider that very good throughput. The N750 exceeded my expectations, getting a maximum throughput of 286Mbps at 5GHz. That's an unprecedented number, and only Netgear's N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (WNDR3700) and the Cisco Linksys E4200 Maximum Performance Wireless-N Router come close to that kind of performance. While it didn't have the same comparable killer performance at 2.4Ghz, it was within striking distance of the top performers. Add dead-simple set up to sizzling speeds, and we've got a new Editors' Choice wireless router.

Like the N600(WNDR3700), Netgear's N750 router is perfect for more advanced users and those who like to tweak their Wi-Fi networks. However, Netgear's new Genie wizard allows for a setup process that won't bewilder networking novices—although if you have true router-phobia, look to Cisco/Linksys' E-series, which practically sets itself up. Because the N750 is available at retailers online from $130 to $150, the N750 is cheaper than the Cisco/Linksys E4200, which is its closest competition on the market. The N750 also has a wider feature set, and although Cisco will be offering virtual USB via a firmware update this summer, the N750 has NAS USB capabilities (although no printer sharing).

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The N750 is an easy Editors' Choice pick because of its advanced features, easy setup, and breathtaking performance in the 5GHz band. The N750's 2.4GHz-band performance is well above average and it's more than adequate for connecting wireless devices for web surfing, email, and other light bandwidth tasks. If you plan to do a lot of large file transfers or media streaming, the N750 may be the best router on the market for those jobs. My one criticism is that the USB drive support can be flaky. I still have yet to see a device that can handle being a router and a NAS and perform both functions excellently. The N750 is decent at handling lighter file-sharing and streaming tasks, but if you want a true NAS, buy a NAS.

Specs and Design
The N750 ships with a stand so you can position it horizontally or vertically. It has a USB 2.0 port, four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, and a WAN port. There's also a button to power the router off. You'd be surprised how many routers do not have a power button. If you want to do a hard reset, you have to fiddle with wires or go into the router's management interface—and either is a hassle.

Specifications

Networking Options

802.11n (2.4+5 GHz Dualband)

Device Type

Router

The design does not differ much from Netgear's N600 (WNDR3700). The front LEDs include one that indicates the status of a connected UBS device and when the device is safe to remove. There's also a WLAN on and off switch, which powers up the wireless radios, and a WPS button to automatically connect WPS-supported wireless clients. Although Netgear doesn't typically disclose hardware specs, I can confirm that the router uses Broadcom chipset. The 5GHz radio is equipped with three stream antennas, and the 2.4GHz radio uses 2x2 antennas. This accounts for the unbelievable performance at the 5GHz band and the better than average performance at 2.4GHz —which is fine. You want the 5GHz band to scream when handling intense bandwidth tasks. The problem is you need to have wireless clients that also support the three stream technology to take advantage of that speed. The laptop I use for testing, HP's Elitebook 8440w, does have a compatible Intel Centrino-based wireless adapter.

The N750 also has 16MB flash memory and 64MB RAM—the same memory specs as the N600 (WNDR3700).

Setup

The router ships with a Resource CD that contains the setup files and a well-detailed user manual PDF. The manual indicates that the router can be setup using the Smart Wizard on the CD or manually—an option for advanced and Linux users. This router is compatible with PCs, Macs, and Linux machines.

You can only use the Smart Wizard setup for Macs and PCs, and that's the option I chose. Clicking Setup launches the Netgear Genie app. Setting up the N750 is not wireless setup, as it is with the Cisco/Linksys E-series routers. You have to have a physical Ethernet cable. I had the router connected to my broadband via the router's WAN port, and I had my laptop with the setup software installed on it connected to the router with an Ethernet cable to one of the router's LAN ports.

Setup is relatively simple: name your SSIDs for both the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, setup security (which defaults to WPA2). Enter a passphrase, and you're done. While I've previously criticized Netgear for absurdly detailed, almost condescending setup instructions like "take the adapter labeled from the box and plug it in," that's not the case here. In fact, the instructions don't emphasize strongly enough that users have to connect it via an Ethernet cable to their computer as part of the set up their system. But that's one minor complaint in an otherwise excellent setup system.

Features

Typical home users will probably just be happy with the Genie setup process and leave the router as is. For them, Netgear offers a Live Parental Control Service through OpenDNS. It's an easy way to keep the kiddes from viewing anything that could scar them from life on the Internet--I detailed how efficiently it works in my review of the N600 (WNDR3700).

Specifications

The level of control the N750's features offer will delight advanced users. The entrée to those features is the management interface, which will look familiar to anyone who has managed a Netgear router in the past, but since the release of the N600 (WNDR3700), Netgear has padded features even more. Advanced features include guest networking, content filtering, the ability to set router up in Bridge or Repeater mode, as well as extensive USB functions. For example, you can set up an approved list of USB devices to connect to the router.

I connected a 75GB Cirago USB drive to the router. The drive was correctly identified as a Cirago device within Netgear's interface, and the free and used storage was reported correctly, as well. The router also can act as a media server. I connected a USB drive stored with several videos and was easily able to stream to wireless devices on my network. You can access an attached USB drive through Windows Explorer via a UNC path to a shared folder on the USB device. Users can also create sub-folders from within the router interface and edit permissions. Managing a USB device's folders and files through the router takes a little know-how of folder and file management. Again, for more robust but easier file sharing and streaming, a NAS like Iomega's Home Media Network Hard Drive, Cloud Edition, LG's Super Multi N2A2 NAS or QNAP TS-212 TurboNAS are better options.

The N750 also supports IPv6—something you want to find in any future networking device purchases. It's easy to enable IPv6 with just a click.

Performance

I want to highlight how great the performance of the N750 is at the 5GHz. Performance was very good at 2GHz, of course, but what really impressed me was the consistency of 5GHz throughput, which didn't vary much when I was 5 feet or 30 feet from the router. I test using Ixia's IxChariot Throughput and High Performance Throughput scripts. They are bidirectional tests, simulating upload and download traffic, with one endpoint wired to the router and another wirelessly connected. Here are the results:

Comparison at 2.4GHz to throughput of single-band 2.4GHz routers:

Comparison at 5GHz to throughput of dual-band routers:

You can see that throughput is on par with the top routers at the 2.4GHz band, although Cisco's 1550 and E1200 routers have the edge. At the 5GHz band, it's clear to see the N750 is tops, with only Cisco's E4200 and the N600 (WNDR3700) achieving throughput in the triple-digits.

When I switched to a High Throughput testing script, I get even better results. I don't normally report the results of high throughput testing I do on dual-band routers because I find very negligible difference from the "regular" throughput script results--no more than 5 Mbps more or less than with using the regular script. The High Throughput script simulates intense, rigorous traffic like VoIP or high-def video. The N750 is the first router that gave significantly different results using the High Throughput versus the regular throughput test (at which the N750 also did well). The N750 delivered a shocking 286 Mbps using the High Performance script at a distance of five feet. The router clocked 279 Mbps at 15 feet and 250Mbps at 30 feet on the same test. These results show that the N750 is built to handle high-throughput network traffic.

USB performance was less speedy. The performance is actually contingent on the performance of the USB device you attach to the router. Uploading a 1.5GB file to my Cirago device via the router took a bloated 4MBps. You get far better write speeds with dedicated NAS devices. However I still was able to stream a video without much latency.

Netgear and Cisco seem to be neck-in-neck with producing some of the top-performing wireless routers on the market for home consumers. But Netgear's N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router has stupendous performance and a great set of features, making it the best router we've seen yet. If you are in the market for a router and need the capabilities of the 5GHz bandwidth, the N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router is your clear first choice, and our new Editors' Choice wireless router.

Trendnet 300Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router TEW-633GR

Like SMC, Trendnet might not be the first name that comes to mind when you think wireless routers. You're more likely to think of bigger names like D-Link or Netgear. But (again like SMC), the company is doing fine and producing competitive wireless equipment at attractive prices. Though it follows the annoying industry-wide trend of Really Long Router Names, the Trendnet 300Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router (model TEW-633GR) sells for only around $125 and has all the features you could want—except for one.We might as well get this out of the way at the start. Though it incorporates Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) wired ports, the TEW-633GR uses only the 2.4-GHz band for 802.11n traffic. This is fine for the wireless-g or 802.11b clients on your wireless network: They'll be able to connect. But because they're crowding the same spectrum with your new "n" clients, the "n" clients will see a definite drop in performance. Also, if you've got a lot of neighboring access points or wireless routers clogging up the 2.4-spectrum in your area, those will have an adverse effect on throughput as well. So here's my most serious ding against the TEW-633GR: If you're going to go to the trouble of upgrading the wired ports to GigE speeds, why wouldn't you tack on a 5-GHz-capable radio so that "n" can perform at its optimal throughput? It just doesn't make sense to skip this step. For four good routers that didn't skip it, see my roundup of dual-band routers.

But if you're not in a crowded area, wirelessly speaking, and if you don't have any legacy "g" or "b" clients to worry about, then the TEW-633GR is certainly a competitive choice. First, it looks cool in the way that the Linksys WRT600N does. The router has a sleek glossy black finish with three antennas on the right side, the usual series of activity/speed LED indicators on the front, four GigE switched ports, and one GigE WAN port on the back. There's one thing out of the ordinary: Trendnet also included a side-mounted Wi-Fi Protected Setup switch for easy WPS client configuration (WPS is a standard for easy and secure establishment of a wireless network), and a slide switch that turns off the wireless networking. I really liked the latter, as you usually need to hit a router's Web interface to disable wireless networking. This can be an easy way to check for specific network problems if things go wrong.

Setup is conducted via the usual CD-based routine. Plug a workstation into one of the router's wired ports, insert the CD, and the setup wizard kicks off. Like most of the other routers we've reviewed recently, the Trendnet seeks to take you from powering the router up all the way through setting up your wireless and wired networks. It looks as if Trendnet and D-Link have the same OEM outfit programming their setup installations, because the two routines looked very much alike, and both had similar problems—though Trendnet's were far more pronounced.

Specifications

When I ran this install routing on the D-Link DIR-855, the install wizard refused to see my Internet connection. Fortunately, the router itself saw the connection just fine and finished the rest of the basic install on its own. The TEW-633GR had more problems, however. First, it refused to see the wired adapters of my Dell XPS and Gateway E275-M notebooks. The wizard tells you to unplug your Ethernet cable from your existing modem or router before the installation and then tries to check for the adapter. But when you obediently unplug the cable it simply assumes, because the cable is unplugged, that there isn't an adapter at all. You need to skip ahead a couple of steps in the wizard and plug your PC into the router (and power the router on) before the wizard can even begin its run.

That was annoying enough, but then the wizard hung when looking for the Internet connection as well. Switching to another PC and starting the wizard all over again, including the trick of powering the router on before I was told, allowed me to get through the wizard. In case you want to bypass this and go directly to the router's management screen—good luck. The default Web address is 192.168.10.1 (usually it's 0.1 or 1.1—thanks, Trendnet). However, neither that nor the router's default password is listed in your startup materials. You'll need to go dig through your docs to find those.

And as if all that wasn't enough, the install wizard installed a trial version of Network Magic without ever giving me a chance to opt out. The wizard finished and the Network Magic icons were there. I had to uninstall after the fact. That's bad software citizenship, no matter how you slice it.

All that said, setting up the wireless network wasn't particularly hard. Enter a wireless network name (aka SSID), choose your security mode (again, I highly recommend WPA2, though, if you've got older "g" and "b" clients, you'll likely get pushed back to WEP unless you can find new drivers), click "Finish," and you're done. Like SMC, Trendnet's setup utility provides well-written "Learn More" descriptions of the important setup steps; if you're confused, browsing these should clear things up. Once completed, the wizard shows a summary of your setup information, reminds you to record this information somewhere, and then saves a text file with the info to your desktop. Very thorough—and I like thorough.

I had one inexplicable hiccup, post-setup. Upon checking my network after setting up the router, none of the PCs could see my HP Color LaserJet 3800dn. The printer was set to receive an IP address via DHCP, but the address refused to take. My XP, Vista, OS X, and Fedora 8 clients, as well as my Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, all took their addresses just fine, but the HP had to be manually configured with a static IP address before anything could print. The fix was easy enough, and, for things like printers and NAS boxes, I like to assign static IPs anyway. But networking newbies will doubtless not be pleased when their printer doesn't show up without further configuration

TrendNet Management

There's more to setups than just the basics, so I clicked on over to Trendnet's standard Web-based management screens. These were clear and intuitive, with the same help descriptions as on the router—useful, because Trendnet has configured this router with plenty of options.

    

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For example, the TEW-633GR, like the D-Link DIR-855 and the SMC Barricade, supports Virtual Servers. This feature allows you to use a static or DDNS-supplied public IP address to host multiple Web servers off your network. This is still primarily a small-office function, but home users looking to host their own photo-sharing sites, or even power users looking to run FTP or a secondary e-mail server, will love the Virtual Server feature.

The router also has multiple forms of QoS-style traffic protection. You'll find support for a standard QoS rules page, StreamEngine for protecting specific kinds of gaming traffic, and WISH (Wireless Intelligent Stream Handling) for protecting a variety of traffic over your wireless network. I found the setup screens for all these features only moderately intuitive. Still, Trendnet's done a good job of including workable default values where applicable, and if you read through the help descriptions, you should be fine.

Specifications

The TEW-633GR also has plenty of security features, including an SPI firewall, traffic filtering, and content filtering. The firewall and traffic-filtering rules setup pages aren't for newbies, but the parental content controls are easy enough. These let you set up rules for restricted Web access (including a white list) for specific times of day. There's also an e-mail report you can issue to yourself of all router activity just to keep an eye on things. For telecommuters, the TEW-633GR also supports VPN via standard IPsec or PPTP protocols

TEW-633GR: Protection

Performance was a mixed bag, mainly because of the 2.4-GHz-only issue and the fact that even at home I'm in a neighborhood where you can constantly scan between four and six other access points. Still, at an optimal range of 20 feet and using Trendnet's own 300-Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter on a Dell XPS notebook running Vista Business, my Ixia IxChariot and JPerf throughput tests averaged out to 186 Mbps throughput. That's very quick for a 2.4-GHz connection.

    

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This changed rapidly, however, the further away I moved from the router. At 50 feet, I was down to 138 Mbps average, and at 80 feet in the drive I was down to 57 Mbps. Adding a ThinkPad T42 with its internal wireless-g client did even more damage, though less than I would have thought. Throughput at optimal range dropped to only 156 Mbps; at 50 feet the speed averaged 91 Mbps, and at 80 feet it fell to 36 Mbps. Though the the TEW-633GR isn't nearly as fast as the dual-band routers in 5-GHz mode, these are respectable numbers for a 2.4-GHz box.

With decent throughput, especially considering its 2.4-GHz handicap, I think the Trendnet TEW-633GR is good router for its low price tag. I'm unimpressed with the installation wizard, but if you scan the docs you can bypass it entirely. I still think GigE wired ports require 5 GHz on the wireless side, but if you can live with the wireless throughput numbers, then you're getting an awful lot of other high-end functionality for your Benjamin and a quarter.