NETGEAR Trek N300 Travel Router, Range Extender, and Wireless Bridge (PR2000)

tl;dr: Buy this. Don't compare it to anything. Buy it and just *trust* me.And note: This review is the same review I did for TP-LINK TL-WR710N 150Mbps Wireless N Mini Pocket Router, Repeater, Client, 2 LAN Ports, USB Port for Charging and Storage but with the review order swapped. The TP-Link is a 1 star piece of junk and I wanted to help people doing comparison shopping between them.---The bad:- I don't care for the breakable- and get-in-the-way-looking antenna, nor the hideous Netgear Genie interface.- I stupidly bought the TP-Link (link above) first because I found it so hard to compare the routers on anything but looks and mbps.Here's why you want it:- The design is bold and nice enough.- Simple- Cheap and a great value- Great build quality- Overtly thoughtful design choices all over (even the default generated router password is composed of two English words and a few numbers (no 'oO0xX45gcK39R' garbage)- *All* the connection information, names, passwords, etc., are written on the back clearly- When you first connect it displays a captive portal (like at a café) showing you a list of networks and asking you to configure it -- no reading instructions and going to unmemorable URLs. It even checked and offered to install a firmware update without prompting.- Extremely fast for 2.4gHz with a very strong signal even at distance (I got 70mbps throughput up/down with a <10ms ping; my connection at home is 480mbps symmetric)- Configure it over wireless- Lastly, I didn't realize how useful the micro USB powering feature would be -- it means you can power it from a battery, your laptop, or move it to a better antenna position away from the outlet and power it from a hub you're already using. It draws around 0.5A over USB. Easily powered.- It's great and you'll love it.---For contrast, I gave the TP-LINK TL-WR710N 150Mbps Wireless N Mini Pocket Router, Repeater, Client, 2 LAN Ports, USB Port for Charging and Storage 1 star. I normally filter out all 1 star reviews, but this thing deserves no more than that. It's so bad I felt compelled to review it even after returning it, and guide people to what they should buy instead. I'm an expert with networks, and I really tried to make it work.The good:- Somewhat attractive Apple Airport Express styling.- Simple.- Cheap.- The web interface is clean and simple old-school web forms.- It comes with a really nice flat and short ethernet cable. See below why.The bad:- It barely works when it works, which is to say only if you very carefully hold it into the electrical socket, making sure the ports face down, not up (the plug collapses from its own weight).- It's excruciatingly slow to connect and has terrible throughput.- It restarts frequently and under load.- The signal is extremely weak, even when next to it.- You must configure it with ethernet (yes, you need to carry an ethernet cable with you to make changes). Now that free cable makes sense. Where's my free USB ethernet adapter?- Awful build quality with weak electrical connections and weak springs.- They don't put the login information on the device that you need to configure it, nor the network names it broadcasts.- Single blinking LED tells me nothing other than it's on and sometimes in a state of blinking.- Firmware updates are both difficult to discover and as it turns out, non-existent.What's worse is that the NETGEAR is only $2 more and I still, stupidly, bought this one first because I found it more attractive and figured the 150mbps bandwidth would be sufficient.If this helped you decide, click Yes below so it helps others ^_^

I've used a lot of travel routers and Ethernet gear in general, and I was surprised that I simply couldn't get this device to work with more than one WiFi laptop. I bought it as a "deal of the day", but didn't have any immediate travel needs, so I didn't get around to testing it until the return period was almost over. It looked quite good at first... I tested it with a laptop running Win7 using both wired Ethernet and WiFi to connect to the Trek, and connecting the Trek to the Internet using both a wired connection and a WiFi connection ("both" meaning in separate tests). No problems. Trivial setup. It's nice that someone finally dropped all the network-speak and just let you select how you're connecting to the Internet: wired or WiFi. I've been suggesting this for years. The rest of the setup could similarly be simplified into plain English if anyone would bother.But... then I brought in a second laptop running Win7, and found I could never get both connected to the Internet at the same time through the Trek, unless one was connected to the Trek wired and the other connected to the Trek by WiFi. (The source I connected the Trek to for an Internet connection was assigning the usual 192.168.1.x IP addresses, subnet mask 255.255.255.0. The Trek assigned 192.168.168.3 to the wired laptop and 192.168.168.2 to the WiFi laptop.) After running many tests I noticed that every time either laptop connected via WiFi the Trek assigned it (by DHCP) the IP address 192.168.168.2. Connect the first laptop, it gets 192.168.168.2, connect the second laptop, it also gets 192.168.168.2 and the first laptop stops working. This is completely incorrect... no two devices should be assigned the same IP address.Worse yet, careful testing revealed the following. First I set the Trek up to connect to the Internet via a local WiFi hotspot (using a laptop's browser to select the hotspot and enter its password). Then I can connect the first laptop to the Trek via WiFi, using the SSID and password printed on the Trek. The first laptop can then access the Internet with no problems. Then if I just tell the second laptop to connect to the Trek via Wifi, which causes a popup window to appear on the second laptop asking for the password, the WiFi connection on the FIRST laptop immediately stops working completely. And that's WITHOUT typing in any password on the second laptop. I tried this several times (trying things like rebooting or power-cycling the Trek and/or the laptops between tests) and always got exactly that same result.So not only could I not get the Trek to work with two WiFi connected laptops, anybody within range could break the one WiFi connection I could establish... and they wouldn't have to know the password for the Trek to do it!Note that early in my testing, the Trek said (on the laptop's browser window) that new software was available, so I let it download and install that. Version V1.0.0.09_1.0.1 was updated to V1.0.0.13_1.0.1.Normally at this point I'd contact the manufacture's customer support, but since the period for returning the product to Amazon was almost over I decided just to return it. Partly because this is a TRAVEL router, and when I'm traveling I'm not going to have time to contact the manufacturer... it has to just work, out of the box.

This is a really handy device to have for traveling. Being able to set up your own private network behind hotel or convention center WiFi is a must-have for anyone that's uncomfortable putting their devices directly onto public WiFi networks, or has devices that can't handle the captive portals that many such networks require. However, there are a few issues with it.Pros:- Good build quality- Easy to set up- WPA2 security configured by defaultCons:- Unstable connectivity when using WiFi as WAN- Device crashes frequentlyI have noticed that the stability of both the device firmware and the wireless WAN connection are somewhat poor. This is especially common when you have multiple devices connected to the wireless LAN. It takes upwards of 60-120 seconds to get the device up and running again after it crashes, so it can be very frustrating.