Customer Ratings & Reviews

I don't have a huge house and the signal seems to be weak on the opposite side of the house. Although the signal reads "good", data is kinda slow to where I will switch off wifi and use the 3G network (iPhone). My Dlink which would completely lose the signal, would have better data transfer before the signal would be lost. So overall the signal wont be lost but the data rate seems slow in certain parts of my home. A little pricey for the results that I'm getting for the "upgrade".

i had an old one, never worked, then bought this one......never going to switch.

It is a nicely featured router and when working good speed. Frequently disconnects from the internet requiring a reset to reconnect. This occurs once a day to several times a day. Netgear support is almost nonexistent. When you get through and I stress when, you end up with someone who can do nothing but read from a script. If the script doesn't solve the problem your on your own. If your an experienced IT person it's probably a nice product. Anyone else...good luck.

I bought the router and hook up was easy then after two months It stopped retrieving the IP from the modem. I could connect if I bypassed the router so it wasn't a modem issue. I exchanged it and the new one worked for almost a year and then it did the same thing. Now I have to replace it again. I wouldn't recommend this router to my worse enemy.

Was fast to install and setup. Have great signal throughout the house.

I bought this to have better reach in my house, which is 2500 sq ft. The reviews were glowing, the awards and editors' picks numerous. So I bought it, thinking it was all going to be wonderful. Now I have wasted about 6 hours trying to get two TV's, a laptop, an iPad and two iPhones connected. So I got some of them connected, but then I kept having to put in the password again and again every time I wanted to reconnect. The NetGear genie is a disaster. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do first. Once connected, the download speeds were slow. I felt like I had returned to the dark ages of dial-up, circa 1997. Today, I plugged back in my 8 year old Linksys router and had instant connectivity with everything but the upstairs TV, which is what I needed a farther-reaching router for. Guess I'll hook up the old VCR to that TV and pull out the video tapes again. I'll be returning this if I can resist throwing it against a wall before I get it back to the store.

excellent in all areas, conection is quick and have not had any crashes, it's just marveless.

It does an okay job. but is not doing the "awesome" job the Best Buy reps said it would do....not super happy, but sort of okay.

I've had this router for about 9 months and it failed. After calling support, they stated it was a "software" issue. Their resolution was to sell me a service contract. There's no way a product should fail in less than a year due to a "software" issue - which Netgear won't stand behind or even help diagnose without selling a service contract. This is likely my last Netgear product.

This has worked fine for now. We swapped it out for an old router, so the 5ghz band is a nice improvement.

The key reason I purchased this device rather than another wifi router was because it boasted two USB ports which you can allegedly connect your existing USB drives two, access the content over the network, including using them as Time Machine on the Mac. After several days of trying to get these features to work (I am a computer engineer, so I should have been able to get them to work trivially) and many days going back and forth with NETGEAR customer support, NETGEAR's final position is that they only work with some USB hard drives. In fact the list they claim to support can be found here: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19551/~/wndr4500---usb-compatibility-list. As you can see, the list is so short it is laughable. If the drive supports the USB standard interface then the router should support it. Period. Otherwise you can't advertise that you can plug your USB drive into it because chances are you can't. In addition although their advertising material and features highlighted on the box says it is compatible with Mac Time Machine, it turns out that NETGEAR support say that it doesn't work with Time Machine on Mac OSX Lion or Mountain Lion . So the "compatible with Time Machine" claim should say "unless you purchased you Mac in the last 18 months". If you don't care about the USB ports or don't care about Mac compatibility, then this is a pretty good router. Though you could probably get a cheaper one without those features that is just as good if you hunt around.

The router frequently disconnects from the internet despite a steady connection from the modem. This generally requires the router to be reset or the install procedure repeated to reconnect. This occurs several times a day. Net gear support was disappointing. The toll free number was always busy or put me on an endless hold. Chat and e-mail only repeated the steps in the install guide.

I had a hard time deciding between this and an Asus. I bought this because I was more familiar with the Netgear name and thought it might have better support and reliability. When I powered it up, the power on button was blinking and the wifi status LEDs never came on. I searched the Internet and found this meant the firmware was corrupt. I called Netgear, who confirmed this. There was a procedure for downloading the latest firmware and reflashing the router. I performed the procedure, the file said it transferred successfully, I waited several minutes as instructed before rebooting and I still got the blinking LED. I wasted an hour or so doing this. Netgear told me to exchange it and test the new one in the store to make sure it was working. I returned it instead and bought the Asus N750 which was working 2 minutes after I took it out of the box.

I bought this router a few weeks back after reading the reviews and noting some people had connection drops. I figured it was like anything else, sometimes you get a bad piece of equipment. Then a week later I started having to reset it every day because the connection would die. I returned it after a few days of this and got another one. The new one worked great for about a week. Then the drops started again. I tried to reboot it this morning and the router is dead. So now I will be returning this one too and probably getting a different brand/model.

The router abiility to add plug in an external. you dont have to worry about pluging your external with movies.

once installed it took two days with netgear support which was not friendly or helpful and very upset that charged me $129 to get it installed and now i am fighting with them and credit card company to remove the charge; it was like a catch 22 if you did not pay them no support for the new product!!

I bought this router because I had an outdated one and then bought one that was too small for my house.

I have read mixed reviews about this router. However, I have not had any problems with my router.

Got this product to replace an aging, failing router. Bought this one in the hopes that it could work as well as my 10 year old router, but support all the bandwidth from peripherals I've added over the years. Set up was pretty straight forward. At first I was happy with the amount of controls I had via router login. Most of it was beyond what a normal user would know or should play with-but I enjoy that stuff and I have a clue of what I am doing when it comes to adjusting those settings. Wired connections were flawless. Wireless, tho.... After a week reloading software, downloading firmware, internet searches for possible fixes, talking with tech support- I gave up. The tech support unfortunately didn't seem to know about the product they were supporting. I felt like they were reading from a script, and had less knowledge about the product than I did. Never was I put through to someone who may have known/helped more. I reached the point to where they were wanting to replace the unit. I decided to take it back to the store instead, lessening my turn-around time. Moving the router location, moving the laptops, forcing cool air into the router did nothing to cure the disconnects that would happen anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes after logging in. Always had to recycle the router to be able to log in anything wireless. No other way would work- had to push that power button each and every time. After a week, I gave up on trying to make it work and took it back. Best Buy took it back for a refund, no hassles. I picked up a Linksys -ea4500. The Linksys required me to insert a CD to set up, which was the only thing harder about it than the Netgear. Other than that- it set itself up and everything was identified and connected in very short order- just the way it is supposed to be. After 3 days of leaving everything on just to test it- the Linksys hasn't dropped anything yet. I am happy.

I was very excited about combining the " fastest router available" with my new iMac Desktop. Unfortunately, I ended up returning the N900 and getting an Apple Extreme. I called Netgear's Tech service 3x during the 3 days I had the router. Once when it took 1hr to initially set it up. Another time when their Genie app recommended a firmware update but it wouldn't let me install it, and finally when it wouldn't let me sign my iPhone into my home network. It also kept dropping my iPad out of my home network. If you have all Apple equipment- stick with an Apple router. It took me less than 5 minutes to set up the Airport Extreme. My iMac Desktop is faster with my Airport Extreme than it was with the Netgear N900 and all my devices stay logged in to my network. It seems like Netgear rushed this product to the market before it was ready to keep up with Cisco and their line of routers i.e. the 4200.