54Mbps Wireless Travel Router
1 Excellent Product from Netgear
Excellent product guys! I was little sceptical before buying this product as the reviews were not very encouraging. But, I have not experienced any kind of problem with this slim and nice looking router. There was a little hitch while installing it, but, the customer support helped me figure that out quickly. Excellent customer support from Netgear. And the good part is that it works with my cable internet connection at home also.
2 Does not work well - terrible support from Netgear
This is one of those things that I bought, really hoping and wanting to be able to say good things about. I really wanted this to be a good product; but it's just not.
First off, the firmware releases have been quite buggy and while they have added WPA support, I find that it does not work well. I think that if you wanted to use this device without encryption and without changing the DHCP range and not in any sort of 'must-have' environment, maybe it would work. For me, all of those things have caused me more headaches than I care to remember.
I have had a lot of problems with...
-Using WPA with multiple devices connected at once, the signal drops every 60 minutes, like clockwork. To get the signal back, you have to repower the router and restart your wireless card. Very frustating. When I tried to get Netgear's help, they told me to reload the firmware - I did this but to no avail.
-The DNS passthrough resolution stinks. (Sorry if I 'tech out' on you here, but this is an issue some may find valuable to know about.) In many situations, I can not get DNS resolution through the 'gateway', which is of course the WRG101. To resolve I have to go into the router's browser interface, pull of the DNS server IPs that the hotel or ISP issued to the WAN port and manually configure my IP settings in my WinXP Pro machine to use those DNS servers. This works, but what a pain.
At the end of the day, I can't get Netgear to give me anything resembling decent support on this thing and I would say it only works for me 20% of the time without monkeying around with it. I keep trying (and hoping for better firmware)(as of v.1009 it still stinks) but I'm sure that someday this thing will find it's way into a hotel room garbage can - or better yet, out the window.
Look elsewhere if you want encryption and stability - this is a bummer product.
3 Nice Solution
I bought this somewhere else, but wanted to get another review out here for reference in case someone else was considering this product.
This took a little bit longer to get set up than I expected and longer than a wired plus wireless DSL router I have. I had two main problems. First, the darn thing is slow serving up its internal pages in configuration mode. (By the way, you can directly connect via a cable to configure it.) Second, getting the WEP and DHCP settings to stick took a while. That said, I had the same trouble with the previously mentioned DSL router, too. After getting over these two hurdles it works like a champ and I've not had any trouble connecting across the room, etc.
Beyond the product itself, I haven't quite figured out how to stow everything in the included case. The bits don't quite fit in the supplied slots. This is especially true for the power supply.
All in all, this fits the bill for what I wanted it for - a way to use the 802.11 connection from the laptop when in the hotel traveling.
4 Great idea, fair implementation, so-so value
I applaud Netgear for being first to market with this device (the only other I know of is the Apple Airport Express), designed for geeky business travellers. There've been many times when I've been in a hotel with wired Internet access but wanted to use my laptop across the room in bed, or in a conference room with one wired network drop and a handful of people who wanted to use it. Travelling with a 30-foot cable and/or a multi-port switch is no fun. This device is light and tiny, has a modest-sized power adapter, and even comes with a short cable for connecting to a wired port and a zippered carrying case for all of that plus your pc-card NIC.
If you're not concerned with security and have your wireless NIC set to do DHCP basically all you do is plug it in and you're all set. Configuring the device is kind of a pain though: you can only connect to it wirelessly, so if you forget the SSID after setting it not to broadcast, or forget the WEP key, you have to use the reset button and start over (make sure you hold it down a good 10 seconds, just pressing it once quickly doesn't work).
It doesn't act quite like a typical router despite some product literature I've read: on a hotel network it doesn't provide firewall or NAT security--keep in mind if the hotel assigns you a public IP you're bare naked on the Internet.
Although the physical switch on the unit that puts it in config or single-/multi-user mode is a neat idea for security, it gave me a lot of problems having to reassociate or power cycle the device after changing settings. Given that in its default state it's a pass-through device like a bridge and has no IP address, there may not be a significantly better way though.
I had little to no luck using this device with my home router or cable modem, but on a hotel wired access point it was seamless including VPN connectivity (unlike my Netgear MR814 at home). Range is very good even through walls and floors/ceilings. I got mine for about half price after rebates which, I think, just barely makes it worth it. If you like to have the latest gadget, and especially if you travel, this is less of a pain and certainly niftier than carrying around a 30-foot cable and/or hub.
