Netgear WGR614 802.11g Wireless Router

 2nd Netgear Wireless Router
There is some good stuff in the review by Cyberdesi. David McCulloch's review is a good recap of my experience except I think David overstates how hard it is. I just set up my second one (a gift to a friend). Turn off your computer & modem. Plug in the router: to the computer, to the modem & to the wall. Turn on the modem. Turn on the router. Turn on the computer. In that order, per directions. All done. Well, it's wise to fire up net access & double check. Make any of the adjustments Cyberdesi addresses now. It isn't obvious to me how to make it any easier to do.

Now I hear we are getting cable at the condo at the beach. Guess I'll get a third Netgear wireless. Maybe I should but stock??

 4 Stars For Product, Zero For Support, So 2 Overall
Installed easily with no problem. Nice admin facility. Generally used with one wired and one wireless connection. Works well overall. Occasionally drops connection and has to be recycled (about twice per month) but who knows if the router is at fault? (Comcast is not perfect and the cable modem always has to be recycled, too.) Firmware upgrades can be downloaded and installed easily and configuration can be backed up.

However, I emailed tech support several times and got no help. Once I got an email back declaring I would be helped soon! Never heard from that tech again. All other emails went unanswered.

Still, MUCH better than the Motorola Surfboard which required tech support just to install (3 times) due to bad instructions.

 6 months and died - a far cry from my trusty RT-314...
The sad thing about this is that it's only 6 months old and it went brain-dead while I'm deployed to Afghanistan with the Army. I thought I would have better luck than the dozens of other reviewers that had this router die on them, but I was mistaken. I had a Netgear RT-314 router that ran continuously for nearly 5 years without failing before going wireless with this router, so I'm really bummed that Netgear would produce such a problem-ridden router that so many people are dissatisfied with. I replaced it with a Cisco SOHO 91 to get my family back on line reliably until I return home in 6 months. When the replacement WGR614 comes in I'll just use it as an access point to get rid of the cable I had to run to my son's room, but I'll keep that cable standing by for when the replacement dies in 6 months again.

 a big mistake
This thing loses connectivity almost every day. Your PC tells you no signal. The only solution is to reboot the router, which means cycling the power. With no switch on the unit you have to disconnect and reconnect the power line. Ugh!

 A minor disaster
Last time I purchased a Netgear product it was a solid and competent wireline router in a blue metal box. That purchase influenced me to go for WGR614.

Boy times change! What I got for my money was a soapbox made from cheap plastic. The setup was a slow and on-going battle. To illustrate the point - the out-of-the-box DHCP served addresses but a client could not ping the router back!

Finally I was through all this only to discover that this pile of garbage cannot hold wireless connection. It was a total disaster for me considering that I had a naive hope to use it with VPN tunnel to my office network. All prior notes from other customers on instability of wireless connection are very true (overheating seems to be very likely the cause).

Therefore, I cannot recommend this equipment, however, if you are stuck with it, you can generally make it a useable product by either
a) leveraging a vaunted by manufacturer small footprint in your fridge, thus preventing overheating
b) sparely use wireless only for occasional surfing, do all work which counts using wireline.

What I can recommend is a Cisco product called Linksys WRT54GS. Bought it instead of WGR614. The speed booster seems a marketing trick, however, for few extra $$ you get the last dinosaur of deservedly praised v4 platform of WRT54 series. It is fully free of all malaises attributed to WRT54G, which is currently retailed in v5.

Finally, if you go for broadband router product - go for brick and mortar. Amazon.com restocking charges are hefty.

 A rough start, but an awesome router!
Well, prior to getting my laptop, I decided to get a wireless router. It always starts with a decision, right? So I find an AT&T 6800G Wireless router for decent price of $30 off eBay... Install was a sinch! However, it dropped my connection constantly and randomly!! So off you go, I said. Sold it off for $22 (at a loss) and got instead Netgear WGR614v5 b/g Wirelss Router.

Not only is it cute, but performs very solid! Well, almost... the install was a bit rough. It kept detecting my DSL connection as a static IP w/ no login! Being quite frustrated, I decided to register the sucker and get some tech support! I swear, if I have to speak with another Indian outsourced tech support, I'm gonna... Well, I shouldn't since EVERYONE is doing it... SBC.. now Netgear! However, she did fix my issue... she didn't have to walk me through but just mentioning that pointing to www.routerlogin.com/basic.htm would've been fine instead of the default one!

Once that was squared away using PPPoE setting and inserting my login ID and password, my PC was up and running!! Not a single drop of any kind whatsoever!! Now, I got my laptop (review of that coming!) and wireless network works beautifully.

My laptop was able to connect to the internet w/o a hitch... just detecting automatically the connection via Control Panel's Networking did the trick. It has built-in 128-bit WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and once I shared the appropriate folders between my laptop and the PC, they were able to "see" each other clearly and transfer files at beautiful 54 Mbps (~7 MB/sec).

In other words, I love it! I give it 9/10 (1 deducted for not a flawless setup).

Pro: Easy hookup. Great speed, dependability and performance!
Con: A bit rough setup experience.

 A waste of time
I spent a fair sum of money on this router (it was priced higher then), and have had it for more than 6 months... I would not even wish my greatest enemy to have it. It is bad. I need to switch off and turn on again the main power supply to the router every 5 mins to get it to work.. else it dies. I have written numerous emails to tech support but no response.. one of the pluses when i saw the product was a 3-year guarantee, but that is of little use if no one even replies to your emails.
Using this router is as frustrating as having to reboot your PC every 5 mins. Before submitting this message, Ill have to turn the power off an on, just to ensure that I dont lose it while sending it!
Pluses - The router looks good, is light and compact (i dont know how durable it is, but ok for home, i think). Cant think of any more.

 Affordable, easy, and aesthetically pleasing
Amazon sometimes groups reviews of multiple products together, so just for clarity I'll mention that this is a review of Netgear's WGR614 v6 4-port wireless router.

I needed a wireless router with ethernet ports on it so my desktop could stay connected while maintaining a home wireless network, so this was the logical choice for me. I wasn't impressed by Linksys' price and reviews, so I opted to go for Netgear's product instead. I'm glad I did. I didn't have any problems setting up this device whatsoever, despite my lack of control over the modem I connect through (an ethernet connection through my apartment complex). One of my roommates had tried to set up a similar Linksys modem to no avail, even with the help of a computer engineering friend.

The router looks great standing vertically on the hutch of my desk next to my speakers. I wasn't impressed by its appearance in the stock photos on Amazon, but seeing it in person really surprised me. I think it's a slick, elegant little design, and certainly one of the nicest-looking gadgets I own.

Don't listen to James Cope. He seems more frustrated with wireless networks in general than this particular product. My advice would be to do plenty of research before purchasing computer hardware of any kind. My laptop has Centrino built in, so I don't have to worry about getting a modem card. Check your laptop. See what you would have to get to enable wireless internet on your laptop before buying this. Don't take out your ill-informed purchases on properly functioning products.

edit: I looked through some of the other reviews and found some people saying their router had overheating problems. I've had mine continuously on since I got it over two weeks ago with no problems whatsoever.

 Almost gave up on a great router
Like many other reviewers here, I also had problems with the router (WGR614v4) dropping the connection to the internet while the status indicator on the taskbar showed that it was 'Connected' at 54Mbps with 'Excellent' signal strength. This would happen 3-4 times a day. After a year of putting up with it (no help from NetGear support), I was ready to throw it away and purchase another (not NetGear) router. Before I made the final decision, I went back to the NetGear website and discovered that my router was two firmware updates behind.
So I downloaded the latest, updated the router, and changed the security from WEP to WPA-PSK. In addition, while I was in the updating mode I discovered that the wireless adapter (LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g miniPCI) in my laptop also had a newer driver available. The new driver was supposed to "improve connectivity with a Wireless Access Point", so I updated the laptop as well. Since these changes, the router has not dropped the connection--not even once! True, it has only been a couple of weeks since the changes were made, but prior to the changes the connection would be lost after only minutes of use. Therefore, based on my experience with the router I am inclined to believe that the hardware is OK. Whether the problem was fixed by the router firmware update, or the
adapter driver update is unknown--maybe a combination of both.

 At the price point, the best router ever
I purchased this router for $19 after rebate. Took it home, set it up within 15 minutes and was happily networking away on two laptops in no time. The admin interface is really easy to use, there's context sensitive help, lots of features and it even looks good on my desk. All in all this is the best wireless router for the money I could find. Please note that this review refers to WRG614 v5.0.