Netgear RangeMax WNDR3700 Wireless-N Dual Band Router Review

If you’re looking for a router that can handle your networking needs today and in the future, look no further than the Netgear WNDR3700 router. It has fast dual band 802.11n capabilities that allow you to have two simultaneous networks and a variety of administration options, plus network storage. Is this is the premiere router for the power user? Find out in our extensive review after the break.

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The WNDR3700 is flexible enough to be compatible with almost every device on your network. From that aging old Pentium 4 notebook to your new netbook, the router supports it. Thanks to the dual-band support, you can simultaneously have a 2.4GHz wireless-N network, compatible with older 802.11b/g devices, and a 5GHz wireless-N network that supports the newest 802.11n devices. And for those desktop computers and hard-wired devices, Netgear has built-in a gigabit ethernet switch for reliability.

The dual-band functionality also lends itself to many tasks. For example, you can have all of your standard internet traffic on the older 2.4GHz band, while reserving the faster 5GHz band for streaming HD video and transferring files over the network. Operating on the 5GHz band also eliminates interference from cordless phones and microwave ovens that run on the older frequency.

The WNDR3700 also features technologies such as Universal Plug-n-Play, or UPnP that support media streaming devices right out of the box, without complicated setup tools. This feature worked seamlessly with devices in our labs such as the SqueezeBox Boom from Logitech and the Sonos ZonePlayer we reviewed earlier this year.

Another really useful feature that the WNDR3700 router has is guest networking. Have you ever had a guest come over to your home who wants to browse the web on his or her own laptop? Were you hesitant to give them your network password because you were afraid they would access content on your own private network shares? Well now you can create a separate guest network with access only to computers on that particular network. This feature works great and adds an extra layer of security to your personal data and network traffic.

If you have a ton of media that needs to be shared across the network, with this router you can simply throw all your files on a external USB hard drive and plug it into the USB port on the back. All the files are shared instantly, using the ReadyShare technology that takes cues from Netgear’s ReadyNAS network attached storage line. The file sharing functionality is fairly basic however, with not nearly enough control as a NAS, so if you’re primary goal is to get files shared within an all-in-one device, you may want to look elsewhere. One thing it can’t do with the USB port however is share a printer over the network to other computers. With such an advanced router, why did Netgear bother to leave something so simple out?

The internals of the router are enclosed in a sleek, black enclosure and although it is a fingerprint magnet, it does rid of the ugly antennas sticking out of the enclosure, which is a plus in our book. It also comes with a stand for setting it in a vertical position. Setting up the Netgear RangeMax Dual Band router was fairly simple, and once we got it going we setup the dual-band mode with two separate wireless networks. Network performance was pretty fast, to say the least. We were able to stream 720p HD video over the network from computer-to-computer without any hiccups, using the separate 5GHz network with the “Video Network” mode enabled. Throughput on standard network transfers with both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz network was exceptional.

The Netgear WNDR3700 is one of the best and most feature-packed routers we’ve seen thus far, and it is highly recommendable to any power user looking to get the most out of their network. It offers greater throughput and performance than older 802.11n routers like the D-Link DIR-655. The router can be purchased at Amazon.com for $159.99 as of press time.

Pros

Fast throughput on both bands.
Dual-band functionality.
Guest network feature adds extra layer of security and privacy for peeping guests.
Many different options in administration interface.

Cons