Netgear WNR854T RangeMax Next Wireless-N Router Gigabit Edition

Pros: Fast at close range.

Cons: Unstable. Requires frequent cold rebooting. Unusable.

Summary: Yes, it provides a pretty quick Wireless Pre-N connection, as well as wired gigabit performance. That's where the fun ends.

It frequently loses internet connectivity, and stops responding in any way, even to its configuration screens. When that happens (several times a day) you have to power-cycle the unit to get it going again. When you power cycle it, the wireless transmitter may fail to restart, and you'll have to power cycle it a few more times to get it going.

The best workaround I've found is to set it up only as a wireless access point, and use my old reliable router as the router and DHCP server. Obviously this isn't an optimal solution, but by deactivating the WNR854T's router and DHCP server reliability seems to be mostly restored, though occasional reboots (maybe once a week) are still required.

Additionally, any changes to the device's configuration via its web interface require a cold reboot too. Even if you're just adding an IP address to its routing table, you still have to reboot it. Terrible design.

I held out hope that a future firmware revision would address these problems, but such hasn't been the case. The last revision was in June 2007. As of Oct 2007, we still have no relief.

This unit fails to perform as marketed; it simply doesn't work much of the time.

One more complaint: Though it supports gigabit networking, it doesn't support jumbo frames, even though the Netgear WN511T network interface card most appropriately suited to this router DOES support jumbo frames. So even as a gigabit network switch it's not up to the standards of most other gigabit switches on the market.

Netgear should be ashamed of this product. To allow it to remain on the shelves tells me everything I need to know about this company.