Netgear's Dual-Band WNDR3700 Router

While some of the setup and configuration will leave you scratching your head, in action the WNDR3700 is a thing of beauty. The Wireless Protected Setup--invoked via a button on the front of the unit-- worked great. Both the 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz networks had good range, and streaming multimedia including 1080p video was flawless.

The UPnP media server popped up in Windows Media Player's list without warning, with all the media on the drive in the WNDR3700's USB port already sorted and available for playback. And you can access files via the unit's ReadyShare network file serving by simply typing \readyshare in the Windows Explorer address bar. You may restrict access to certain devices and create network folders.

Though I never needed to do anything more than enable the Wireless MulitMedia for the two networks to get smooth media streaming performance, the WNDR3700 as well lets you define QoS rules for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). Other features include port forwarding and triggering, dynamic DNS support, comprehensive and granular parental/access controls, and UPnP support. There are as well guest networks for both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.

The gripes?

Where did I find the gripes? For instance, the setup application opened the online PDF documentation in Internet Explorer instead of my default browser, Firefox, or my Foxit PDF reader. I thought that practice had ended years ago. Should the contingency arise, the user's guide resided only online at Netgear.com. The CD setup guide contains enough troubleshooting information to solve most issues, nevertheless, it's amazing that the bulk of the documentation for a key piece of your link to the Internet is unavailable without an Internet connection.

Also, during the WNDR3700's HTML interface is as a rule easy to navigate and use, there are oddities. To illustrate, there didn't seem to be an easy way to tell the router not to look for an Internet connection and simply function as a switch. Although the WNDR3700 had an Internet connection available via another router, it complained that it didn't when I tried to search for a firmware upgrade.