I have a MR814 v1, MR814 v2 and a D-Link 514 and none of them have offered the range this beast provides. I acquired this model after returning a defective MR814 v1, and initially I was annoyed to get an older model. But I think they sent this for a reason - it's much more reliable than the 814. Someone on here complains that they can't get reception over 100ft from the AP - how big is their house?? I have the router upstairs on one side of the house and can get a signal fine outdoors on the other side of the house - i.e. travelling through all the walls of the house (approx 42 ft away). Also I have tested it with my PCMCIA SMC card and a Netgear MA111 USB wifi dongle, and the dongle provdies better connection than the pcmcia, so there is some proper evidence of testing being done here.

It doesn't look nearly as good (or as small) as my other routers but if it does the job as well as it has so far - it is my first choice.

Now, I am not trying to run a lot of machines through it - a Linux box on ethernet, a Sony Clie, Tivo, and an iMac over 802.11, plus Packet8 for my phone service over ethernet. No great strain on the processor.

So, why does the thing insist on locking up so much? To add to the problem, you can be going along just nicely on ethernet and suddenly the 802.11 dies.

Now, asside from the thing croaking and needing rebooting weekly, I get to do a complete factory reset once a month, wiping out all the stuff I have programmed into it (WEP keys, etc), because the thing will completely quit responding.

One would think that the problems are related to something overheating. But no, that is not it. That leaves the unit's firmware to be suspect. After reading about Netgear's sloppy code writing and their DoS attack against the University of Wisconsin time servers, I have to believe software is the issue. If they wrote code as bad as that which caused the UofWisc flood, I am sure awful code abounds in all their products.

I had to update the firmware on the router before I could get anything to work. However once that was done, everything was a charm. Setting the SSID and the WEP encryption is easy and recommended so as not to have your bandwidth stolen by your next door neighbor!

I've never had a problem with connections dropping and I am also using the netgear MA401 wireless card with this router.

Remember: Unless a product is WI-FI certified it is best to use like brands to insure compatibility, however most people get excellent results mixing brands even though there is always a chance that non WI-FI 802.11b products may not work together.

The router comes with a 10 Mbps WAN port, 4 10/100 Mbps LAN ports, and off course supports 802.11b wireless clients.

The clients that I have connected to the MR314 are a Mac PB/G3 (Pismo) with an original airport card, a Sony VAIO with a MA401 PCMCIA card, and a hardwired Mac G4.

One of the advantages of the MR314 is that it supports AppleTalk routing between the WLAN and LAN clients (although not between WAN and LAN/WLAN interfaces. This allows me to fileshare between the G4 and PB using AppleTalk. Note that Netgear specifically states that the MR314 doesn't support AppleTalk, although the router does.

Configuring the router is a snap through either the web interface, or the telnet interface. The router permits restricting wireless clients via MAC address, and also supports 64-bit and 128-bit WEP. Enabling 128-bit WEP doesn't affect performance from either the Mac or the PC client. The router also supports pass-through VPN connections from NATed clients -- something the original Apple Airport does not.

I get terrific WLAN reception from about 50 feet away. One complaint I have is that the MR314 doesn't come with a replaceable antenna to increase range, but I don't need increased range where I live currently.

The firewall works okay, although it doesn't permit stealth mode operation. It can be configured to not respond to ICMP echo requests (ping request) on the WAN port, which gives sites like grc.com the impression that the WAN port is "stealthed". However, even with ping on the WAN port disabled, the router can be detected by directly attempting to connect to various ports (TCP 21, TCP 23 etc.) on the router.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the product.

still, we won't buy another netgear box after this shoddy experience.

First and foremost, the router does NOT hang up. In the 10 months that I have owned it, it has locked up once. The others would lock up DAILY!

The range was more than sufficient for my 1100 square foot apartment. Occasionally my neighbor would piggyback off of my wireless router for his work.

The 4 ports allows me to hook up other non-wireless computers when I need to.

The configuration process was incredibly simple and easy - again much easier than the previous routers.

You will not be disappointed with this product.

Wi-Fi - I am using Netgear's MA401 PC card. The range in my three-story townhouse is excellent and I have never been out of "green" even in the backyard. And since European DECT cordless phones operate at 1.8 Ghz there cannot be any interference with Wi-Fi working at 2.4 Ghz.

I am very pleased with this device. The only complaint is when I need to check for new software on "the manufactur'es" web site it is often very slow.