Ultimately, it has not been worth the aggravation.

Bottomline: This is a value-for-money product suited for enthusiasts ready to spend some time setting it up

For the record: I am using Windows Millennium for the wireless client machine and Windows XP Home for the desktop connected to the router

That was an assumption I was totally wrong about.

Everything seemed to work fine when I hooked it into our network. All the wired connections worked. But when I turned to the wireless connections, only the 802.11g devices worked. None of the 802.11b laptops could connect. They were able to detect a strong signal but the router would not give them IP numbers.
I checked and rechecked the settings. I upgraded the router with the latest firmware that I found at the SMC website. None of this worked. The router still wasn't issuing IP leases to 802.11b devices.

I called Tech Support and was fielded to what was obviously an offshore call center. After going through the "script", he wasn't able to make the router work either. He finally said he was going to email me a lower version of the firmware to see if it would work. I asked him how I could contact him back if I still had any problems. He said to simply refer to the my phone number as the reference number. I spelled out my email address to ensure that he got it right.

And I waited. And waited. I never received the email. Tech support had, in their parlance, just "punted" me. (I suppose that's one effect of subcontracting tech support jobs; the tech support people simply do not have the pride of being the representatives of the company and doing the job right.)

In summary, performance and tech support on the SMC were just totally unacceptable. I've since returned the SMC 2804. It wasn't worth the aggravation.

I'm going with the Linksys Extreme G. At the very least, I know that it works with both 802.11g and b devices. I accidentally got into his wireless network because he didn't set up WEP/WPA (I've since assisted him in setting in up). At least, I know it's plug-and-play. And that's something I can't say for the SMC 2804.

1. Current product does not appear to have any unresolved bugs, and should new firmware be released, the firmware upgrade process is extremely easy, requiring only a web browser.

2. The statement that the 2804 "cannot act as an access point" is simply incorrect. If you do not connect anything to the WAN port on the 2804, all it can do is act as an access point, and unremarkably, that's all it does. Mine is doing just that -- we have two other 802.11b routers on our network, one of which is our internet gateway and the other (an original Apple Airport base station) is acting as an AP.

Note that if you are going to use the 2804 as an access point, you probably want to turn off its DHCP server, because you probably already have another one operating.

One of the unheralded features of the 2804 (and all recent SMC routers) is that the router does not have to be rebooted for configuration changes to take effect -- you just press a button on the appropriate configuration page, and the change is saved and active. This means that in a multi-user environment you don't trash other users' connectivity when making configuration changes. Very cool, and fairly rare in consumer-grade routers.

All configuration is via web-browser, with separate "easy" and "pro" configuration systems. The 2804 configures and operates flawlessly with Macs as well as PCs, and presumably Linux boxes also.

The 2804 also has removable antennas, making it possible to add an external antenna without breaking out a soldering iron or cracking the case.

I would recommend the 2804 to anyone who needs its capabilities -- it is economical, simple to configure, and yet offers sophisticated capabilities if you want to delve into the settings a little.

The only criticism that I have of the unit is that it does not directly support dyndns.org -- but since that can be handled by a free client daemon on your computer, that is of little consequence.

As soon as I get a new router I am going to spend an afternoon bashing this thing with a sledgehammer. By the way I would have ranked it Zero stars if the choice was available.

I called their technical support, but after carefully explaining the issue, the customer service representative told me to contact the vendor of the wireless card (which works fine on other networks) for support. She essentially refused to even acknowledge the issue or suggest any remedies. This is more of an indictment of SMC technical support than the device itself, but I believe it's relevant.

Of course, it's perfectly plausible that I just got a bad unit and it generally works fine; but since SMC refuses to help solve my problem, I can only conclude that it's a universal problem with this model.

There seems to be anther bug in the rounter itself when using PPTP VPN. The first time around everything is fine but once you disconnect the VPN connection, you will randomly be refused connection (my remote machine is running checkpoint software). It could be an issue on my desktop but it also could be a bug. Once you are denied connection (error 800) you might be able to issue "ipconfig /renew" (window XP) to be able to reconnect again but a lot of time I have to reset the rounter to be able to use VPN again.

Overall these are solid products from SMC. Considering the price I paid I gave it 4 stars

First note, update the firmware; there was a WEP bug that was fixed in a release after what came on the CD... if you use WEP at all, you need the update.

As a router, it can't be configured as a true access point; it always needs to 'route' from the LAN (wireless) segment of the network to the WAN (your remaining network). And the IP address configuration on the LAN side is limited... Personally, I use 10.x.x.x internal addresses on our network and we use a B mask. The SMC is hardcoded with a C mask, so if you need access to a different B address, as I did, this can cause an issue. The good news is that the 192.168.2.x addresses that the router 'likes' to use, are routed to the 10.x segment without an issue (but it meant some name resolution issues, etc. that were worked through).

As far as the product goes, though, I'm very happy with the power of the unit--we have great signal strength everywhere on the property. Also some of the 'firewalling' features, which is where intrusion detection settings, MAC access lists, etc. live, are just great for such an inexpensive unit.

Since we've had it set up, we have never touched it again (except to dust it from time to time) and have never had an issue with it.