The Netgear DGN2000 may not be quite as stylish as the home-friendly Linksys WAG160, but it is really very small, which is pleasing in itself as it means its less obtrusive.
At only 178x13x31mm, only Trendnet's rather less handsome competitor, is smaller. The Netgear DGN2000's compact size and low-key black and grey finish, make it pleasantly unobtrusive for home use, while its large status indicators make it easy to see exactly what's going on.
To the side of the Netgear DGN2000 you'll find a handy button for turning the wireless network on or off. You can use this to turn off Wi-Fi when you go out, providing maximum security for your network. Next to it, a Wi-Fi protected setup (WPS) button enabled simple wireless setup without the need to remember passwords.
The back of the Netgear DGN2000 houses a standard 100Mbps four-port switch, along with two external antennae - however these aren't detachable and interchangeable like those on the Billion BiPac 7402NX or DrayTek Vigor 2820Vn.
On the base of the Netgear DGN2000 is a label containing useful information including the default network configuration. It also tells you what all the indicator lights mean and how to reset the device should you lose the instruction manual.
The Netgear DGN2000 is quite basic in function: not only does it lack features such as VoIP, 3G and support for USB devices, but it also lacks the network prioritisation features needed to ensure that your most important internet applications aren't slowed down by others, for example by large downloads. It does however offer good parental control setup including the ability to block undesirable URLs and record logs of surfing activities.
In our performance test, the Netgear DGN2000 delivered reasonably good short-range performance, delivering 68Mbps, however this tailed off dramatically over a longer distance, dropping right down to 7Mbps - three to four times slower than the best.
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Comments
Keith said: The Netgear DGN2000 works well and is easy to set up is a basic way. Once you consider using the N button to set up a connection, blocking sites, trying the upgrade feature, MAC address security or getting help from Netgear, you're in for a surprise.Netgear is a well regarded name in home networking, and in my role as an IT professional, I've used a few different models. So it came as a surprise to find these problems with the DGN2000 that I chose for home use.To get started, it just works. This excellent, and what I've come to expect from Netgear. And this is partly why the rest came as a complete shock.When I bought the router, I also bought an N range USB stick. Setting this up should be simple, but it takes many attempts and it requires you to read a microscopic seral number off the router. In the end, I had to take a photo of and enlarge it in order to see the serial number. I did eventually get it set up, but it required some knowledge of how these things work and considerable patience. It's still not clear to me why this doesn't work the first time.Rather than setting a password on the connection, I thought I'd constrain access using device MAC addresses. It's straight forward to set up, the problem is it doesn't work. The MAC address filter for wireless devices does not work. This is shockingly bad.I thought I'd move blocked sites from my local hosts file to the router so they'd apply to all the computers at home. Sometime later, I started experiencing periodic internet slowdowns. After some weeks of diagnosis, which included running speed tests on the line and checking DNS server, it dawned on me that I hadn't any of these problem before adding blocked sites. I removed them and the problem went away immediately and have not returned.The router has an "Upgrade" feature. But it doesn't detect newer versions of the firmware when they're available. Using a computer to download the new version and uploading that to the router works fine.Perhaps, the single worse thing is getting support from Netgear. Once you get in touch, the responce is prompt, clear and helpful. But you have to use their forum to contact them. If you ever forget your password, getting back on in near impossible. In fact, I've given up completely.One is left with the question, "If Apple can make networking seem so straight forward, why can't anyone else?"