So, tell me why I should do a 3700 vs E4200?

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Freezebyte

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Allright, im gonna give you Netgear fans a fair shot at convincing a non netgear user on why I should replace my now defunkt D-link 4300 with this great and mighty 3700 router vs the E4200 being the Linksys/Cisco fan that I am.


I've never thought much of netgear products in the past. Fairly, iv'e actually never had one but i've never really heard any great things about their products until I recently had my beloved 4300 die on me after 6.5 years of faithfull service. I could get it to work with a new AC adapter but finding the right one is proving futile and I think its time I upgraded to something a bit more newer anyway for now and future use.

I'll be straight up front. I DO NOT CARE/WANT/NEED anything to do with flashing my router with a different firmware like 90% of you do. Though I do work in the IT world, and am fairly computer savy, I just prefer leaving my home stuff alone and just let it work as designed and stable. That being said, don't bother swaying me in the case for loading DD-RT or Tomato on the router, its irrelevant to me.

That being said, my needs and uses are as follows and I want a router that will do the best job for my needs.

1. I have multiple computers including gaming, HTPC, laptop, Xbox 360 that are connected via Cat5e for gigabit LAN

2. Don't care much for wireless use. I do not use wireless in my home other then for my Droid X. Beyond that, do not have any need now or in the forseeable future for the biggest/baddest and fasted WiFi connection speeds from a router. I prefer all my stuff wired for max performance, thats just me. I may use wireless more if I move but I do not know when that will be.

3. Want the router to be able to handle random, heavy bittorrent loads for hours to days at a time depending on my need. I will however be not doing any gaming during my bittorrent sessions, its not worth dealing with the lag

4. I want the best router for handling gaming loads from my Xbox 360 and gaming PC that may or may not included someone on the network surfing the web and such at the same time. I am on a cable connection with 15mpbs down and 5mpbs down. My modem is a surboard SB5101. My biggest concern with the 3700 is that it maxs out at 4096 connections vs 34,000 plus for the E4200

5. I want the router to be somewhat future proof for both current and future needs in regards to both hardware specs and firmware updates for long term ownership

Now that i've stated what my needs are, go ahead and try to sell me on why I should do a Netgear 3700 vs a Linksys E4200. I've used Linksys products in the past and have been happy with them all around. I tried recently a E3000 and it worked well for my needs, but for a bit more money, I wanna get something that is a bit more of a powerhouse all around. I have read the reviews over at SNB and the charts, so im well aware of how the routers compare.

If you feel another router would suit my needs better, feel free to explain what and why.

I need a router by the end of this week at the latest, so I am not waiting on the 3800 or 4000 to be launched, I need my network back up and running for both personal and business reasons.

May the best router win
 
Yeah, I don't trust Asus for stuff beyond mobo's and what not. Their support for their other products tends to be rather "lacking" The V2 of the 3700 wasn't much of a change, it was more of a step back according to SNB.
 
Netgear is known to have a great default QOS for gaming and load sharing. I think its more of an Od to "what actually works" out of the box. The 3700 was impressive for actually working in a more stressed environment. Things that I remembered that the 3700 did well before its competitors were: Better wireless range without external antennas, Fast CPU with fewer or no slow downs, X-box 360 actually connecting and working without trashing the other PC's connections on the network, Guest Wireless access being easy to configure, Working well while torrenting.

There are other models (from other venders) that came later and tried to improve on the 3700. In some ways they did. But the balance and the out of box experience of the 3700 was far better than almost any other (home use) router for almost a year. Now-a-days there is much more competition. In order works the other manufacturers stepped up their game and built better products.

I'd go peruse the smallnetbuilder website for reviews, and the broadbandreports forums for (dirt) on the routers you are looking for. Keep in mind that you will see a ton of complaints no matter what the make or model over there at the broadbandreports forum, but it is a good place to see what the biggest issues are for a given make or model.

In my mind the 3700 was the 2010 version of the D-link DI-655 which dominated 2008-2009 From a hardware perspective the D-link 4300 was a gigabit version of the 655 with some minor changes to keep cost in check.
 
I've had good luck with the Asus routers in the past, their support is same across the board..fairly crummy...but to be honest, I've never called support for home grade routers regardless of brand, only higher end stuff Sonicwall or Juniper or Cisco. Support for home grade routers for me is only....some schedule of regular firmware updates.

If heavy torrent use is a need for you....I'd go for very high max connection abilities. To be honest...if you want solid...bulletproof running for over a year or two without rebooting...build yourself a *nix distro router. If you want off the shelf boxed retail...I suppose if you're only between these two, I'd lean towards the 4200 because of the very high max connections. The 480 MHz CPU and 64 megs of ram are decent. 'Course the Asus Black Diamond doubles that with 128 megs. :D
 
Think I may just go get the E3000 again. Its a bit cheaper then the E4200, around $40 locally and I really don't like not having the LED's in the front like the E4200. I wanna be able to see what my connections/computers area doing for basic troubleshooting purposes.

I could give Netgear a try locally but im sick of having most of my network down with no router and I don't feel like running back and forth to the store in the event I have to play quality roulette with netgears products
 
Well, I figured since I got the money right now and im really curious to see what all the hub bub is about for this Netgear 3700v2, I picked up one at local staples for $130 and a Linksys E3000 at Costco for $120. Just about got the 3700v2 setup and gonna give it a trial run with Xbox live Halo gaming, Bittorrent loads, Droid X usage, and see how it does for the next few days.

First thing I noticed right off the bat, even after the newest firmware update, the web interface is REALLY SLOW. That normal? Used to my Dlink and Linksys being zippier response wise. The menu layout is alot easier on the Netgear then the Linksys by far, easier to figure out and navigate but damn is it slow!
 
Earlier firmware version on Hardware V1 were quicker. At some point they did something and it was as if someone poured molasses on the embedded web server.
 
Mackintire said:
Earlier firmware version on Hardware V1 were quicker. At some point they did something and it was as if someone poured molasses on the embedded web server.
Click to expand...

Meh, figures. It is nice to have all these options, tweaks and features that the Linksys doesn't have. Won't use most of it but its cool nonetheless to toy with
 
Well there has been enough negativity about the 3700 that I simply don't wanna be the guinea pig with an expensive lesson/paper weight in the worst case scenario, so I took the 3700 back and gonna stick with the E3000
 
I'm interested in hearing your opinion of the 3700's performance.

Did you return it because of something you experienced or were you scared off by the Internet and its many armchair quarterbacks?
 
Mackintire said:
I'm interested in hearing your opinion of the 3700's performance.

Did you return it because of something you experienced or were you scared off by the Internet and its many armchair quarterbacks?
Click to expand...


Other then the slow web interface, the one day I had it it seemed to work well. But I was pretty much determined not to find out the hard way after hearing so much negativity on it.
 
Freezebyte said:
I'll be straight up front. I DO NOT CARE/WANT/NEED anything to do with flashing my router with a different firmware like 90% of you do. Though I do work in the IT world, and am fairly computer savy, I just prefer leaving my home stuff alone and just let it work as designed and stable. That being said, don't bother swaying me in the case for loading DD-RT or Tomato on the router, its irrelevant to me.
Click to expand...

thing is Tomato and DD-WRT are probably going to be more stable than the stock firmware :p
 
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