Netgear always comes up with innovative new products every year, including wireless router products. I was thinking that your Wndr4500 is the last router shipped to the market with N900 technology. But Netgear at CES 2012 announced the new N900 WNDR4700 wireless router which is coming soon earlier this year.
What’s new with this product?
Unlike previous generations of Netgear wireless routers that have the same physical design, this WNDR4700 has a different design, a square design. The design is similar to the black diamond Asus RT-N56U; it is not standing perpendicularly but at a few degrees of angle.
Main features:
- Based on wireless N900 technology
- Tuned antennas optimized for maximum range designed for larger homes
- Integrated internal hard drive upgradeable up to 2TB of storage
- Gigabit ports and USB port with integrated DLNA media server
- Time Machine for Mac
The fastest wireless technology today is the Wireless N900 (with three spatial data streams) which offers twice the bandwidth of up to 450 Mbps in theory, each of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands at the same weather. You can have multiple wireless clients, including home theater devices (HDTV, XBOX, Blu-Ray), tablets (iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy), laptops, and other smartphones that work on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band Different wireless clients can connect to your WNDR4700 N900 network regardless of the frequency band they work on. They can connect and work simultaneously.
Gigabit Ethernet ports, both LAN and WAN interfaces, are a must-have feature for high-performance wireless routers for a reliable wired connection to the router – blazing gigabit speed for HD video streaming, large file data transfer or connection to a gigabit-enabled file server for fast file sharing. All new laptops and all-in-ones today include a Gigabit NIC adapter in addition to the Wireless N Wi-Fi adapter. With both ends of the communication devices using the same Gigabit Ethernet technology, maximum data rate performance can be achieved.
Like the previous version of the WNDR4500 router, this WNDR4700 includes a USB port with a built-in DLNA media server for seamless connection to any DLNA compatible device such as XBOX, HDTV or Blu-Ray player. Most of the older Netgear wireless routers with a USB port cannot be used to host a printer, the latest two 4500 and 4700 routers support network sharing printers and storage devices.
In addition to disk storage connected to the USB port, what sets the WNDR4700 apart from previous routers is that it is integrated with disk storage. That is why this router is called media storage router. Additionally, this router supports Ready-Share Cloud technology to allow you to access and share files on the built-in or connected USB hard drive anywhere in the world via the Internet.
What else makes this router different? The time machine function for Mac users makes this router different, a function for automatic backup. Time Machine is a backup utility for Mac OS that helps you back up your files completely the first time and then you can forget about the boring task of regular backup. Time Machines will take care of the backup process seamlessly and wirelessly. If you delete or lose your file, you can always restore it.
Do you need this powerful router? It depends on what you need to support your wireless home environment. Why should you spend more money on a powerful router if you only use it to share Internet connectivity with a couple of computers in a small house?
