Around a year ago I wrote an record on either upgrading to Wireless N was worth it or not. At the time Wireless N routers were high-priced and most habitancy wouldn't see much advantage in upgrading. Time's have changed though and wireless N routers are at rock lowest prices, and with habitancy doing a lot more streaming of media over their Lan's then upgrading to wireless N can nothing else but be worth it.
The Netgear Wnr2000 is probably one of the cheapest N routers currently available. Its main features are:
• Wireless N speeds of up to 300mbs (100mbps in general conditions).
• 4 x 10/100 wired ports
• One touch join together feature
• Spi firewall
Wireless Performance - In comparison to other similar models the Wnr2000 performs very well and was able to accomplish speeds of just over 100mpbs in the middle of two wireless N clients. Transferring a music album took less than ten seconds. The signal vigor was also impressive and coverage was very good all throughout a medium size house that the tests were performed in.
Remember that to get the maximum operation out of the Wnr2000 your wireless clients will need wireless N cards, although the router is backwards compatible and will work with wireless G, you will not accomplish the same speeds.
One Touch Feature - This is a nice wee expanding that allows you to join together clients at the touch of the button. The main advantage here is that you won't need to remember any passwords. The downside is that this will only work if your clients have Netgear wireless cards that preserve the one touch feature.
Security - Wireless protection comes in discrete flavours, from Wep all the way up to Wpa/2 (Which is recommended). With your wireless network regain you will also be able to take advantage of the Spi firewall. This basically inspects packets as they arrive from the face internet and analyses them for any suspicious activity. This adds a nice layer of defence to your home network and will help against any hack attempts.
Summary - The Wnr2000 is a nice wee router for those looking to upgrade to wireless N without any of the extra features. With that being said though you do get the Spi firewall and one touch highlight with this. In expanding the Wnr2000 is able to accomplish just as fast as many other top end models for a much lower price tag.
