By Ki Grinsing

Overview

Early emergence of routers with N750 technology made the competition amongst networking vendors including Linksys and Netgear to produce router with more features than its competitors. Both vendors introduced 4200 E series by Linksys while the Netgear with WNDR4000 both are packed with N750 technology.

This N750 technology as implied in its name is a dual band wifi technology simultaneously with different speed of each band with a total bandwidth of 750Mbps the aggregate of 450Mbps for 5GHz band and 300Mbps for 2.4GHz band.

Both are categorized into high performance routers – ideal for streaming HD video for larger homes. Any new laptop with built-in Centrino6300 can maximize the connection performance wirelessly.

Linksys E4200 Vs Netgear WNDR4000

Now what are the differences between Linksys 4200 and Netgear 4000? To help you understand the differences (if any) I will show the spec comparison between the two, not to mention spec details but main specs only.

For manufacturer’s description and spec details click here for Linksys E4200 and Netgear WNDR4000 click here.

Wireless Technology

I’ve discussed earlier what it is N750 technology that is packed in both routers, no difference, including antenna design was also packed internally. Linksys 4200 N750 includes 6x internal antennas with 3×3 smart MIMO antenna technology while Wndr4000 includes fined tune antennas for better speed and coverage.

Ethernet Ports

Most users expect the best technology on their routers including both LAN and WAN interfaces with Gigabit although sometimes they are less utilizing the maximum speed of these interfaces.

All the ports support auto-sensing, meaning you can use either cross or straight through twisted Cat5e cable. You can maximize the data rate throughput when connecting your computers with gigabit ready to the routers. Both Linksys 4200 and Netgear 4000 are ideal for bulk data transfer, streaming HD video and other high speed applications.

USB Port

Both vendors claim that their products support multimedia. That means the USB port equipped on the routers should support multimedia as well. Yes, both routers support UPnP media server and even Netgear 4000 DLNA certified. With DLNA compliant you can assure that the router will connect to any types of DLNA certified devices including Blu-Ray player and HDTV seamlessly.

Cannot share printer

The presence of a USB port for sharing storage only but you must regret that they cannot be used to set up the printer to be shared over the network.

Cisco connect software included with Linksys 4200 can help you manage the network printer easily and help you manage other networking tasks. Both of the routers are designed for multimedia, therefore with the absence of print-server capability is not an issue but shared storage with built-in media server is a must.

Any requirement of sharing the printer can be done in traditional way either by adding a print-server device or by connecting the printer to the computer and configure it for sharing.

Should you require a wireless environment for “work and play”, you can choose the routers with two USB ports to let you share the storage and printer at the same time such as Linksys EA4500 cloud router or Netgear WNDR4500 N900 router.

Comparison table E4200 Vs WNDR4000

Networking Diagram

The figure below shows networking diagram with the Linksys 4200 router as the center of the network, it can also be applied to Netgear 4000. A shared storage is attached to the router USB port and other home theater devices connect wirelessly to the network.

Customer ratings

Linksys 4200 receives less positive customer ratings in Amazon, averagely 3.5 out of five stars for ease of setup, range and reliability. On the other hand, the Netgear 4000 receives averagely 3.3 out of five stars for ease of setup, reliability, speed and range. Based on the customer ratings, E4200 receives better customer ratings but it doesn’t show you the precise benchmark.