What’s new with WNDRMAC N600 router? What is the difference with the WNDR3800 premium edition?
Netgear showcased the new WNDR3800 premium edition last Jan 2011, but it takes a long months before it is shipped into the market. Before WNDR3800 is shipped into the market, Netgear introduces new WNDRMAC wireless Extreme for Mac and PC. WNDRMAC is designed with N600 wireless technology like other Netgear N600 high performance routers such as WNDR3700 N600 and WNDR3400 N600 routers. See also other N600 wireless routers in comparison chart.
USB Port
The WNDRMAC includes one USB port and like WNDR3800 N600 router, you can easily add a USB printer to the router and configure your Mac and Windows computers by using the Bonjour printing application integrated in Mac system and for Windows users they can download the Bonjour printing applications here. Bonjour is a zero configuration networking to automatically discover the computers, devices and services on IP networks using industry standard IP protocols.
Other Netgear wireless routers do not support USB port for printing except these WNDR3800 premium edition and the new WNDRMAC N600 routers. You can compare the routers with Asus RT-N56U N600 router which includes twin USB ports with the capability of sharing the storage and printer attached to each of the ports. But Asus RT-N56U doesn’t support Time Machine in Mac and PC.
Gigabit Ports
Mostly Netgear routers (excluding WNDR3400) that fall into the high performance routers category include Gigabit ports for both their LAN and WAN interfaces. Many people do not take account of gigabit ports because they do not have their computers support gigabit NIC adapters or because they mainly concern about the wireless connections for their mobile devices. What about Gigabit WAN port? This can be useful if your modem supports the gigabit interface such as SB6120 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem which includes one Gigabit Ethernet port. Remember, high speed modem and router will not improve the internet connectivity if your bandwidth plan is still the same. Upgrade your bandwidth from your ISP for much better internet connectivity experiences such as for HD streaming and online gaming.
Guest Network
Providing the internet access only to your guests without granting access to your local network could be difficult in old generation routers. Mostly new generations of Netgear routers support guest network access – a security boundary for your guests with different network name (SSID) and different password. This will guarantee that they will not having access to your local network.
All other standard features a wireless router should support including the dual firewall (NAT and SPI), DHCP server (for automatic IP address configurations for clients on the network) and other standard security such as WPA/WPA2, this WNDRMAC support them all. The main difference with WNDR3800 is the true Mac support (including Time machine) as well as Windows. WNDR3800 actually supports Time machine to let you create a well-managed backup system for all the computers on the network. Time machines will take care of the backup system automatically and backup only those files that change after a one time full-backup has been performed. Apple with Time Capsule supports this system on the full-features of Apple Airport Extreme base station.
Comparison with Others
The table 1 describes spec comparisons for WNDRMAC Vs WNDR4000 Vs Linksys E4200 to give you a better understanding about the products.
| WNDRMAC | WNDR4000 | Linksys E4200 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wireless technology | N600 | N750 | N750 with External Off-Chip High Power amplifier |
| Ethernet ports | Gigabit | Gigabit | Gigabit |
| USB port | 1xUSB 2.0 port for shared storage or printer – DLNA media server compliant | 1xUSB 2.0 port for share storage – DLNA media server compliant | 1xUSB 2.0 port for share storage – DLNA media server compliant |
| Performance | Memory: 16MB flash and 128MB RAM | Memory: 8MB flash and 64MB RAM | Memory: 16MB flash and 64MB RAM |
| Others | True Mac and PC supports; Bonjour printing; Time-machine;
Easy CD-less installation for iPads®, iPhones®, MACs®, PCs ; Dedicated Video Streaming Mode; Broadband usage meter; Live parental control |
Live Parental Controls – Free!
Broadband usage meter |
Cisco connect software for easy network management and configuration |
Networking Diagram
Mostly all the wireless routers installed in home has similar wireless networking diagram as shown in the following figure. A shared storage can be installed to support the time machine – automatic backup. Or you can share a USB printer to allow both Mac and Windows users send the print jobs easily with bonjour printing.
Have a look at the new era of 5G wifi router – Netgear R6399 wifi router.
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Hi all,
thanks for this article. But i dont understand what are the crucial difference between these routers. The have the same functions !?, for example supports aplles time machine!?
Thanks for your reply!
true Mac I think!
Bonjour Printing in Mac can recognize the attached printer and you can easily add the printer into your “system preference”
For Widnows users they require downloading the bonjour printing applications to be compatible with the Mac bonjour printing system.
Hi,
that is all? For only this feature they produce another product ?
Damn, these products are confuse. I dont see the difference between these routers. If anybody can describe the crucical difference PLZ TELL US
the router performance! wndr3800 is equipped with double memory both RAM and flash (16Mb flash and 128MB RAM) compared to wndr3700, wndr37a and wndr4000 (8Mb flash and 64Mb RAM).
And it can also be configured as the wireless repeater.
the great thing about these new routers is,, they have the same basic hardware as the wndr3700v2, just reports of 128mb ram instead of 64mb, but they both utilize the large 16mb flashrom, which means you can upgrade your 3700v.2 to the new firmware, and walla!! you have a premium or mac router!!! so cool! thanks netgear, but you will have to use TFTP to upload the firmware, use wiki if you need help/instructs, these new firmwares are already being used on wndr3700v2′s with success.. in must be a version 2 .. as the new FW files are over 10mb,, good luck and enjoy
Now a new baby – an ultimate speed, full functionality netgear wndr4500 n900 router is born … both flash and ram use 128Mb …must be fast processing
The WNDRMAC is a WNDR3700v2 (64MB RAM, 16MB flash) in a white case. The
WNDRMACv2 is a WNDR3800 (128MB RAM, 16MB flash) in a WNDRMAC case.
The WNDRMAC case doesn’t have “holes” or labels for the 2.4GHz LED or
switch ports 2-4. The stock firmware uses a single LED (in the 5GHz
position) to indicate the status of both radios, and a single LED (in the
switch port 1 position) to indicate the status of all LAN ports. The
“missing” LEDs are present on the board, and easily shine through the
case.
from here:
https://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2011-December/013144.html