Overview

The first wireless router with simultaneous dual-band 450Mbps released to the market was TRENDnet with its Tew-692gr which is then followed by some manufacturers. A few months after TRENDnet, Netgear Wndr4500 was released to the market with full richer features than the Tew-692gr. Netgear 4500 has the following main features:

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• Double bandwidth – aggregated up to 900Mbps
• Gigabit Ethernet Ports for LAN and WAN interfaces
• Two USB Ports for hosting USB external storage and printer
• Ideal for 3D and HD video streaming and fast responsive gaming
• DLNA certified media server

What this product does

The model of Netgear 4500 is not much different from its predecessor including Wndr4000 N750, Wndr3800 premium edition and True Mac router WndrMac. All are designed with vertical form factor, although can also be laid down horizontally. Vertical position does not consume much space on your desk than horizontal. However the latest generations of Netgear wireless ac routers R6300 and the wireless storage router Wndr4700 are designed differently, it’s like a parallelogram or something like a prism or ..whatever it is, it is different.

Speed and range

This Netgear Wndr4500 is promising everyone’s expectation in delivering ultimate wireless performance in speed and range.

As the technology used is N900 wireless router, it has a blazing speed, ultimate speed in wireless n class up to 450Mbps each band. Even the wireless adapter available on most desktops or laptops may not be equipped with a speed of up to 450Mbps.

Without having to mention that the router is packed with gigabit interfaces, you can definitely guess that this router is equipped with gigabit interfaces because it falls into premium category router. With this ultimate speed Netgear 4500 is ideal for large house and supports multiple multimedia devices simultaneously.

Functionality

Netgear 4500 is the first product introduced by Netgear a wireless router with twin USB ports. The Netgear WNDR3800 premium edition is promising with the capability of sharing storage or printer in a single USB port, the first step powering the router to support shared printer. But this one, Netgear would like to beat the full functionality of the twin USB port of Asus RT-N56U black Diamond.

Performance

You can compare the hardware resources with the previous Netgear High performance routers regarding the memory:

The last but not the least is that Netgear Wndr4500 is DLNA certified, assuring all types of DLNA compliant devices connect seamlessly to the router including Blu-Ray player, XBOX, HDTV etc.

Netgear WNDR4500 Vs Linksys E4200

The main differences between Netgear 4500 and the Linksys E4200 are on the wireless technology and the USB port.

The differences lies in the speed of the 2.4GHz band router where Netgear has a speed of up to 450Mbps, while Linksys limited up to 300Mbps. However, the E4200 with v2 firmware the speed is upgraded to N900, the same speed on each band.

One more difference is the USB port which is packed with 2 USB ports on Netgear while Linksys only has one port. Both routers support DLNA media server, but Linksys cannot be used for printer sharing except the E4200v2.

WNDR4500 N900 Vs Belkin N750 DB

Regarding the number of USB ports, Belkin N750 has the same number of USB ports for shared storage and printer. But Belkin doesn’t specifically mention that the router supports built-in UPnP media server except it includes Video mover application for easy video streaming. WNDR4500 is DLNA certified for seamless connection with other DLNA compliant devices. And the speed in 2.4GHz is also different, up to 150Mbps faster in Netgear 4500.

WNDR4500 N900 Vs Apple Airport Extreme

As I said in other articles that each new router introduction people would like to compare it with the most popular Apple Airport Extreme particularly those Apple loyal users. The main differences are the wireless technology, the number of USB 2.0 ports and Ethernet ports as shown in table below.

Netgear 4500 is still expensive sold in the market around $150; especially the rating of the router is getting better to date. For single 2.4GHz band needs in order to support your home multimedia, then you can consider Dlink Dir-657 HD media server 1000 which the price is one third of Netgear.

Let’s see how the users provide their opinions with this WNDR4500 ultimate speed. So far the customer’s review in Amazon is averagely 3.9 out of five stars.

And you may also have a look at the newer model WNDR4700 N900 router with internal storage too. Netgear is also introducing new 5G Wifi router R6300 router. The apparent difference is the wireless technology adopted to the routers. R6300 router is engineered using the fastest – the gigabit wireless speed of the 5G (802.11ac) standard used.

By Ki Grinsing