Overview

Wndr3800 is wireless N600 simultaneous dual band gigabit router premium edition. Why this Netgear 3800 is marked with premium edition? And how it competes with other N600 routers?

Wndr3800 design is similar to previous models such as the WNDR3700 or models that came later such as Wndr4500 but in lights panel indicator marked with a maroon red color. While the light panel indicator on Wndr4500 marked with black. You can place it on your table vertically or lay horizontally but users prefer place it vertically to save the space.

What this product does

There are some additional features and performance that makes this Netgear 3800 router is the premium edition. Here are the main features of this product:

• N600 dual band
• Gigabit LAN and WAN interfaces
• USB port with built-in DLNA media server
• Auto channel selector
• Mac Time Machine support

WNDR3800 N600 was introduced together with any other new products in Jan 2011 including WNDR4000 N750 Dual band gigabit router and DGND3700 ADSL2 modem router with Gigabit WAN port for Cable as well as home entertainment and Powerlines AV. Unlike WNDR4000 N750 with high speeds of up to 450Mbps (ideal conditions), WNDR3800 Premium edition delivers the speeds up to 300Mbps each band. But this Premium edition has more features than the N750 router. While DGND3700 is a single solution for wireless networking in homes for ADSL users and can also connect to Cable modem.

Processor performance

Like WNDR37AV, the WNDR3800 is powered by the 680 MHz powerful MIPS 32-bit processor with 16 MB flash memory (compared to WNDR37AV with only 8MB) and 64 MB RAM. You can compare with WNDR4000 which is powered by the dual core processor with 400MHz each and includes 128MB flash and 128MB RAM.

Netgear 3800 N600 premium edition has many advanced features and some of them are not found in other Netgear High performance routers. The router is powered by High speed N750 (450Mbps and 300Mbps) with simultaneous dual band technology to support both 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless devices concurrently. You can use high speed and clean 5GHz band for streaming HD video and smooth gaming such as connecting the Apple TV, iPad, XBOX, etc. To support this HD streaming and smooth gaming, this premium edition supports the advanced QoS (Quality of Services) as well as Wireless Multimedia based QoS (WMM QoS). The QoS works automatically by recognizing the video traffic and providing the prioritization over other traffic.

The router includes the Clear Channel Selector which dynamically avoids busy Wi-Fi channels for clear and fast wireless connections automatically.

Gigabit WAN and LAN Interfaces

Surely not complete the premium router if it is not equipped with gigabit Ethernet ports that are very reliable and fast in a direct cable connection from the client to the router. As well as Gigabit WAN interface designed for DOCSIS 3.0 cable infrastructure is super fast.

Share Storage and Printer

Like other Netgear High performance routers, the WNDR3800 includes one USB port to allow you share external USB storage with all client computers on the network. And the good thing is that it is compatible with Apple Time Machine® to allow Mac users stores back-up data to attached USB hard drives.

But, this is the difference, this USB port can also be used to host USB printer for sharing with ReadySHARE® Printer technology, previous Netgear routers cannot. You can find this feature in all new Belkin wireless routers including Belkin N600 HD routers, and in Belkin F7D8301 N600 it includes two USB ports for sharing printer and storage at once. Even in Apple Time Capsule, with one USB port you can add a USB hub to host both printer and storage for sharing.

Advanced Security

Like other traditional wireless routers, the Netgear 3800 N600 includes the dual firewall (NAT and SPI) feature to help the network protected against Internet threats including DoS attack. NAT (Network Address Translation) helps to hide your private network from the public internet and with NAT you can share a single Internet connection with many client computers on the private network.

WNDR3800 supports multiple SSIDs to allow you to segregate the network based on different groups of users. You can create Guest secure access to provide your friends internet access separate password than yours without providing access to your internal network. Multiple SSIDs feature is very essential when you deploy the router in your small office by creating different security policies to meet your business needs.

Parents are always worrying what their kids are doing with the internet contents they visit. Therefore, Netgear 3800 N600 supports free live parental control to help you customize the filtering for safe internet.

Connection Diagram

The following figure shows home wireless network using WNDR3800. The router connects to the internet via broadband modem. The XBOX console connects to the network using the XBOX wireless adapter for XBOX Live.

WNDR3800 N600 is a full featured high performance dual band simultaneous with gigabit WAN and LAN interfaces as well as USB port for Share storage and printer. The router is ideal for high performance wireless network for streaming HD video and smooth gaming.

Comparison with Other N600 Router

You probably wonder what are the differences between WNDR3800 router with other routers. The following table lists main features for Wndr3800 Vs Wndr3700 Vs Asus RT-N56U in brief description.

Comparison Table Netgear 3800 N600 Vs WNDR3700 N600 Vs Asus RT-N56U

Netgear 3800 N600 is a full featured high performance dual band simultaneous with gigabit WAN and LAN interfaces as well as USB port for Share storage and printer. The router is ideal for high performance wireless network for streaming HD video and smooth gaming.

By Ki Grinsing