What’s new with the Netgear WNDR4700 Media Storage Router?

Netgear always comes up with new innovative products every year, including wireless router products. I was thinking that your Wndr4500 is the latest router to market with N900 technology. But Netgear at CES 2012 announced the new N900 WNDR4700 wireless router coming soon earlier this year.

What’s new with this product?

Unlike previous generations of Netgear wireless routers that have the same physical layout, this WNDR4700 has a different, boxy layout. The design is similar to the Asus RT-N56U black diamond; You are not standing perpendicularly but with a few degrees of angle.

Main features:

• Based on N900 wireless technology
• Tuned antennas optimized for maximum range designed for larger homes
• Integrated internal hard drive upgradeable up to 2TB of storage
• Gigabit ports and USB port with integrated DLNA media server
• Time Machine for Mac

Today’s fastest wireless technology is the wireless N900 (with three spatial data streams) which offers double bandwidth of up to 450 Mbps, theoretically each of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands at the same weather. You can have various wireless clients, including home theater devices (HDTV, XBOX, Blu-Ray), tablets (iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy), laptops, and other smartphones that operate on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band. Different wireless clients can connect to your WNDR4700 N900 network regardless of the frequency band in which they work. They can connect and work simultaneously.

Gigabit Ethernet ports, both LAN and WAN interfaces, are a must-have feature for high-performance wireless routers for a reliable wired connection to the router – Incredible gigabit speed for HD video streaming, large file data transfer, or Connect to a gigabit-enabled file server for fast file sharing. Every new laptop and all-in-one today includes a Gigabit NIC adapter in addition to the Wireless N Wi-Fi adapter. With both ends of the communication devices using the same Gigabit Ethernet technology, a maximum data transfer rate can be achieved.

Like the previous version of the WNDR4500 router, this WNDR4700 includes a USB port with built-in DLNA media server for a seamless connection to any DLNA compatible device, such as XBOX, HDTV or Blu-Ray player. Most of the older Netgear wireless routers with a USB port cannot be used to host a printer, the latter two 4500 and 4700 routers support hosting of network sharing printers and storage devices.

In addition to the disk storage connected to the USB port, what makes the WNDR4700 different from previous routers is that it is integrated with disk storage. That is why this router is called a media storage router. Additionally, this router supports Ready-Share Cloud technology to allow you to access and share files on the attached or built-in USB hard drive anywhere in the world via the Internet.

What else makes this router different? The time machine function for Mac users makes this router different, a function for automatic backup. Time Machine is a backup utility for Mac OS that helps you fully backup your files the first time and then you can forget about the boring task of regular backup, Time Machines will take care of the backup process smoothly and wirelessly. If you delete or lose your file, you can always restore it.

Do you need this powerful router? It depends on what you need to support your wireless home environment. Why should you spend more money on a powerful router if you only use it to share Internet connectivity with pairs of computers in a small house?