NETGEAR WNR3500L N300 Open-Source Gigabit WiFi Router (WNR3500Lv2), 128MB NAND and 128MB RAM, 480 MHz MIPS 74K Processor

I bought this router to replace my trusty wrt54g with tomato open source custom firmware running on it. Great router, but a bit aged, even with the enhancements of tomato.Reasons I used tomato:1. Static dhcp (a.k.a. IP Reservation)2. Improved throughput3. Better control over port forwarding4. Content filtering5. QOSI selected the WNR3500L because I wanted a nice high performance router that is compatible with tomato and cheap (wanted that wireless N, gigabit, and faster throughput but didn't want to shell out a lot of money for a router). There aren't that many routers compatible with tomato: look to Asus RT-N66U (but not the N56U) if you want one better than this one, at many times the price. Anyway this router is among the handful that are really high performance and support the firmware I wanted.There are two versions of the WNR3500L. They use a different chipset. The version two has a faster chip and significantly more flash memory (and RAM). But the overall performance apparently isn't all that different overall between the two versions. Anyway, pretty much everywhere you look you will be getting version two. But this refurbished one is version one. Some people prefer version one because it is in some sense more compatible with tomato (or was...probably it just had a head start). Personally I would have preferred version 2. No big deal, though. They are very similar machines.Anyway, I plugged this router in to get it ready for the tomato install. It worked right off the bat with no configuration. Not a big surprise. But then I took a minute to look through the options in the firmware. IP reservation? Check. Convenient and flexible port forwarding? Check. Sophisticated QOS? Apparently, haven't tried it yet. It looks good, though. Content filtering? Also apparently. IPV6? Yup. Basically, this router appears to have all the features I want in the stock firmware. I'm getting great wireless N speeds, great connection speeds, got all my network IP's reserve, got some ports forwarded. Really, I'm not seeing a reason to install tomato. Maybe the days when custom firmware really added a ton to your router functionality really have finally finished.So here's the question: is there any reason to install a custom firmware? This particular router has been tested with dd-wrt. It adds some functionality, but the performance was significantly reduced. In general, tomato increases throughput over stock firmwares, but when the number of connections is high and there is up and downloading happening at the same time (ahem, bittorrent, ahem) the performance suffers more than stock. Personally I'm getting really hesitant to bother with it. I guess I'll just stick with the stock firmware for a while. I'll update this if I ever install tomato and let you know how it works out.Observations about the web interface: Pretty darn intuitive. There's an autoconfig option or you can config it yourself. IP reservation was equally easy, if not easier, than it was under tomato. Like all routers the actual loading of the interface pages is slow...not sure what that's about. It's true of tomato as well.Notice that this router also supports attaching a USB drive and basically functioning as a NAS. I choose to use a real NAS because it has powersaving options and so forth instead of just having the drive spin and spin. Anyway, not a function I will use, but some people may. To me it seems pretty neat.Anyway, I'm pleasantly impressed with this router. It was super, super cheap and it has great functionality, both in the hardware and in the software. If I want, I can later install an open source custom firmware. What more could you want from a router? Thanks Netgear.======== Update ==========The default firmware has been performing well and stable for a long time, but I've decided to go ahead and overwrite it with tomato. There are two reasons for this:1. You can't disable router logins through the WiFi. I consider WiFi to be really low security, so I don't like it that the router doesn't have the option to disable WiFi logins. Call me paranoid.2. For some reason the receiving end of the VOIP has been cutting out about a minute into the call. I put the VOIP device on the DMZ, which did not help. I also tried disabling SIP ALG. Also didn't help. My VOIP is pretty important to me, so out with the onboard firmware.The first one was no big deal, but the second was a deal killer.To install tomato you first have to install dd-wrt because they come in different formats and the built-in firmware requires the kind dd-wrt uses. Then you use dd-wrt to install tomato. It's working great. The only downside is that I am no longer getting anywhere near the WiFi speeds I was with the built-in firmware. If WiFi speed is important to you, stick with the built-in firmware. In every other respect that I've seen, tomato is equal to or better than the built-in firmware. You puts down your money and you makes your choice.

I needed a simple router for just the 2.4GHZ band that was capable of more than the minimum range so that I could provide coverage for a relative in their home. Since this relative just had a couple of devices, this router seemed like a good option so I decided to give it a try. Here is what I liked:1. Nice construction! Very simple and straight forward design without any antennas sticking out.2. Easy to configure. Basically, the unit configures itself. Security is enabled by default and the SSID (wireless identification) and password are provided to you on the wrapper for the router.3. You only need to change the Administrative password, so very little that you actually need to do.4. The range on this unit is very good. It was able to reach all of the rooms on this single story house of 1600 square feet.5. It is simple enough that after I checked the unit and configured it on my network at home, I was able to mail this to my relative and all they needed to do was plug it in and connect one cable to their existing wired modem. They then found the network on their iPad, entered in the password and that was it, connected to the Internet!!!6. It was basically the same process getting the TV connected wirelessly for Netflix and for Amazon Prime movies.Here is what I did not like as much:Actually, there is nothing about the unit to dislike. It is well designed and has lots and lots of features that a general user would probably never use. The wired network ports on the back of the unit are extremely fast if you need that type of thing. The wireless network is faster than the fastest Internet access that you can obtain as a homeowner in most parts of the country, so this is a definite win as long as you are NOT using this for gaming or for a large network.I would definitely recommend this router for anyone who needs a basic router with some nice features and medium range for wireless coverage.