Pros: Good value, easy setup, good speed and coverage, decent security.
Cons: Plasticky feel, little in the way of diagnostics.
The Bottom Line: Good for home/soho use. Easy to install and good speed. Little diagnostic information so avoid if you need this. Get v3 for easiest life.
print_review's Full Review: NetGear WG602 802.11b/g Wireless Access Point
We got this at work to give limited wireless access to the small (under 10) number of people who wanted to ditch the cables now that their laptops have wireless built in.
Out of the box it was clearly a brand new product, packaged appropriately but not excessively. Contents of the box included the inevitable power supply, cable, printed quick start guide and more extensive documentation on CD.
Build quality was as expected: the plastic of the casing clearly reflects the price point at which this device is aimed. It is not as weighty and does not feel as solidly built as some of Netgears metal encased units, but if installed and left static this should not be an issue.
Installation was a breeze; I had the WG602 up and running, complete with WPA and MAC address filtering, in under 15 minutes. It is heartening to note that this device supports WPA as well as WEP at this price point.
A nice design feature are the little clip on feet to allow this device to stand on its side as well as laying flat. It is a shame that wall fixings (a couple of rawl plugs and screws) were not included in the box.
Connection speed and coverage are fine; we regularly get the full 54Mbps out of this. Our (steel frame) building seems to pose few problems for the coverage. Drop-outs seem to happen once a week or less, but consistently reconnect without requiring our intervention.
It is true that this device and its firmware/interface (web style) do not give much in the way of diagnostics; a list of connected stations (computers) is about it. However, as a plug-in-and-forget device aimed at home/soho use this does not have to detract from the overall package. I would not however necessarily recommend this access point for use in a larger or more rigourous environment that home/soho.
Reliability has been fine; we have the WG602 placed on an spare desk in an open office. It is relatively (physically) undisturbed, and has only once required our direct intervention when we down the server and network and tweaked some settings - hardly a surprise.
The only major headache getting computers connected to/via the WG602 v3 access point has been the computers themselves. We deliberately chose to use WPA for our security, which then required updating of various drivers on various machines... but this is not a fault of the WG602 at all.
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