Customer Reviews

EnGenius ESR9850 300Mbps Wireless N Router/WDS AP/Repeater with Gigabit Switch

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Pros: Price/Performance. Full Gig Ports.

Cons: Not Wi-Fi Certified?. Personally I didn't care. It'd probably just add to the cost to have a 'stamp of approval' by the organization in my opinion. Single Band? Draft "N"? Neither an issue for me.

Other Thoughts: I'd been wanting a Full Gig Router w/N to replace the Brand X(10/100-b/g) I'd been using. Read a review about it, saying it was blowing away the other 'name' boxes that cost twice the price.

The Management GUI does the job, not over-engineered or too many bells and whistles.

A popular home networking utility(v5.5) only discovers this as a "Router"; you can't rename it. And doesn't see my attached G Wireless Access Point either. But not a showstopper.

Using all brand new CAT 6E cables.

Laptop(Win-7/64) Wireless throughput is outstanding with an Intel 4965AGN card. Desktop(Win-7/64) throughput with an Intel Pro/1000 GT tests as fast as the Service Provider's Network can run, presently @DOCSIS 2.0.

Been running error and hang free since the day I plugged it in.

Highly Recommended.

This is definitely the best router I ever owned. That statement must take into considerations that I never owned any of the real expensive top of line routers. And in fact, I don't think I need them, after setting up this EnGenius. I used to have constant problems with previous routers (D-Link, Linksys, Netgear) when running torrent applications. All my previous routers would choke and it was frustrating trying to run any application that needed internet access while downloading torrents. My VOIP phone, connected to one of the LAN ports of my other routers would not have even have a dial tone. For a long time I've being searching for a router that would not cripple all other internet activities when downloading torrents. I read all kind of stuff, like loading routers with alternative firmware or software, all cumbersome and time consuming. Finally, I bumped into a Price vs. Performance chart at the Smallnetbuiler site (used to be held at the Tom's Hardware site) that showed this EnGenius router performing almost at the level of others three to five times more expensive. I had never heard of the EnGenius brand before, but, impressed with the chart and some good reviews, I decided to give it a try. I could not be happier!

The installation was straightforward and from the time I unplugged the cables from my old D-Link until I had the new router running perfectly it did not take more than 10 minutes. It has been working my home network flawless, without a single reboot, for several months, now. I will not spend time here to list the router specifications. You can find them in this site or at the manufacturer's. I will rather tell about what this router is handling: I have three PC's connected to three of the four LAN ports; the fourth port I used to my VOIP phone. I also have a printer wirelessly connected to the router, all working beautifully, even when I am downloading several torrents simultaneously. I notice only a very small degradation in performance under the heaviest traffic. It does not bother at all and does not prevent me from talking on the VOIP phone. Considering the price, this router is a real bargain and must have the engineers at the bigger companies scratching their heads. If you run torrents along with VOIP and also want wireless capabilities, do yourself a favor and buy one of these babies.

Very fast router, good feature set and low price. However, if you have a faster internet connection (40Mbps or higher) and intend to use QoS, you need to look somewhere else. If you have been reading reviews claiming that this router has a WAN to LAN throughput of more than 600Mbps, be warned that this is without QoS enabled. With QoS enabled, I'm not able to push more than 38-42Mbps through this router, which unfortunately makes it useless with Comcast Extreme 50 connection (which gives you roughly 62MBps).

The EnGenius ESR9850 appeared to be exactly what I wanted - a home router that supported 802.11b/g/n,, UpnP, WDS, good reviews, and at a fair price. Setup was straightforward and my 802.11G and 802.11N devices came on line easily. Potential purchasers should be advised however that the unit's backward compatibility to 802.11B devices is questionable. I have two such devices that are indeed compatible with my prior router, the Belkin G FSB7234, yet neither one recognizes a wireless signal from the ESR9850 when it is in mixed mode. Engenius' tech support, for their part, had me try various alternate settings, but none solved the problem. Yet in the face of reasonable doubt as to its 802.11B compatibility, they refused to consider that my particular ESR9850 could be defective, asserting that "if it were defective it would fail 100% of the time." In other words, since it worked for my G and N devices there could be nothing else wrong. And let's be clear - it's advertised to work with B devices, doesn't work with my B devices, but they are satisfied that nothing is wrong with it.

So regardless of whatever is really at the root of the problem, I'm stuck with an Engenius router that does not perform to its advertised promise. What do they do about it? Referring to my problem, they've told me "We consider this matter closed."

And here's something else potential buyers should beware of - Engenius' return/repair policy. Check out their RMA Request Form on their website. You'll discover that if for some reason your Engenius product malfunctions you will have to fill out the form, send it back to them with your proof of purchase, wait for them to grant authorization, wait for a carrier to deliver the product to them, wait for them to do what they have to do to fix it, pay them what they decide you owe them, then wait for the return shipment. Do you want to be without a router for that length of time? What kind of position would you be in if you felt the charge for repair was too high? Providing an alternate router for troubleshooting and/or for keeping your network up during the repair/replacement period is evidently not a popular Engenius policy option either. I know because I suggested it, and they deemed it "not necessary."

I bought 3 routers/AP's including this one to test and decide which one to choose and expand for company use. I turned them all on side by side, and used an app "netstumbler" to monitor their wifi signals. It turns out this one has signal like a green comb (on and off) as time goes, while the other two have signals solid green. I think this confirms the other user's claim it cannot hold the connection.

I was skeptical, but .. Don't let the price fool you.

I'm not concerned with prices, and for that reason I had been running a Juniper Netscreen that cost me nearly $1000, and is quite complex to setup.

Hearing about the VoIP features and very long range, I tested this router. To my amazement, this beat the Juniper, but also the two other "high-performance" gaming routers I had available to test.

Between the range and the throughput, this is, IMHO, the best SOHO wifi router money can buy.

One small note: You can also use this as an "Access Point" (AP) only gateway, if you prefer (no router, strictly as a wireless-to-wired access point). It does not mention it in the setup, but it works fine. It also has options for security as whether to pass traffic between wifi users, wifi-to-wired, etc.

This is the first time trying this companies routers, so far so good, seems to do the job at both home and at work. Increased the overall network speed from the old 54g series cards and routers. It does the job is all i can really say.

UPDATE: God did i get a shock, after only 3 months of operation, this thing imploded, and i got the smoke stains and burned paint on my wall to prove it. I thought it was running kind of hot outta the box, but worked so well i didn't give it a second thought. This is an awful expensive piece of equipment and for it to just burn up like that was something new to me. I have massive surge protection and its winter. I got battery backups so the item was protected either way. It literally had a melt down, and had i not smelled the electrical burn smell i wouldn't have hauled tail to my office to find out what it was, it could have easily burned my house to the ground. So this item is a bit to pricey for the quality in my opinion. Use at your own risk, and if it runs hotter then you can touch at any time shut the darn thing off and send it back. I've seen a lot of products in my day, but this one scared me.

Pros :
- It's Stable.
- It's Quite Energy-Efficient.
- It Doubles as a Gigabit 4-Port Switch.
- It's Capable of ~50K Concurrent Sessions Handling (With The Latest Firmware Version Installed).
- It's Loaded With Many Useful Features (for e.g. : Finely-Customizable Port-Forwarding).

Cons :
- Setup Could Certainly Be More Intuitive.
- a Bewildering Log Output (Might Complicate Troubleshooting).

This thing performs up there with the $150-200 Cisco/Netgear router at less than half the cost. Relatively easy to set up and very solid. I've had this router up now for over 6 months and have never seen the need to reboot it. Surprisingly good product from a no-name brand.

I have installed 20 of these in the past 7 months with no issues.

I used to install Linksys WRT54G and then WRT310N routers for home networks. This one beats the pants off both of those in range and reliability.

I use the stock firmware and set them up as:
a) router
b) access point
c) repeater
d) gaming adapter

Very nice having just one device to use for everything.

The biggest disappointment is Amazon raised their price, so for now I am buying them $10 cheaper elsewhere.