Customer Reviews

Netgear EN104TP 4-Port 10 Mbps Ethernet Hub RJ-45 with Uplink Button

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Our office used to use a handful of the EN-104 4-port hubs and some of the EN-108 (the 8-port version of the same product).

As 10 Mbps hubs go, the EN-104's are really nice.

The quality of NetGear equipment has always impressed me:

- Nice sturdy metal construction instead of plastic.

- Status indicators built into the jacks, so you can easily tell which cable is connected and is active.

- Right-angled barrel power connector which reduce the likelihood of disconnecting power accidentally.

- With an easy-to-access switch, Port 1 toggles between station mode and uplink mode. Unlike some hubs where two jacks are wired together, this design prevents accidentally shorting a station to an uplink.

- Screw-mount notches on the underside allows for easy attachment to the wall, underside of a counter, etc.

If you want to set up a network without spending much, these hubs work well. However, I suggest you buy a 10/100 Mbps hub instead.

Here's why:

Practically all new networkable devices today support 100 Mbps (FastEthernet) as well as 10 Mbps (Ethernet). The EN-104 hub (and other 10 Mbps hubs) will limit you to the slower speed.

As 10/100 Mbps hubs are readily available today, and are quite affordable, I think your money is better spent on the faster hub.

Is there a noticeable difference between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps? It depends on your usage, but if you regularly work with files larger than about 300 KBytes or larger, you'll notice a tangible difference. For truly large files (like graphics/movies, or when installing an application via a network drive), a 10 second transfer at 100 Mbps will take well over a minute at 10 Mbps.

If the NetGear 10/100 hub (DS-104) is a bit too pricey for you, you might consider the Linksys EFAH05W 10/100 hub. Though not as "nice" as NetGear equipment, the Linksys 10/100 hub is only a few dollars more than this NetGear 10 Mbps hub.

My cable modem makes for great, fast internet access... for one computer. But what about downloading updates for my iBook without disconnecting my iMac? This hub has done that with ease. Easy to follow instructions had my home network up and running within ten minutes. Never a problem since.

Like most consumer electronics these hubs eventually fail in a slow painful death. I believe you can expect around 3-5 years of faithful service before these cost-effective hubs give out.

I wept when the first port stopped lighting up, and only three ports remained working (2 useful for my hw, 1 uplink). But my sympathy for a long-lived product went out the window when the thing got extremely hot and then all the lights went out.

:| It made a resounding thud when it hit the insides of my rubbermaid garbage can. The case is metal and extremely durable. I once used two of these as a monitor stand.

The power cube is still functional, and continues to power my home-built electronic hobbies to this day.

Not a bad product but I'd recommend a 100Mbps / 1Gb hub, and for slightly more money you might as well go with a wireless / wired router or WAP.

In spite of my problems with Netgear's PA-101 Phoneline 10X USB adapter, I gave their Ethernet hub a try. My faith in the company has been restored! My two computer home LAN was up and running as fast as I could plug in the cables. I have been using it for about a month now with no problems whatsoever.

As for the 10Base-T limitation, I doubt we would see a performance gain with 100Base-T. We use the network mainly for print and Internet sharing through a 56K modem. 10Base-T has more than enough bandwidth to handle that amount of information.

I have bought two of these for home and office use. They work flawlessy and for the price you cannot beat the functionality. I was running at least Windows 98 on all computers I hooked up to the ethernet hub. Windows makes it easy to set up file and printer sharing.

After you are hooked up to a network you will not need to swap disks all the time in order to exchange information or to move files for printing. You can transfer a hundred megabytes in a minute or two depending on the kinds of files.

Setup is a breeze if you have ethernet cards installed already. Even if you do not have cards installed already there are instructions to walk you through step by step.

I have had this hub for about 5months and it still works as smooth as it did when i bought it, have had no troubles at all, and none are showing for the future.

The Netgear EN104TP is one of the best products that I ever bought. It does just about everything that more expensive 10/100 Ethernet hubs do at a fraction of the cost. If all you're doing is adding additional computers to your network, then the EN104TP is all you need. I use it at my job, which is a company that sells greeting cards wholesale.
I decided to get the EN104TP after determining that our Macintosh needed access to the (PC-dominated) network so we could transfer and print TIFF and EPS files of artwork the company intends to sell. Because of a lack of Ethernet outlets in our printing department, I decided the best and cheapest way to do that was by adding an Ethernet hub. At first, I was a little skeptical about getting a 10 Base-T hub, but after finding the EN104TP on sale (...), I decided to take a chance, and it was worth it. It transfers files easily, it facilitates network printing (allowing us to maximize resources) and, for the computers connected to the hub, uninhibited access to the Internet.
Although this product is almost perfect, I encountered a couple of minor flaws. Recently, due to a windstorm that blacked out most of Memphis, we had to move the printing operations to another location. In doing so, I took the EN104TP in the hopes that it would function as a stand-alone Ethernet hub. Although it worked the first day, it didn't seem to function any day after that. Granted, I am not sure if it was the EN104TP's fault or the quirkiness of our computers which uses different Windows OS's (ME and XP). However, we were able to piggyback on the network of the building we were working out of and everything was fine. The other flaw is an obvious one: download speed. I found that files downloaded through the hub took longer to finish than ones downloaded directly from our main 10/100 hub.
In summary, I must say that the EN104TP is a great product and a great value for people who want to expand their network without having to spend a fortune to do it.

First off, I would like to reccommend this to anyone trying to startup a small little network in there home/office.

Its Fast enough for all Ive got to do and more.

Two Draw backs, one is, Right out of the package, the AC Port on the back is loose, so if you jiggle it a little bit, it turns off. The Second is that the Ports are in the front, which, in some cases is good, but sitting it on my desk, it is an inconveient spot, when I need to see the lights on the front.

The Lights above the port is a great idea, and for that it makes it worth a little inconvence.

Yours, Matthew

I bought this hub to connect the computers in my home so they could share a cable modem. I looked at a lot of 10Base-T hubs, and found this one to be among the least expensive with the best satisfaction ratings. I am especially impressed with the hub's small size and metal case -- other hubs are larger and have plastic cases.

To me, the best recommendation for a piece of network hardware is that you never have to think about it, it just works. This hub gives me that in spades.

this product is OK for networking under 50 feet, i had the previous version which is the EN104 (NOT EN104tp) with the bnc port, that one work for my home networking, but when i bought this one DONT WORK, called cust support and he said its a diffrent chip inside that couldnt handle that far of a distance, i thought just to let you people know about this.