Customer Reviews

TRENDnet 4-Port Broadband Router TW100-S4W1CA (Black)

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I bought this Trendnet to replace an old Netgear router, which was still working fine, except it couldn't keep Outlook connected to its remote Exchange server. I suspected that the old router was too slow to handle the RPC over http (Exchange Proxy) connection that Outlook uses, but I wasn't sure. So I was looking for a new and ultra-low-cost router to see if it would fix the problem. This router solved the problem immediately - in fact Outlook connects faster from home now than it does at the office.

This router was easy to install and set up. At first I was reluctant to switch brands because I was already familiar with configuring Netgear routers (I also have a Netgear wireless router configured as an access point.) But I didn't have any trouble navigating the admin screens for the Trendnet. I connected my Netgear wireless router to one port of the Trendnet as a wireless access point and it works perfectly.

(Why two routers? My home office with its several computers is located at a corner of the house - a poor location for the wireless router. So the Trendnet router stays in the office. A cable runs from the Trendnet to a centrally located closet, where the Netgear wireless router lives. Some special configuration of the routers is required for this setup - it's explained on the Netgear web site.)

My only complaint about the Trendnet is the red flashing status light. According to the documentation that came with my router this light was supposed to be green, so I was trying to figure out what problem was causing it to flash red. Eventually I discovered that "OK" is now flashing red, not green. Personally I'd prefer a green light for OK - the flashing red can be distracting.

I hope that this router will prove as reliable as my Netgear routers have been.

This is my first time using a router. I didn't like idea of putting our internet signal into the air even though there are ways of securing it. So we got a wired router. One is going to my computer, another computer bridged with a 75' cable and an xbox360 also bridged with a 75' cable. The 360 plays fine online and the computers experience no lag while all are using the internet. Everything hooked up fine. A cat 5 cable connects to the router from the modem and you just throw another cat 5 to the router and connect it to whatever PC or gaming console needs it. A wired router is much more convenient than having to reset the router every time you change the connection from PC to xbox360.

this wired router works great with a very low price. didn't have to do anything just plug and play. my pc and ps3 are next to each other therefore i didn't need a wireless option. i had a linksys wireless router and the thing kept disconnecting on me especially when i was gaming online with my ps3 so i got rid of it.

at first i was hesitant to purchase this router because of its cheap price tag and not knowing too much about this company, but i'm very glad i bought it. i recommend this product highly. cheap, reliable, and easy to set-up. worth every penny.

*note* don't worry about the blinking red light. it means it's working.

TRENDnet has always made some very good routers, and this little router is no exception. I have used the same Linksys router for 10years and it was time to retire it. However, finding a quality wired router was very hard it turns out. In the end I stumbled across this router and began to do some research into it.

the TW100-S4W1CA is actually the 4th version of this router. It was originally produced in 2006 and went through multiple changes (v1.0 v1.0r v1.1 and v1.1r) v1.1r was produced in 2009 i believe and contains the latest firmware (Jan 2008) The original versions of this router had a different design and a blinking "red" status light. The latest version changed it to a blinking GREEN light. I received a v1.1r which is the latest (sometimes you might end up with a 1.1 and some sites are even selling v1.0 originals which is very strange since Trendnet doesn't produce those anymore)

Anyhow, the router design itself is ultra simple. This is a $40 router normally so compared to a $80 linksys you will see some differences. The plastic casing is light weight and kind of feels fragile next to my old linksys w/ heady duty plastic or better yet, my netgear SPI firewall router(which broke in about a year) which has a metal case. However you aren't exactly throwing this thing around so for a device that sits on a counter, the light weight plastic design is helpful to keep it cool ; it just has this TOY look to it. The ports in the back are plastic w/ metal pins to hold the RJ45's in place. Simple but it works. The lights themselves are very simple and not over glaring (like the Gaming Routers from D-Link which actually can hurt your eyes if you look into them because of how bright they are).

A proper functioning v1.1r model will have a "solid green" power light. "flashing green status" "Green WAN light that flickers w/ activity" and the port w/ a network cable attached will be SOLID GREEN that flickers with activity.

FIRMWARE / SETUP

-- TRENDnet routers use some of the best router firmware on the market. It is done by an outside company which specializes in networking firmware and software, and supposedly they are one of the best. The firmware is windows/OS based, meaning when you hook up the router and get going, input your router IP and it will have a browser based firmware which will be like surfing webpages. This keeps it very simple for people who aren't familiar with networking since it lets them put in help bars, extra tool tips and make things look much nicer.

-- CABLE users this router works out of the box w/o even a need for setup . DSL users and others will require minor setup but this is easy as there are 2 setup methods

1. BASIC/QUICK. This setup is pretty much 4 steps. Time, Network IP, Network information, LAN settings in other words, the router will ask you to set your time, select your ISP provider (cable, dsl, etc), input network information if required by your ISP, clone your MAC ID(required if your ISP only grants you 1 IP based on your PC's network card)

** I didn't have to clone my MAC ID for it to work, but my friend bought this same router and he had to so well, this is a case by case basis. If the router is not working out of the box, CLONE MAC ID in the quick setup step. After doing that the router worked perfect for my friend.

2. ADVANCED. This setup avoids all the steps. Instead you are taken to a setup page that has all the firmware tabs. WAN, LAN, SETUP, FIREWALL etc Within each tab are options to use. This is for advanced users as tweaking a few things here can screw up stuff. However in the advanced setup menu you can go to LAN and change your router IP address, the IP ranges the router hands out, lease time etc. You also can set up DMZ, firewall features, port forwarding etc. Everything is well organized and help options are everywhere (it is so much similar than my old Linksys)

** In the FIREWALL option there is a feature called "BLOCK WAN IP" I personally would enable this. Basically this prevents the router from receiving "pings" on the WAN side (via your ISP). Now if you enable this and suddenly you lose internet then disable the option . Some ISP's do ping your network to make sure you are there. However most ISP's will not, instead HACKERS will ping along the network looking for a response. if you do not block your wan pings, you ping back and the hacker spots you and moves in for the kill. Is it necessary, no... but it is nice to have enabled.

OVERALL

Short story here, this router is a fantastic wired router. I call it "the little router that could.... and then some" as this router is half the size of my old Linksys yet has 8x the throughput (80Mbps WAN to LAN). This router has a very simple design, with very high quality firmware that makes it very simple to setup while catering to advanced users. I highly recommend this router for its price (currently $24). While you will get a very cheap looking router, the insides are HIGH QUALITY. Just look past the toy design and you'll see this has some high quality parts inside of it and that's what counts in the end. It works... and it works well.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this router if you are looking for a high speed wired router that can handle multiple computers and devices.

CONS

Like all great things, there are a few negatives to this router (minor ones)

1. Port 113 CLOSED not stealth. STEALTH is just an imaginary term by GRC testing. Basically it means your port isn't visible or responding to outside data access that was not requested.

Is this bad? Not really because this router contains "Block WAN PING" . My Old Linksys and Netgear routers did not have Block WAN PING but did have Port 113 filter. So pretty much it is one or the other from the research I did. You can filter port 113 (make it stealth) or just have the router block all PING requests from the WAN side.

2. Setup CD. I get so annoyed with these. Honestly, these Setup CD's cause more problems than they resolve. In fact some CD's wont even work on Windows Vista or Windows 7 . These CD's are really designed for users with Windows 95, 98 and 2000 where you had to configure high speed internet manually. XP, Vista and Win7 all have automatic configuration wizards. You should not have to use the CD to get this to work if you are on XP, Vista or Win7 (UPnP is enabled by default)

SPEED

I upgraded to this firewall/router after realizing that my previous router (the Netgear FVS318) slowed down my internet connection. My old Netgear router could only filter the incoming data at 6 Mb/s while my ISP serves up data much faster than that. I'm happy to report that the Trendnet router is fast: using NAT with my internet connection, I was able to get 25-30 Mb/s down and 6 Mb/s up. Just to test the limits, I plugged this router into a much faster network and could get 88 Mb/s down and 52 Mb/s up. So that "80 Mbps WAN-to-LAN throughput" feature that Trendnet claims is actually true. Given that 100+ Mb/s fiber-to-the-home connections are expensive and uncommon at the time of this review, you'll be future-proof with this router for a number of years.

CONFIGURATION

If you're already familiar with setting up networking gear, just plug in the router, connect your computer to one of the LAN ports, and point your web browser at 192.168.0.1 using "admin" as the user and a blank password. Unlike some other consumer class routers I've worked with, you can change a setting and apply it right away; there's no need to reboot the router for the changes to take effect.

If you're not already familiar with setting up and configuring networking hardware, this likely won't be the easiest or most intuitive setup process, but it isn't that much better or worse than most other routers. If you're looking for an easy setup process and you own a Mac, I'd recommend Apple Airport Express or Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. Just run /Applications/Utilities/Airport Utility (which comes with your Mac) and it'll automatically find any AirPort base stations that need to be configured and will automatically identify and suggest fixes for common configuration mistakes (like accidentally doing double NAT when you have multiple firewall/bridge devices on your network).

SECURITY

This is only a NAT based firewall - this router does not do Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI). If you want SPI, you might consider a more expensive Trendnet model, perhaps the TRENDnet TW100-BRV304. But for most cases, NAT is good enough, especially since most computers have their own firewall anyways (if you bother to enable it).

I was curious if there were any listening services on the WAN side of this firewall. After port-scanning it, I couldn't find any. In checking the system logs on the firewall, I could see that the firewall knew it was being port-scanned and logged the IP address of the scanner. Nice!

CONCLUSION

This is an inexpensive, no-frills firewall and it works well. For people that don't have any fancy requirements, I'd happily recommend it.

Quick summary: inexpensive, very easy to install and works fine.

Long(er) review:

My old D-Link router was dying (needed constant reset), so I've been researching for a replacement and looked for one of these three wired routers:

1) TRENDnet 4-Port Broadband Router TW100-S4W1CA

2) D-Link Ethernet Broadband Router EBR-2310

3) Linksys BEFSR41

They all have overall good reviews, and all also have some 1-star horror stories (not working, poor customer support, etc...), in the end I went with the least expensive (TrendNet).

Set-up was very easy, I did not even use the included CD-Rom. It worked fine 5 minutes later after I reset my cable modem (unplug and replug power).

I have the TrendNet router connect to my cable modem (Comcast) as input, and going to one computer, Xbox 360 and also to another wireless N router (through a long cable to reach the middle of the apartment).

I'm very happy about it. It does the job.

We tried this router because:

- We wanted to be able to connect a desktop PC, a netbook, a Wii, and a 360 to one internet connection

- It was inexpensive (under $25 when we ordered)

- I hate wireless connections (I just find them pitiful compared to wired connections)

So we got this router and some inexpensive CAT6 patch cables (an assortment, 6 to 50 feet), and we've been set.

I've noticed that some previous reviews complain of a blinking red light. We don't have any red lights on our router (ours are all green), so maybe they changed it.

The only hiccup was that we had to follow the directions carefully, go to the IP address given and reset the router to resolve an IP conflict and make it connect all our devices. Other than that, it's worked fine. Our connection speed seems entirely unaffected.

If you're a tech newbie purchasing this router, just be sure to follow the directions carefully. If you run into problems, get a nerd to help you. Anyone else will be useless.

Being a (retired), Network/Telecom engineer I've spent a ton of time working with routers of all kinds (mostly Cisco) and I am simply amazed at this much capability, which would have cost k$'s not long ago, is available for this low a price.

I got this little router to provide a secure connx for ssh into a private Open-Mesh network. It was amazingly easy and clean to configure. I then sent it 600 miles for other non-techies to install on-site which they did with absolutely no problem.

The ONLY critique I have is that I couldn't set the LAN side to other than a 192.168.0.0/24 network which may be a conflict in some rare situations. This might be unique to my firmware version since the manual implies that any private IP range can be selected. I think I'd cut a half star on that account but can't figure out how....

For many SOHO or just straight-forward home applications this is an excellent little router.

For a few bucks more the firewall features this router comes with can be greatly extended in the BRF114 model. More bucks adds VPN. Adding a few bucks to that and It's available in the BRV324 with two WAN interfaces for load-balancing two Internet connections. A router and firewalls at this level can be _very_ complicated and VPN is not trivial either but if you need it these models have it at a really excellent price.

For more complex installations I do recommend looking at the spec sheet though and if your not sure get expert advice.

Router freezes every time an attempt is made to upload a file to the web. Tech support is terrible. After waiting 10 minutes on hold I was able to speak with a tech who barely spoke English. Without trying to diagnose the problem he suggested that it would just be easier for me to return the router. Problem is, it's 6 months old and the store will not take it back. Thankfully the cost was only $35. The last TRENDnet router I'll ever buy.

Bought this to be able to watch Netflix on my internet ready HDTV. Hookup was a piece of cake...getting a high quality picture through this router. I don't notice any slow down on my PC either. Worth $25.00 for sure.