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 throughput
3. Better control over port forwarding
4. Content filtering
5. QOS
I 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.
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| Customer Rating | (1075) | (1919) | (69633) | (12948) | (46) | (3138) |
| Price | $79.46 | $69.99 | $53.99 | $94.99 | $69.54 | $34.00 |
| Sold By | Pro Wireless | DJW Merchant LLC | Amazon.com | Corewireless | OnlineBest | Electronics Club |
| Connectivity Technology | Wired^Wireless | WiFi^Wired | Wi-Fi Built In | Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB | Ethernet | Wi-Fi, Ethernet |
| Data Transfer Rate | 300 Mb per second | 300 Mb per second | 1750 Mb per second | 1200 Mb per second | 300 Mb per second | 1200 Mb per second |
| Frequency Bands Supported | 2.4 GHz | 2.4 GHz | Dual-Band | 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz | 2.4 GHz | Dual-Band |
| Item Dimensions | 10.24 x 8.98 x 2.56 inches | 10.24 x 8.98 x 2.56 inches | 9.59 x 6.32 x 1.29 inches | 10.28 x 5.3 x 1.61 inches | 5.12 x 6.99 x 1.38 inches | 9.43 x 7.14 x 1.59 inches |
| Item Weight | 1.55 lbs | 5.76 ounces | 0.93 lbs | 1.10 lbs | 5.75 ounces | 0.84 lbs |
| Total Ethernet Ports | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| Total LAN Ports | 4 | 4 | — | — | — | — |
| Wireless Communication Standard | 802.11bgn | 802.11bgn | 802.11ac, 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11g | 802.11n, 802.11ax, 802.11ac, 802.11g, 802.11b | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11g | 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11b, 802.11g |
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Great router for the price but be aware of the factory default QoS setting for WMM
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2015
I would have given the NetGear WNR3500Lv2 a five star rating if it weren't for the fact that my son and I spent two hours trying to figure out why the Wi-Fi download speed was less than 1 Mb/sec and yet the upload speed was 6 Mb/sec (normal). LAN download speed through the router was a normal 27 to 30 Mb/sec. The signal strength was excellent so we knew that wasn't the issue (and that wouldn't affect just the download speed anyway). We finally found the culprit! The factory default setting for what is called "Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings" was enabled. To disable this setting log into the router in the usual way and click on "Advanced" > "Setup" > "QoS Setup" then uncheck the box next to "Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings". NetGear should not have set this as a enabled by default or at least made the customer aware of this being a cause of extremely slow download speeds.We did not install Tomato firmware due to several forum complaints of this router getting "bricked" after installing Tomato but did upgrade the NetGear firmware to V1.2.0.32_40.0.74.So far its working great and produces very little heat which is a good thing for longevity of component life.
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2015
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Top reviews from other countries
Amnon
Only works well with custom firmware, and only for a while.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 18, 2020DT
The performance feels not that good.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 29, 2020Kelly Mantel
Had Gigabit ports that was the main thing
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 24, 2019
