Netgear WPN824 WiFi Router with MIMO

I acquired this unit for my office about two weeks ago from Office Depot for $89, and so far I am very pleased with it. This is an 802.11b/g WiFi router that features MIMO (Multi-In/Multi-Out) technology, which selects a combination of seven different internal antennas to provide the best coverage, depending on environmental factors such as the location of the wireless client devices. The router continuously monitors the environment, choosing the right channel and antennas to provide the best coverage.

Anecdotally, the new router does seem to provide better coverage in our office, with stronger signal in the furthest corners. An additional challenge of our office is the fact that we're in a highly dense area (downtown Denver), with many different APs from many different companies in the same area. Since this device automatically picks the best channel, it can dynamically change its configuration as the wireless dynamics in our building change.

So far, I am very pleased with the device and would recommend it to others. The price is a bit high, but it seems to be worth it for people that have coverage problems. My only complaint so far is the configuration of the unit, which required installation of a CD on the PC, along with a hard-wired connection to the router. While this wasn't a big deal for the initial configuration, I have been unable to manage the unit over the wireless, which is annoying--the last thing I want to do is to have to walk a laptop over to the unit to connect to the wired Ethernet just to be able to manage the device. Hopefully it will be very stable and I won't have to manage it!

Oh, and one more benefit--the unit has a very cool array of blue LEDs that shows which antennae are in use--a definite "thumbs up" on the geek factor!