Netgear makes a number of 'routers with a difference'. This one is a very fast (108Mbps) router, into which you can plug a USB device. More on that later.

We didn't have too many problems setting the device up, considering we didn't read the manual (well, you want this to be a realistic review, don't you?). Actually, that's not quite true. We did read the Quick Start Guide, and the label on the bottom of the router, which told us the username and password for the admin webpage and where to find it. But we didn't read the manual, which is on CD. And things still went well.

As with any wireless router, unless you want to run into insurmountable problems very quickly, you're best off plugging in a PC with a wired Ethernet connection first to configure all the wireless security and access restrictions, and to upgrade the firmware from the Netgear site. If you get something wrong or need to go back into the setup to figure out what went wrong, a wired connection will give you the means to do so.

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We'd recommend enabling every security feature you find. You can't be too paranoid in this day and age, especially with wireless Ethernet. In the café where we're currently finishing off this review, there are three available wireless networks, of which two have no security.

On the subject of paranoia, the Netgear WGT634U supports network address translation, which means your PC IP address isn't the same as the one your ISP gives you. It also supports MAC address access restriction, stateful packet inspection (another firewall feature), Virtual Private Networking support and WEP encryption.

Frankly, WEP encryption is the most annoying thing to set up, but worth doing. Different operating systems and network adapter utilities have their own ways of setting up WEP, and we usually end up keying in 26 hexadecimal digits and hoping for the best. It seems that only the Netgear network adapter utilities support keying in the passphrase you use to generate the hexadecimal keys with.

Having said that, we did manage to set up an iBook running OS-X and Airport Extreme with WEP security, as well as Windows XP running service pack 1. Unfortunately, the Netgear interface card we chose to install decided to hang the PC randomly, even after Windows XP Netgear driver updates were installed, so that card had to go. We briefly managed to verify that the connection speed was indeed very fast, at 56Mbps through a wall and a wooden floor, but had to go back to the trusty Netgear 802.11b card we were using previously, which managed a mere 1Mb/s through the same wall and floor.

Of course, what you really want to know is: Why does this router have a USB port? This router has a couple of neat features. First, it has a 'dynamic DNS client', which means it's able to report changes in IP address that come from your ISP to an online DNS service, which will then update a DNS entry with your new IP address. Second, it supports a number of USB storage devices. So now you can download files from your USB drive from anywhere in the world, and save files to it as well.

Now that you're suitably excited, let us throw in a few warnings. First, check that your ISP doesn't perform network address translation. BT does with our connection, so our IP address is on a private class A network. This is a bit like the common '192.168.1.1' format, but will look something like '10.0.0.1' instead. This puts a bit of a downer on getting dynamic DNS working, because you won't be able to access your PC at all from the Internet.

Second, check that the USB device you want to use is listed as compatible on the Netgear Web site. We tried three devices before we found one that worked fully. And third, while you can download by FTP, you can't upload that way, so you have to use Windows networking (we couldn't test this), which might restrict the type of client OS you can use.

This is certainly a quick router, and has a greater range than an 802.11b device, which means that walls and other obstacles are less of a problem. If you know that your ISP provides you with an IP address accessible from the Internet and your USB storage device is on the Netgear compatibility list, we'd recommend this router.