Buffalo AirStation N150 Wireless Router - WCR-GN

Initially I opened the box with a great deal of elation after having tried other devices to serve as a bridge to connect to a wireless WiMax 4G device. My implementation may be different from what others want to do, but before my review is dismissed I will add the following to keep your interest.The device is connecting to a wireless router that is located in another area on one end and connecting to a non wireless laser printer via its copper ethernet interface.Now that you are continuing to read this review I would like to explain my ordeal regarding the hardware and the software with a short and sweet review.Hardware -Great design!!!Excellent implementation!!!Router/Bridge Software -Clunky yet functional if you have patience.No encryption works very well and connects immediately. I found this option/feature worthless.Does not play well with long encryption keys. I found it works well with 8 ASCII characters using WPA2-PSK AES.CD Software -*****Use the provided software initially if you want to configure the device as a bridge. I didn't and I suffered. It's not foolproof but it works seemingly better than the web interface.*****Conclusion -Fast/easy configuration using the following steps. (Less than 10 minutes for basic configuration)Airstation - Connect power. Connect Ethernet cable to port 1 and to the PC/MacPC/Mac - Set your network card to 192.168.11.200/24 or 192.168.11.100 subnet mask 255.255.255.0CD - Insert and proceed depending on your OS, the version displayed may be different. Select Cable or ADSL Modem to configure the AirStation as a router. Select WDS to configure the device as a Wireless bridge.

I bought it to use as a repeater, so when I get it, I setup it as a bridge. The manual has the steps to do that, plus it comes with a CD to help with the setup, but I preferred to do it manually following the instructions in the manual, which was clear and it was easy to follow.Once I had configured it worked as expected and could extend the coverage of the network at my house.The only issue is that I have a motorola xt890 cell phone and when it upgraded to android 4.1.2 it stopped accessing the internet through the airstation, although it can access the internet through the main router, but all other devices in my house are working well, in my house are two ipod touch, a nexus 7, a paperwhite kindle, a kindle fire and galaxy sIII, and all of them work very well with the bridge, so I think it is a issue with my phone.For the price, I am happy with this router, and I would recomend it to anybody who want to use it as I am using it.

I purchased this item because I have a blu-ray player and a gaming console that can be connected to the internet but don't have wireless capability, and this item looked to be the cheapest option for a "wireless bridge". This device can be used as such, and thus has the ability to receive the wireless signal and connect four devices throught ethernet cables to it. If you are comfortable with systems administration of Windows-based PCs and have set up wireless networks before, then you probably would not have too many problems, and this product works fine once you get it set up. However, I do not fall into that category, and it took me several hours to get this item working. To make a long story short, the Set-Up Wizard software that comes with the device is not very bulletproof and the users manual is not as comprehensive as it should be. So, when a glitch occurred, i.e. my computer did not behave as they expected, I was doing a lot of unaided trouble shooting. I finally had to use the completely manual installation method, which was documented but not particularly well. I was installing on a Sunday, so I did not even attempt to run down tech support. So, overall I would say it works fine as a wireless bridge, but the robustness of the installation is a weak point. As an aside, I now know that the internet features associated with blu-ray players and gaming consoles are so minimal that it was not worth the money and effort to connect them to the internet; unless you are a gamer who wants to game with others over the internet, my opinion is to not bother with any of this.

I bought three (3) of these units in early December 2010 to build a wireless distribution system for our home. At first, they worked quite well - easy enough setup, relatively fast transfer rates. In mid-January 2011, they suddenly began acting up - we could not connect to the internet. The main unit (located at the cable modem) was having difficulty pulling an IP address from our ISP. Within 2 days, it refused to pull an address at all. Everything on the LAN side worked ok, but the WAN side would never get an IP address from our ISP. I reset all three units, tried reconnecting each one individually, and they all acted the same. I pulled out an older Belkin router, hooked it up, and it worked fine. I connected the Buffalo to the Belkin, and it would pull an IP address from the Belkin, but not from our ISP (Charter). All of the Buffalo units had the most recent firmware. I tried to talk to a Buffalo support tech, but the wait times were quite high, and Charter was no help. Since I work from home, and have many pieces of equipment in my lab that require consistent internet access, I couldn't rely on the Buffalo units. All three Buffalo units were returned for a full refund and replaced with a Netgear WNR2000 router, and two WNCE2001 adapters.

The product, while very difficult to set up, worked well with both it's Wifi router and as an ethernet router. Two months later it stopped functioning as an ethernet router because it wouldn't accept the DHCP from the ISP which it had been doing perfectly fine up until that point. Another month later and the Wifi connection to the AirStation has become very slow; an example for the average person: devices connected to it used to be able to stream 1080pi videos just fine... now it cannot even stream a 360pi video.I would not recommend this device to anyone.