We take a look at the NETGEAR ProSafe WNDAP360 Dual-Band Wireless Access Point - Value and Conclusion

ap02In my time in IT I have worked with a number of wireless devices for the consumer and for businesses. These have ranged everywhere from simple $40 products that are only meant to get you online (not fast, but online) to multi-component wireless systems costing thousands of dollars. All of these still use the same basic technology to get you connected and to pass traffic between your device and the internet. At their heart is going to be a wireless radio, but this does not mean that all wireless products are the same; quite the opposite in fact. There is a clear line between wireless for the average home and wireless for the average business. The factors are mostly in the software used and the features that you have at your disposal, but you also will often have more advanced hardware under the hood as well. Today we will be taking a look at standalone wireless access point that is aimed at the business market (although there are many things that consumers will like about as well). This is the NETGEAR WNDAP360 ProSafe Dual Band Wireless Access Point; let’s see if worth the $290 it will cost to put one of these in your office.

Value -
Value is another very subjective topic. What is expensive to some might be a deal to others. You can look at this topic in multiple ways. One is raw price and the other is what you get for the money. Each is accurate and both are correct ways to look at price/value. We tend to look at features, performance and real-property when we discuss value. However, we also take into account the raw cash cost of the item. When you first see the price of the NETGEAR WNDAP360 you might be in for a shock. As we told you above it is around $290 from most online e-tailers. This might seem very expensive when you see combination router/access points on sale for $60, but in reality those are not intended for the same uses that the WNDAP360 is. You average $60 wireless router is not going to have the same range, performance, features or security that you will find by default on the NETGEAR WNDAP360. You simple cannot replace a product like this with a $60 home device.  

Conclusion -
The NETGEAR WNDAP360 is a very sturdy product. Although it is not the best looking access point that we have seen it is hands down one of the best we have worked with performance wise. The WebUI is a little clunky and we feel that NETGEAR relies a little too much on Java to pass commands to the system (many webUIs run all the commands in Java Applets for ease of management). We ran into a couple of times when the UI would not finish loading and we had to refresh the page. However, you can always connect with an RJ-45 to RS-232 cable and open up a secure shell to run commands through the CLI. This will give you quite a bit of flexibility and to be honest many of the CLI commands are more powerful. Aside from the UI we found the NETGEAR WNDAP360 to have excellent range, and performance. The scheduling features combined with the PoE connectivity will really give you some great options for using this where you want it. Overall we can highly recommend the NETGEAR WNDAP360 to any small or medium sized business that is looking to add fast secure (relatively) wireless to their office.
Silver-Award_Trans
With its combination of performance, features and yes price we are happy to award the NETGEAR WNDAP360 our Silver Key award.
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