X

Cyberoam NetGenie NG11EH router review: The bottle is empty

CNET editor Dong Ngo reviews the Cyberoam NetGenie Home Wireless Router (NG11EH).

Dong Ngo SF Labs Manager, Editor / Reviews
CNET editor Dong Ngo has been involved with technology since 2000, starting with testing gadgets and writing code for CNET Labs' benchmarks. He now manages CNET San Francisco Labs, reviews 3D printers, networking/storage devices, and also writes about other topics from online security to new gadgets and how technology impacts the life of people around the world.
Dong Ngo
2 min read
The NetGenie Home Wireless Router (NG11EH) from Cyberoam
The NetGenie Home Wireless Router (NG11EH) from Cyberoam Dong Ngo/CNET

The Cyberoam NetGenie Home Wireless Router (NG11EH) is no genie in a bottle. It most definitely comes with a very hefty price tag, however: about $200.

With great, that is, large, price comes great expectations. I hoped that the router would blow me away in one way or another. In the end, the only surprise was the price itself. The NG11EH is basically one of the most expensive routers I've ever reviewed while offering the worst performance I've ever seen.

Right out of the box, the router has something other routers don't: a very comprehensive Web-filtering feature, called Family Protection, and a built-in antivirus engine. The problem is the Family Protection: though it works relatively well, it wasn't that much better than similar features found in other routers, such as the OpenDNS-based Parental Controls of the high-end, $150-ish Netgear WNDR3800. It's not very easy to use, either, and you'd need to be fairly comfortable with computers and networking to manage it via the router's Web interface. I also found that since the restriction is based on the connected computers' IP addresses, if two people share one computer, even via different user profiles, the profile with the less-restricted access to the Internet will cancel out the other's access level.

The antivirus engine, on the other hand, is automatic and doesn't require user interaction, but you'll just have to take it on faith, as there's no way to gauge its effectiveness. In the end, you'd still want to have antivirus software installed on the computers connecting to the router, just to be sure.

The most frustrating thing about the NetGenie is the fact that you'll have to register it with Cyberoam to keep the antivirus engine updated, and it wasn't easy to do so at all. The registration forms have lots of mandatory fields and when you make a mistake, it won't tell you which field's info is not acceptable and you'll have to do it again. In the end, I actually gave up.

As far as I can see, the NetGenie is probably the most ridiculously expensive router on the market. If it were priced at around $50, it'd be a good deal, but at the current price, it doesn't have the magic to be worth the investment.

You don't need three wishes to find out more about how the router performs, however. All you have to do is check out CNET's full review of the Cyberoam NetGenie Home Wireless Router.