WNDR4700 Progress to Hitting Store Shelves

[mediatrek]

It looks like the Netgear WNDR4700 is making its way to store shelves finally after being announced at the beginning of the year at CES 2012. The FCC docs (ID# PY311400179) were just posted recently and taking a look inside it appears to contain an Atheros-based setup with an Applied Micro (APM82181) SoC for the storage features. The Atheros AR9380 chip for 2.4GHz wireless and the AR8327N for Ethernet. One Atheros chip is not readable on the docs, but I assume it is an Atheros AR9344 chip as is in the upcoming WNDR3700v4 and WNDR4300 from Netgear.

I was expecting the WNDR4700 to be a Broadcom-based unit and personally I am glad to see that it is not Broadcom-based.

 

[claykin]

Atheros. Thumbs up.

 

[jladams97]

Guesses as to time of release?

Any sense as to when we might see it? As pointed out in the thread, this was announced at CES way back in January so are we now a matter of a few weeks away or are we probably looking still at some months more?

 

[mediatrek]

Any sense as to when we might see it? As pointed out in the thread, this was announced at CES way back in January so are we now a matter of a few weeks away or are we probably looking still at some months more?

I am not sure on a date, but I am guessing after Back to School season for retailers. So mid-September to late October for the holidays selling season. We should expect two other Atheros-based routers in the WNDR3700v4 (N600) and WNDR4300 (N750) then too. The install guides for those models were posted to the downloadcenter.netgear.com site last week. According to the illustrations for them, they will not have removable stands like the previously sized WNDR3700 and WNDR4000.

 

[mediatrek]

According to the Netgear WNDR4700 (WNDR4720 w/ 2TB hard drive) Installation Guide recently posted to Netgear's server, the unit(s) have a USB 3.0 port on it. If I am not mistaken, this would be the first router from Netgear w/ USB 3.0 port(s). See page 4 in the PDF:

http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/WNDR4700/WNDR4700_WNDR4720_IG_6pCvr+interior_25Jul12.pdf

 

[thiggins]

No response from NETGEAR to my query.