Netgear Centria Wireless N Router Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,355 words · ~6 min read
0:07
welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Netgear
0:12
centria contrary to what you might think based on the name of this product it is
0:17
not going to supervise anything although
0:21
I guess I mean okay hold on a second because you know router's going to have
0:24
a firewall in it so maybe I'm not taking the whole Sentry of because I was
0:28
thinking like Sentry like
0:31
you know like that but the ones that pay attention not like the video game ones where it's like they look the other way
0:35
and you walk up and shank them um no centria is more like Central in this
0:40
context so the idea is that this is not only a router but also just generally a
0:45
digital media hub so it does a number of
0:49
different things home networking simplified blah blah blah etc etc
0:52
internet Wi-Fi router Network M parental controls that's important for a lot of
0:56
people ready share easy to install monitor control and repair your home
0:59
network with net gear Genie so that's their cloud-based management live
1:03
parental controls guest network access Broadband usage meter that's a great
1:06
feature air print compatible which is definitely a good thing and the fact
1:11
that it has a lot of different functionality here so you can back up so
1:15
you it does have a hard drive bay or you
1:18
well look at that you can single-click SD card backup super speed USB 3.0 ports
1:22
for expanded storage and you can have a removable easily upgradeable hard drive
1:26
you can share so this we expect with pretty much any router but you can share
1:30
your USB hard drive and your printer which is again sort of normal create a
1:34
personal cloud for secure remote access that's something that not every router
1:38
necessarily has and I can't figure out how this box opens but we'll work on
1:41
that later use your mobile device to control and play your media find and
1:45
play your media on DNA compatible devices and finally connect so highspeed
1:48
dualband Wi-Fi 450 plus 450 so it's N900
1:52
optimized for streaming two USB 3.0 ports which is ahead of pretty much
1:57
everything else out there and package cont contents which of course we will
2:01
find out because we're going to open Ah that's where it opens yay
2:06
environmentally friendly packaging love to see this so there's your paper thing
2:11
this is a big router holy smokes look at this thing all right so we're going to
2:16
need to do the old uh iPhone size
2:19
comparison here because yeah this thing is like huge so here's an iPhone and
2:24
that's a router seriously it's a router
2:27
okay and then there's like that so we're going to go ahead and switch to the
2:31
camera that makes a lot more sense to be using for this there's the iPhone
2:35
thickness compared to the router thickness and there's the size again so
2:40
yeah that's that's a big big router here's an installation guide which
2:45
presumably you will use and then inside
2:48
the rest of the packaging we have more environmentally friendly packaging Mater
2:52
no way look at this it has a drawer in
2:55
the bottom that is awesome every time I
2:59
see something that I have never seen before as an unboxer I kind of geek out
3:03
because look at that so the stuff's here and then the draw here it's like a
3:08
jewelry box not that I'd know anything about jewelry boxes um so you got a
3:14
let's see contents wise you got an Ethernet cable included so it looks like
3:18
yeah cat 5e you've got a power brick it's going to be a bigger power brick
3:23
than you'd normally see on a router because it does have the potential to
3:26
install a hard drive inside it power cable again so that's like a standard PC
3:31
power cable so it's like again be fear and then finally what appears to be a
3:36
this side up this should face back of product only used with 3 and a/4 in
3:41
thick disc okay so this is something to do with the hard drive uh mounting
3:45
mechanism so let's have a look at the router itself it's glossy I mean this
3:49
should basically be like a sin at this point like um you know someone someone
3:55
with sort of all powerful deity ability should go and Smite you know everyone
4:01
who makes things glossy because it looks
4:05
fantastic in like product brochures but
4:08
then as soon as I pick up the thing now now I've touched it now it's ruined so
4:12
you can see in that camera presumably oh
4:16
no okay maybe this is more resilient than usual you can also see surface
4:19
imperfections very very easily with uh with glossy surfaces so that's that's
4:24
something I don't like about them what have you got here so there's secure
4:29
Wi-Fi WPS button so there's the label
4:32
for that Wi-Fi on or off love seeing a
4:35
dedicated Wi-Fi on and off switch and there's a one button One Touch backup
4:40
button so this is cool okay this is the kind of feature that I don't expect to
4:45
find on a router so there SD card backup is
4:49
actually built right into the side of the unit that's very cool so there's one
4:54
of your USB 3 ports there's your backup button there's your SD card slot very
4:59
very cool the back is glossy again no surface
5:03
imperfections though I'm looking at you
5:06
and you um and then inside there
5:09
wouldn't have minded if these were a little bit easier to access because of
5:12
the shape of the router you can see it's it's a bit of a sort of I don't know
5:16
getting you can't get two fingers in there to plug an Ethernet port in easily
5:20
uh but there's an A W Port 4 GB Ethernet ports usb3 over here on the other side a
5:25
reset button a reset switch power on and off that's a toggle switch which is nice
5:30
I like knowing if it's powered on or off and DC in over here we
5:36
have the 3 and 1/2 in hard drive cage so
5:40
that is where you will actually always power off before removing the hard drive
5:44
that's good advice takes has a standard SATA interface at the back there I hope
5:48
you guys can see that I don't think you can because of Diesel's depth of field
5:53
trickery Tom Foolery that makes it so you're focused up here and not back
5:56
there but it's okay you'll have to trust me it's in there and I I think that
6:00
pretty much wraps it up so what sets the centria apart from other routers
6:04
basically the fact that you can install a hard drive in it there are other
6:08
routers Western Digital has one the uh their myet N900 uh that you can install
6:14
a hard drive in oh look at that non-slip feed on the bottom so that's good um the
6:18
fact that it's net gear so you know it's good you know there's like nothing wrong
6:22
with it it's not going to explode when you plug it in or anything like that and
6:25
any functionality that they say it has it pretty much will have so you don't
6:28
have to worry about that and of course it is so much larger than
6:32
all the other routers that it will simply crush them especially with the
6:36
hard drive inside so thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look
6:39
don't forget to subscribe to less techtips for unboxing reviews and other
6:43
computer videos