Are you looking for an affordable and budget-friendly router with a budget around fifty dollars? Belkin N300 and Netgear N300 are viable choices for you. These wireless routers are both popular on the market due their simple design and usability, yet with decent features and performance. However, more often than not, you may find Netgear N300 to be cheaper than Belkin N300 by about a couple tens of bucks. So, which one should you get for the best bang out of the money?
Design
The two products are designed quite differently from each other. Whereas Netgear N300 is roughly the size of a typical router, perhaps rather bulky and with a rectangular shape, Belkin N300 is made very compact and portable. It has an almost circular shape and a foot-stand, allowing you to put it easily on any flat surface. You can even slip it on a shelf.
Performance
Both are single-band routers. They only have a single wireless signal channel each, which operates on the 2.4 GHz frequency. They support the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. They also have a similar amount of bandwidth, which is 300 Mbps. The speed should be sufficient for home usage or a small group of people, as long as there are not too many heavy-duty tasks occurring simultaneously.
Their area coverage is roughly similar, suitable for small to medium-sized homes. However, Netgear N300 is not armed with the beamforming technology yet, so the units placed far from your router may struggle to maintain a stable and reliable connection. On the other hand, Belkin N300 comes with the MultiBeam technology, which promotes a high-powered wireless signal throughout your home. The feature allows the router to focus the projection of the wireless signal to every specific connected unit, enhancing the stability and reliability of the connection.
Features
These routers also come with many similar features. They have parental controls, built-in dual firewall, also one modem and four LAN Ethernet ports.
However, Netgear N300 also comes with DoS attack prevention and DMZ for a secure but smooth gaming performance. The model is also compatible with the NETGEAR Genie app for easy control, management, monitoring, and repairing. On the other hand, Belkin N300 features the self-healing capability – it can detect and automatically solve most network problems by itself.
Belkin N300 vs. Netgear N300
In general, Belkin N300 makes the best choice, due to the MultiBeam technology, self-healing feature, also compact and portable design. However, if real-time control over the network is important for you, then Netgear N300 would be great with the NETGEAR Genie app.
