The designation R4500 indicates that this particular router was originally sold at Costco, which often markets consumer products that have been specially made to be sold at Costco. The first thing of note about this particular router is that it isn't the standard consumer model, which is model WNDR4500. The bravery comes in because it is a fairly common occurrence to 'brick' a router when trying to install or upgrade dd-wrt, and attempting to use dd-wrt (or one of the other options such as Tomato router or OpenWRT) typically voids the warranty of the device. Not that I'm super familiar with the specifics of how it all works, but I sure can Google up a storm. The downside is that it hasn't been made to work with all routers, and it takes a certain amount of bravery and technical knowledge to get running. The best part about it, though, and the reason I purchased it (refurbished from Newegg for the absurdly low price of $35) is that dd-wrt is compatible with it.įor those unfamiliar, dd-wrt is an open source, third party firmware for consumer-based routers that adds a ton of software functionality that is typically reserved for expensive commercial routers. What I do know is that it's a dual band wireless N router with a pretty power processor. This piece of hardware has a lot good things going for it, most of which I don't understand so I won't elaborate. Pictured above is the venerable R4500 wireless N router from Netgear.

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