Customer Reviews
a bit below expectations 
2008-05-05
I purchased this to replace an aging linksys wrt54gx2 and to take advantage of N technology. I did my research and this router seemed to score very good in testing. I had very high expectations.
In practice I do not see any real improvement in range versus wrt54gx2. This is based on a lot of my own unscientific comparison of where i could previously get strong signals, versus with the d-link 4500. Also I still can not get wireless back by my pool , about 50 feet away from house. (perhaps this is because i am broadcasting dgl-4500 in mixed mode as required using both n and 802.11 g clients). I also thought the displays looked cool, but in practice it take a lot of non-intuitive button pressing to navigate menu's and the display only stays lit for a few seconds , then you gotta start all over again. I don't even use it anymore (recommend going with Dlink DIR-655 without display and save cost of this feature) Lastly I was hoping for more frequent firmware updates. D-link is still on v 1.02 dated 11/07 . D-link had a beta release in January 2008 which made my router seriously unstable (disconnected every hour).
On the positive dlink customer service has been superb -- helpful well written responses always within 24 hours. The throughput on my LAN also has also noticeably improved going from 10/100 to Giga speed.
I wish I could give this product more then three stars but it was below expectations for the reasons cited above. Three stars is generous. (Or maybe my linksys wrt54gx2 really was that good)
NAT problems? 
2008-05-04
Say no more with this router. I purchased this router for my gaming problems when I try to play Halo3 with my brothers w/our separate Xbox 360's (3) of them. When I plug n played it, set a few wireless settings so no leacher can get free net and walla! Too easy. And with Amazon's quick shipping and great pricing its a no brainer.
Not good enough 2008-05-01
Ok, overall it's a good router, looks really good, easy to set up, but I wish I would knew one fact before I bought it. Even that it says it's a dual band, you can operate only one band at a time. Wireless b/g can only be operated at 2.4Ghz, so does a/n, but at 5Ghz no b/g support, only a/n. So if you set up for Wireless N, it works great with your PC, but if you have iPhone/Touch, or PS3 using wireless internet, only have b/g support you out of luck. So in my case, if I knew this before, I would rather paid more and bought DIR-855 model. For those that don't know 2.4Ghz band is slower, and in most cases over crowded.
Nice Router 
2008-04-28
I bought this router about two months ago and have not had any problems.
The OLED screen is OK but not that important to me.
The Good
I set it up manually and with the auto setup and ways were quick and worked the first time. Easy to understand and good documentation.
It has been very stable, no reboots and consistant signal quality.
The signal at 2.4 GHz is about the same as my old router. I was using external antennas with my old router and have not hooked up external antennas with the new one yet. I do like the removable antenna option.
I run a combination wireless and wired network and have no problems.
The Bad
Like the other reviews the blue LED is bright. Neat at first but it wears on you when the room is dark. I miss the port and traffic flow LEDs on the old router. I could look and see what was going on from a distance.
When I bought the router there were no 5 GHz cards available at the time.
After I bought the recomended cards I got them home and found out they were 2.4 GHz. I thought they supported both bands. The DWA-552 had a conflict with one of the computers I tried to put it in. I tried every trick I knew without success. I was never able to resolve the problem so I put it in another computer and it worked great. I ordered a USB adapter now that I will try in the stubborn computer. When I get the USB card I will try the 5 GHz band. If I could do it over again I would have bought the 855 but I am not sorry I bought the 4500. It is a nice router and getting cheaper every month. It does not hang like my old D Link WBR-2310 did.
Sweet ! 2008-04-20
Streamlined set-up and great performance both for speed and for security. Have 2 laptops, 1 desktop, 2 tivos, and an xbox360 all networked w/o any issues or speed hiccups. I upgraded from the Dlink 4300 and wanted an N network in my home. Performance is superb. Also purchased the 855 to compare. Essentially the same performance, as they have the same chipset. Deciding factor for me was simply the color and LED display on the 4500 over the 855.
Works for my Slingbox and 360!!! 2008-07-25
I bought this at a "big box" retailer that had a sale on it along with a $20 store credit. I don't have as many computers running on my network as some other reviewers do here. But, I do put my routers through a lot, I run a Slingbox Pro, ATT Tilt, Xbox 360, TiVo, network webcam, 2 computers (vista/xp), and I also run Hamachi VPN. The set up was easy, I just had to change the IP address to match up with my previous Linksys router. I copied all my pervious settings (WEP and SSID) so all my wireless clients would connect w/out re-setting them. My 360 connects fine and shows that NAT is open, I set the QoS for my Sling and 360 to always get priority. Both my Sligbox and 360 connect via AirLink powerline ethernet adapters, the router didn't have a problem recognizing them immediately and assigning an IP address to the 360. I use the WISH features to make sure my laptop is always getting the best upload it can. I love being able to go to the webpage of the router, see what is connected wirelessly and also see what the signal strength is. Another great feature I found was I could assign an IP address in the router to a specific client w/out having to do a static IP. This was great for my 360 because it ALWAYS gets the same IP address and makes it easy to use items like QoS.
My only complaint would be that the signal isn't as strong to my laptop as my previous Linksys router (2nd floor). I still get good upload/download speeds though. I don't have any "N" cards or gigabit NIC's in my network so I can't tell you how those work, but overall it's a great product.
Stay away x2 
2008-07-23
All I can say is look at when it came out and go the the support page and look how long it has been since dstink released a update. I also had issues with Vista to Vista copies failing and this fixed it. MS blames the router.
"netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled"
Some say try restricted first.
"netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=restricted"
I suspect SPI is corrupting DL's also.
I realize many ppl like this router but based on the lack of firmware support you might want to watch it for updates or move on.
Stay Away 2008-06-24
They released this as an upgrade to the previous gaming router, but as soon as it was released it was obsolete. DLINK decided to focus on other routers, and since has not updated the firmware to fix bugs. I would strongly discourage buy this item, since DLINK doesn't bother with it.
1st defective, 2nd okay so far. 2008-05-19
The first one I purchased worked fine.. for one weekend. After that, it would reboot itself every 2 minutes or so unless I had ALL network cables unplugged. Wireless was disabled, so there shouldnt have been any sort of 'interference' issue. Amazon was GREAT about sending a new unit and a link to print out a return shipping label, so it didn't cost anything to get a replacement, and the new one arrived very quick. The second one has been working flawlessly so far. I don't use the GAMEFUEL or Wireless features on it, I really only purchased it for the gig LAN/WAN features as I'd like to speed up my LAN for file copying, and speed up the WAN as the old 10 meg wasn't cutting it anymore since my connection is now 15 meg. I also purchased it so I'd have the opportunity to expand if I found a reason to actually use wireless. I give a thumbs down to D-Links technical support though -- 5 days to respond?! They basically ignored the information I had provided in my emails and were giving me basic "dummy" suggestions on what to try.
good choice 2008-05-13
This does what it says it can do and that is improve the speed of online gaming. easy setup and no down time
