We have now entered the era of Wi-Fi 6. The first router of
this types to arrive in our hands is Honor Router 3, solds at a prices of 79.90
euros on the official Hi Honor website . The launch promotions is interesting:
for those who buy this products in the first phase of the sale, there is the
Honor Band 5 smartband and the Honor Bluetooth Sports Earphone as a gift . In
short, the offer launched by the Chinese company is interesting, but it is also
the product itself that attracts attention already from the technical
specifications.
In fact, Honor advertises this router by referring to Wi-Fi
6 Plus, an "enhanced" standard, obviously based on the sixth
generation, presented by the Chinese company in early 2020 with Huawei Wi-Fi
AX3. We have needed the opportunity to properly test Router 3 over the last few
weeks: will Honor have done a good job?
Sales, design and connections pack
Let's start by specifying two important things, which may
seem trivial for some but in reality they are not for those less used to this
type of product. First of all, we are talking about a router and not a modem,
so you have to go through the latter to "get" the connection to the
Internet. Secondly, some might expect data connection support, given that we
are talking about a company known for its smartphones, but in reality Honor
Router 3 is only Wi-Fi. Having made these necessary premises, we can move on to
the sales package, which contains inside, in addition to the router, a Quick
Start Guide in English, the power supply and an Ethernet cable for connecting
to the modem . In short, a no-frills equipment.
Once you take the routers out of the box, you immediately
notice its sober and clean design. The only status LED is present on the front,
while on the back we find the power input, the reset button, a WAN port and
three LAN ports (100/1000 Mbit / s self-adaptive). In the upper parts of the
body, more precisely in the center, there is the H button, which is used for
pairing and with other Honor / Huawei devices and is compatible with WPS
The four antennas are not removable , but can be
"placed" on the body of the wheel in order to "close it".
At the bottom there are the classic air intakes. In short, we could define the
design as minimal, but in the positive sense of the term, given that Honor
Router 3 does not look bad in front of the other design objects present in your
home. The dimensions of the router are equal to 242 x 152 x 41 mm, for a weight
of about 379 grams, so we are talking about a particularly light router.
As for the initial configuration, it's all very simple: just
connect, at least by default, to IP 192.168.3.1 and follow the quick
instructions. In a few minutes everything is already set up correctly. We only
report some small shortcomings in terms of translations, given that some
writings related to the compatibility mode for Wi-Fi 5 devices were in Chinese
at the first start-up and we noticed the presence, in certain cases, of voices
in Spanish. Nothing special, but we would have preferred greater care from this
point of view.
Technical features and software
Honor Router 3 support a theoretical maximum speed of 3000
Mbps , more precisely 574 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band and 2402 Mbps on the 5 GHz
band. They are pretty good values, which allows you to make the most of the
connection. For the rest, the Wi-Fi 6 Plus, on which Honor is focusing a lot,
brings new features such as end-to-end support at 160 MHz and a proprietary
dynamic narrowband technology. To put it very simply, compare to the
"normal" Wi-Fi 6 there are improvements in terms of speed and signal
coverage. In short, "Wi-Fi 6 Plus" is undoubtedly a term that works
in marketing terms, but behind the name there is also some real news.
By accessing the router configuration portal, you
immediately notice the cleanliness on a graphical level. The page is divided
into five tabs: Home, Connect to the Internet, My Wi-Fi, Manage Device and
Other Features. In addition to the usual options that can be found in all
routers, there is a dual-band optimization feature , which combines the 2.4 GHz
and 5 GHz frequencies and automatically chooses the best performing one. There
is also a compatibility mode with Wi-Fi 5, which allows you to connect even
those devices that may have problems with Wi-Fi 6. Generally it happens with
some laptops with an Intel network adapter.
For the rests, there is the possibility to choose the
intensity of the signal and manage the access of the various devices, possibly
limiting their speed. By accessing the "Other functions" tab, you can
update the firmware and set options related to VPN, IPTV, UPnP, IPv6, guest
network, NAT and parental control, just to mention the main features.
There is also a mode that sets the router as a Wi-Fi
repeater. Finally, among the advanced options you can manage channel, mode (for
example, 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac / ax or 802.11 b / g / n), bandwidth, 11n
protection interval, invisible Wi-Fi and WMM. In short, there are no additional
options compared to other routers, but the software is still complete and
satisfies the needs of many users, also considering the price range.
If you want to manage the router via smartphone locally and
not remotely, you can use the Huawei AI Life application . The latter adds
nothing in terms of functionality, but allows you to manage everything more
quickly and easily. In fact, by accessing the main screen of the app, a quick
report is provided, which shows the quality of the connection to the network
through the selected channel, the download speed, the upload speed, the
connected devices and various other options, from parental control to
diagnosis, via the guest Wi-Fi network.
By clicking on "Show more", you access the other
features, such as the firmware update and the various options that we have
already illustrated regarding the configuration portal. Just to mention other
settings that could be interesting, there is the possibility of programming the
switching on and off of the Wi-Fi network at certain times of the day and it is
possible to turn off the front LED of the router at night. In short, there are
some little gems.
Other specifications that should be mentioned include
support for the WPA3-SAE security standard, the ability to simultaneously
connect up to 128 devices, the Hi5651L dual-core processor operating at a
frequency of 1.2 GHz and OFDMA technology,
Experience of use
During our test, the Honor Router 3 always behaved as
expected, without ever presenting particular problems in terms of speed and
coverage. We also tested it with a classic Italian 7 Mega with many connected
devices and in that case the benefits brought by the technologies implemented
by the Chinese company are more noticeable. For example, using a Wi-Fi 5
smartphone you notice a higher speed, since you can take advantage of the 160
MHz bandwidth . Sure, we're talking about a Wi-Fi connection and so there are
quite a few variables at play, but the router does exactly what it promises to
do from this point of view.
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At the level of signal coverage we have not had any kind of
problem: the Wi-Fi manages to reach without too many hitches even in places in
the home where there are slight structural obstacles.
In short, Honor Router 3 is a good router to place at home ,
an upgrade to do especially for those who usually use many devices at the same
time. The only aspect to take into consideration is the fact that some
particularly dated terminals may need some more settings. For example, the
2.4GHz band was initially slow on our old computer, while the 5GHz frequency
was pretty fast.
In this case, it was enough to disable the WMM, which
assigns the priority of wireless packets, to be able to balance everything. In
short, as always happens with routers, everyone has their own network and to
fix everything in the best possible way it is good to dedicate some time to the
configuration.
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