A strong but reasonably priced working from home upgrade.

The general market for WIFI 6 routers sees devices ranging from anywhere upwards of £150. Honor, a division of Huawei recently released the Honor Router 3 and it is available on Amazon for nearly half the cost of its competition. Does it stack up though considering its relatively cheap price.

 

 

Design

It must be said that of all the WIFI 6 routers out there with multiple antennas sticking out in any which direction, there has been more thought in the simplistic but sleek design of the Honor Router 3. Its 4 antennae whilst being quite wide, flick up and stand as masts against the slim base.

 The simplicity continues when it comes to the available ports and additional design features. 4 ethernet ports (one WAN and three LAN) accompany the power supply, reset button, LED indicator, and a single multifunction button atop the device.

 All in all, the router is well designed, aesthetically pleasing and trumps its competition in the form factor department.

 

 

Technology

As consumers who rely on the internet for all kinds of information, entertainment, and communication, WIFI has improved a great deal since the days of hearing that familiar dial up tone – WIFI 6 is newer technology that promises better and more reliable connectivity, speed, and security as well as reduced power consumption.

There are several devices including some of Huawei’s own smartphones and accessories that will be compatible with WIFI 6 as will more recently released devices from other brands.

 The router also sports a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU processor, 2.4 and 5 GHz bands allowing for multiple devices, mesh networking and theoretical speeds of up to 3000 Mbps. These are statistics that should beat the stock hubs supplied by likes of BT or Sky.

 The opportunity to connect two Honor Router 3 devices in a mesh network provides additional support in expanding your coverage supposedly eliminating those regions within your household or office where you’d normally experience a black hole, lacking any semblance of connectivity.

 In our tests which lasted for two weeks, we found that our signal strength was greater than before whereby our devices would normally lose signal if we stepped outside, but the Honor Router 3 provided us with a couple of bars, enough to browse without any trouble.

The download speed also seemed to increase on several of the devices we tested including an Apple MacBook Pro, iPhone 10 and Samsung S10+. The stability of the connection was evident as we didn’t experience a drop in its connection, stalling, or buffering of any videos throughout our testing.

 We also connected 10 devices to the router at one time, and it handled streaming movies from our NAS server with consummate ease. The real test however will come in larger offices where there are more than a dozen members of staff all using their devices simultaneously.

 

 

Verdict

With its smart looks and affordable price point, the Honor Router 3 will provide the general consumer with a great option for a more reliable internet experience. Signal and speed are both improved – but that’s compared to your stock routers obtained from your ISP. There are several other WIFI 6 devices that could potentially outperform the Honor Router 3 – however they are not priced in the same bracket.

If however, you are looking for a router that will facilitate a larger office, traditional networking options may be advisable as we have so far been unable to test the effectiveness of the mesh network.

 

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