The Honor brand has launched a new router aimed at home users, the new Honor Router 3 has the latest technology with Wi-Fi 6, and its launch price is really cheap, but is it really worth buying the Honor router at Instead of widely known and used brands like ASUS, AVM FRITZ! Box, NETGEAR or D-Link? Today in this article we are going to see all its technical characteristics, and see if it is really worth your purchase.
Main features of the Honor Router 3
Wireless Features with Wi-Fi 6
The main characteristics of this new Honor router are that it incorporates simultaneous dual band with Wi-Fi AX3000. This means that we can achieve a speed of up to 574Mbps in the 2.4GHz band , thanks to its two antennas in MIMO 2T2R configuration and the 1024QAM of quadrature amplitude modulation that Wi-Fi 6 has. In the 5GHz band we can achieve a speed of up to 2,402Mbps , thanks to its two antennas in MIMO 2T2R configuration, the 1024QAM of quadrature amplitude modulation, the 160MHz of channel width that it has, and, of course, the Wi-Fi 6 that it incorporates.
One aspect that has caught our attention in the technical specifications is that it does name the OFDMA technology of Wi-Fi 6, and indicates that it is capable of grouping a maximum of up to 4 devices in the 2.4GHz band and up to 16 devices. connected in the 5GHz band, aiming to provide the best possible wireless performance. However, it makes no reference at any time to MU-MIMO , which is just as important in maximizing overall wireless performance.
Other features of Wi-Fi are that it supports Multi-SSID, to have multiple Wi-Fi networks, it does not support WDS mode but it does support Wi-Fi repeater mode, and as for security options, it supports WPA2-PSK, WPA / WPA2 -PSK, WPA2-PSK / WPA3-SAE, so you have the latest WPA3 version that is currently available, however, we miss the WPA / WPA2 / WPA3-Enterprise variant , to authenticate clients on a RADIUS server, something that the rest of the brands have incorporated in case we have a NAS server in our home acting as a RADIUS server.
According to the official website, this router supports Wi-Fi Mesh if we buy two routers, but it also has its limitations: it is limited to only 2 routers, if we need to place a third node, we will not be able to directly connect it because it does not support it. What we do not know is if it supports Wi-Fi 802.11k / v / ro roaming standards, it makes a somewhat more “manual” transition, forcing the device to connect to the second computer, so in the latter case the connection would be cut.
We recommend reading our tutorial on tricks to avoid losing Wi-Fi coverage at home , it is also very important to know if your Wi-Fi card supports the 5GHz band , why there are two Wi-Fi networks in the routers , and in which cases It is worth connecting in 2.4GHz or 5GHz the different devices.
Wired Features
This router has a Gigabit Ethernet port for the Internet WAN , and it also has a total of 3 Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN . The negative part of this router is that we only have 3 Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN, any other router with these characteristics has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports for the LAN. In addition, this equipment does not support Link Aggregation features to double performance on the local network by performing link aggregation, something necessary if we have a NAS server in our home and we do not want to be short on bandwidth on the local network.
A very important aspect that appears in the technical specifications is that it supports IPTV, will it support VLANs in the Internet WAN and also in the LAN? We are sure that it does not incorporate the Movistar Triple VLAN FTTH profile as the ASUS and D-Link routers do.
USB Features
This Honor Router 3 also does not have a USB port to share files on the local network and the Internet, today, the vast majority of routers have at least one USB 3.0 port, some even have two high-performance USB 3.0 ports capable to exceed 150MB / s without problems. We believe that they have not incorporated it because they use a 1.2GHz dual-core Hi5651L processor, it is very possible that this processor is not fast enough to achieve good read and write speeds.
Firmware Features
The firmware of this Honor Router 3 is conspicuous by its lack of advanced configuration options, for example, it does not have the Dynamic DNS service, something that is essential today to remotely access our local network and enjoy services such as VPN, FTP server , SSH server and even mount a NextCloud to have our private cloud. This firmware does have services such as QoS, guest Wi-Fi, parental control, WiFi programmer and other very basic options that all routers currently incorporate.
Price
This new Honor Router 3 router with Wi-Fi 6 is available for reservation for € 79.90, although its normal price is € 185. With the sale price it could be an interesting equipment, because it is simply very cheap, but you should take into account all its limitations:
- Does not have four Gigabit Ethernet ports
- No USB port for sharing
- Underpowered CPU compared to other routers
- Wi-Fi Mesh of only two nodes
- Firmware with very few configuration options (it does not have WPA-Enterprise, Link Aggregation, DDNS service etc.).
What other routers can we buy with similar characteristics?
This router is class AX3000, other very interesting routers with these characteristics are the ASUS RT-AX58U that we have analyzed previously in this article, a team that has all the ingredients to provide you with great wireless performance, although logically the quality is paid (it is for € 200):
However, if your wireless clients do not support 160MHz of channel width in the 5GHz band, you can save 50 € and buy the ASUS RT-AX56U model which is very similar but class AX1800 because it does not support these 160MHz of channel width. :
Is the Honor Router 3 worth buying?
For € 80 you can test if it meets your needs for networks and Wi-Fi, but in our opinion, we prefer a router with a very complete firmware and that has multiple advanced configuration options, as the manufacturers ASUS, NETGEAR, AVM do or D-Link among others.
