$31 Honor Router 3 WiFi 6+ Router Supports 3000 Mbps Data Rates

I wrote about the “Most Affordable WiFi 6 Router Yet“, namely Xiaomi Mi Router AX1800, just two days ago, as it sells for around $60 on Aliexpress and 329 CNY ($46) in China. But the Xiaomi router did not hold the top spot for long, as Honor Router 3 WiFi 6 AX3000 router was just launched for 219 CNY (about $31 US) in China.

Honor Router 3 (aka Honor XD20) specifications:

SoC – Huawei Gigahome W650 dual-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.2GHz. Note: Huawei announcement about the processor shows a quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.4 GHz, so there may be a dual-core version too?
System Memory – 128MB RAM
Storage – 128MB flash
Networking
- Wireless
  - 802.11ax/ac/n/a 2×2 & 802.11ax/n/b/g 2×2 MU-MIMO WiFi 6
  - Transfer Rate – Up to 2976Mbps with 574 Mbps max @ 2.4GHz, 2402 Mbps max @ 5GHz
  - Antennas – 4x 5dBi external antennas
- Wired – 4x Gigabit Ethernet ports with WAN/LAN adaptation
- Security – Wi-Fi access authorization, Wi-Fi anti brute force cracking, WPA3 support, firewall, DMZ, DoS attack protection, etc…
Misc – Button with Hilink one-key pairing, WPS support; reset button.
Power Supply – 12VDC/1A
Dimensions – 242 x 151.9 x 40.9 mm
Weight – 379 grams
Temperature Range – 0 to 40°C

The router is said to run “Huawei RTOS system” with “Huawei terminal home router communication management software V6.0” and Huawei Smart Life mobile app. I can see mentions of WiFi 6+, but I’m not quite sure what it refers to.

On paper, it’s better and cheaper than Xiaomi Mi Router AX1800, but for non-Chinese speakers, it will likely be hard to use due to the lack of translations into English and other languages, at least at the beginning. There are already some reviews in Chinese of the router showing how it performs when tested with a Huawei Honor WiFi 6 phone equipped with Kirin W650 chip (same a GigaHome W650 but optimized for phone), and results seem pretty good.

Despite US sanctions on Huawei, Malaysian website SoyaCincau claims Honor Router 3 will be sold worldwide starting in July 2020. Honor Router 3 WiFi 6 router is sold on Aliexpress for $59.99 shipped. However, considering the $31 price tag in China, I’d expect the price to eventually drop to around $45 to the rest of the world.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.