Tenda Wireless N301 Easy Setup Router Review

Review of  a Budget Friendly Router -

Package of Tenda N301 Router

Hello folks,

Today I'm going to give an in depth review of a compact and budget friendly wireless router from Tenda Technologies which is available for around Rs 800 ($11)  on Amazon India. It is one of the top selling routers at this price with 4.2 Ratings out of 5 on Amazon. Hope you guys would find this post helpful in deciding the best budget friendly router below 1k price segment.

What's in the Box :

This router comes with the following contents-

• Wireless N301 Easy Setup Router
• Power Adapter
• Ethernet Cable
• Quick Installation Guide (with a CD)

Specifications :

• This router helps you to quickly set up both wired and wireless internet connections at home/office.
•  It comes with Wireless WAN feature that works as a client to connect to the ISP hot points or uplink AP wirelessly to share the internet.
•  This router also comes with Wireless WPA2 encryption security that helps you keep your wireless network  protected.
•  It also comes with two 5dbi omni directional antennas which helps in attaining long range coverage so that your experience remains smooth keeping you connected to internet.
•  It also complies with IEEE802.11n that delivers wireless speeds of upto 300 mbps making it good enough for emails, video chats, online gaming, voice chats, heavy file downloading and much more.
•  It comes with 3 X 10/100 Mbps LAN, 1  X 10/100 Mbps WAN port, a power socket and a WPS reset button. Your modem must be connected to this WAN port so that the router can transmit data wirelessly to other devices.   
• The dimensions of this router is 127.4 x 90.5 x 26 mm that makes it one of the most compact routers in the market. 
• This router comes with 2.4 GHz frequency. Most routers at this price range comes with only 2.4 GHz frequency. 
• The transmit power of this router is 20 dBm. 
• RAM of this router is 16 MB and the Flash memory installed is 2 MB
• The chipset used in this router is Broadcom BCM5357C0 @ 300 MHz
• This router also comes with Parental Control Option which adds another layer to the security
• This router weighs for about 160g which is very light and handy. 

Setting up the router :

Number of  Ports

The setting up of the router is fairly easy. Following steps should be taken to set up the router and make it fully functional :

1.  Connect your Ethernet Cable from Modem to the WAN port on the router. 
2. Use the power adapter to connect the router to the power supply.
3. Use a WIFI enabled device/s to search for the WIFI network. The default WIFI name is-  Tenda_XXXXXX, XXXXXX  indicates the last six characters in the MAC address of the router which is shown on the bottom label, and there is no WiFi password by default
4. Once the router is connected to the device with WIFI then you've to type tendawifi.com or 192.168.0.1 in the address bar to set up the new WIFI password and to also connect to either PPPoE or Dynamic/Static IP address. 
5. I selected PPPoE, and entered my PPPoE user name and password provided by my internet service provider which uses optical fibre technology.
6. The next step is to configure new WIFI name and password. This is the most important step and you have to make a strong password for high level security.
7. Yay, the setup is completed now and you can surf the internet smoothly.

How to choose the Best Router?

In this era of  technological advancement, wireless router has become one of the most important unit which is required for various uses like surfing, uploading downloading,  low latency gaming, streaming, etc. So it is of utmost importance that one should be having a best router at that particular price range, especially when you're online gaming and you need to come on the top spot beating your opponents. Plus you don't want your router to be the bottleneck which therefore affects your broadband speeds and hence affecting your overall user experience negatively. A good router will ensure that your experience remains top notch while gaming or when streaming live matches on Hotstar. A good router should be prepared to support your smart devices at home keeping them connected to the internet all the time. And at last you want your router to cover the maximum area so that you can carry your smart devices at any corner in your room without noticing any considerable slowdown and disconnections.


Tenda N301 Wireless Router- A TRUE Game Changer?


I've used the Tenda N301 router extensively for over a couple months now.  So i think I'm proficient enough to give my insights on this budget router which is think is a true game changer in the sub 1k price range. It is competing with many routers in the price range and i must say it kills the sub 1k competition by a huge margin. It ticks all the boxes related to security, durability, design and performance. As it is a pocket friendly router with a mere Rs 800 ($11) price tag so don't expect exceptional performance with over 1Gbps speeds and a wide coverage but it does the job very well with no hiccups. 



I would like to state Pros and Cons of the router and let you decide whether it is the ultimate budget king in it's category. 



Pros :

• Wide Coverage- This router is best suitable for small-medium house/apartment. This is because of dual antennas that helps in transmitting the signals to a considerable length. The speed remains good enough even at 1-2 bars where you can surf and stream SD quality videos. 
• Affordable Price Tag- The biggest strength of this router is it's price tag. Generally this router is available for around Rs 800 ($11) but the price drops to around Rs 600 during sales which is an amazing deal to be honest.
• Easy to setup- The whole setup is very basic and easy to understand. It does not require any technical expertise.
• Simple and Reliable- It is one of the most reliable routers competing with D-Link and TP Link counterparts. You don't have to worry whether the router is switched on or not. It can stand by for days managing the operations with ease.
• Compact and Neat Design- One should not judge this router with it's size and compactness. It is probably the smallest router in its competition but it performs at par as compared to other routers in the market.
• Control Download/Upload speeds for every device- This is pretty handy feature and the most liked. Tenda has done a commendable job in introducing this feature in their budget line-up.
• Parental Control and block devices manually- This feature again adds an extra layer to the security where you can manually add Parental Control for a particular device/s. Plus, you can block certain devices connected to the router and thus restrict internet access to that blocked user.
• System Auto-Management- If no one is using the router then it will auto reboot and auto upgrade the firmware between 3 AM- 5 AM. You don't have to upgrade the firmware manually so this feature is very convenient if you enable it.
• Smooth UI- The web management system is very clean and straightforward to use. 
• Multi Level Wireless Encryption- It offers multi-level wireless encryption options to prevent unauthorized access and protect your important data. It comes with 64/128bit WEP, WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK security.
• 3 Year Warranty- Extended warranty always help the user in case of any problem or hardware/software related issue.
• No heating issue- Tenda N301 does not encounter any type of overheating problem hence you don't have to worry about the internal hardware components of this router. This router has a wide vent below the case as shown in the figure:

        

        

Cons :

• Not suitable for large house/apartment- This router is not meant for large homes that exceed area of around 2000 sq foot. You can get 1-2 bars but then you won't get stable and sufficient internet speeds.
• Won't support speeds exceeding 50 Mbps- This is a major drawback of this device. If your ISP plan gives speed more than 50 Mbps then you won't get it. It is a hardware limitation and the router will bottleneck thereafter. You won't be able to fully utilize the speed of your broadband plan.
• No support for 5 Ghz frequency- This will result in lesser speeds as mentioned above. 5 Ghz is comparatively new in the market and most budget routers don't support it as it's expensive to implement.
• Fragile- As the router weighs around 160g it makes it prone to any kind of damage. You have to keep it safely so that it is out of any vulnerability.
• Poor Customer Support-  Tenda is a relatively new brand in Indian market so that the after sale service may not be as reliable as its competitors. Many people do complain that the customer support staff are incapable to help them troubleshooting the issue or complication.