Xiaomi Mi Router 3 Review
Hi guys, it's Ahnaf Malik Siam back again from frenzytitans360. Today, we are going to take a look at one of the most popular budget routers available in the market, the Xiaomi Mi router 3.
Xiaomi Mi router 3 is made by the popular smartphone manufacturing company from the far east, Xiaomi. As you can guess by the name, its the 3rd revision of their popular Mi router series. As I was searching for a router for my next upgrade, I decided to go ahead and try one of these as it seemed like it’s the best on my budget range. So, after a week or so of usage, I am here to give you guys a short review and look at this product.
Design&Build Quality:At first, I would like to talk about its design. The router takes the simplistic approach for its design by making a White body with matt finishing and curved edges to give it a bit of elegance. It also has some cutouts on the bottom for the air to get through, as a result the router stays cool to the touch even under heats & extreme scenarios, And from my personal point of view, I would say I really like this. So from a looking perspective, its an A+. However, all is not well here. The problem is with its white color. Though it might not seem that way at first glance, but this thing is a big dust magnet. Specially if you live in a country where there is a lot of dust floating around, You will be in for a great trouble. After just a few days, my one seemed to catch a lot of dust particles & the worst part is, they are not easy to get rid of & as its white color only, those dusts easily becomes noticeable pretty quickly. A simple wipe wont work at all. I had to go as far as to use a glass cleaning chemical and rub it hard with a towel to brush them off. But you can fix it though, by using some kinda cover over it or if you are like me, You can also use the plastic cover it originally comes in on the box. It might not be that convenient to watch but it will do the job anyways.So I think in this perspective, it could be better, but I don't think there’s much to complain about at this price range! Now let's talk about the build quality. Though in theory it's not that important for a router to have some tough build quality, As its supposed to stay in a place, not something that it would be moved around quite often. But I think the router is good enough to withstand normal drops/fall from.the hands. So nothing to complain about here.
Setup Experience:Fortunately, another reason behind its success, is its amazing & easily laid out software/firmware. It was so easy to use & It literally took me just around 3 minutes to take it out from the box and set it up and to running. Though a huge part of that is thanks to my broadband dial-up connection, But I think you can easily do it with those ip configuration setups too, provided that you have the authorities from your Isp to do so. Though I am aware that some reported the setup experience to be quite challenging & hard, but those are with the ones with chinese firmware, which can be found for a little bit cheaper than the global one,which is the one I am using for this review. So, to save some time and efforts, you can pay the extra to get the global firmware variant, which will be English language by default & you won't have to flash some extra firmwares to make in English again. But with all that, when you considered the fact that routers from similar budget range (Ex-DLink,TP-Link,Tenda) isn't anywhere near as advance as the xiaomi one, this thing is a win by huge margin anyway! Also to add even more to this victory, their mi router 3 app for smartphones is one of the best in the business, and during my usage time I found it to be really stable, & it works without any flaws. So again, it gets an A+ from me!
Connectivity:This router has 1x 10/100M self adaptive WAN port(connection-IN) & 2x 10/100M self adaptive LAN ports(Connection-Out) as well as an USB 2.0 port. Couple of things to notice here. firstly, there is only two out ports, so if you have more than two devices in your desk to connect the wire to, you will be out of luck. & The USB port is only in 2.0 speed,so no super fast data transfers there, but you can connect storage devices to act as an NAS there, or you can even charge your device through this. Or you can even install their repeaters in that USB port.
Features:As expected, this router is filled with tons & tons of features. I am going to highlight a few of them over here, specifically the ones I found them to be most useful. First stuff, this router is one of the cheapest to have the dual-band capabilities. So it can generate both traditional 2.4Ghz(upto 300Mbps) wifi signal as well as the 5Ghz(upto 867Mbps) one. It can even combine & switch between the two depending on which one has the best connection at that moment. I have to say I really liked it. Also the repeater mood is quite nice and useful as you can connect it to other routers to use this one to boost your wifi signals.
Range:At a first glance,it might seem that that this router has some amazing range specially given that it has 4 really huge antennas. I don't think it will disappoint you, as it certainly didn't to me. In my 2200-2300S.ft apartment, I’ve achieved strong connection throughout. I would say this router could easily handle 3000 plus or minus S.ft apartments quite easily. so from that point of view & considering the budget with the competition, I would say yeah it's totally on par if not better.
Before ending, I would like to say my time with this router has been amazing. Though after the first setup it did some weird stuffs like re-starting, Range going up & down etc but eventually it got fixed automatically & it never failed in any perspective from my point of view,at least. I had so much better experience using this router compared to my previous/other ones at this budget.So would I recommend it? I surely will.Like I said,some might experience some issues while setting up the router, But that also can be fixed easily by either spending 100-200 Tk more or spending some extra time & flashing the firmware. So,I Think you won't be disappointed at all if you buy this router. The purchase is 100% worth it.
Thanks for staying with us and reading the whole review. Follow us on our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube for more & stay tuned to frenzy’s for all the best.
Design&Build Quality:At first, I would like to talk about its design. The router takes the simplistic approach for its design by making a White body with matt finishing and curved edges to give it a bit of elegance. It also has some cutouts on the bottom for the air to get through, as a result the router stays cool to the touch even under heats & extreme scenarios, And from my personal point of view, I would say I really like this. So from a looking perspective, its an A+. However, all is not well here. The problem is with its white color. Though it might not seem that way at first glance, but this thing is a big dust magnet. Specially if you live in a country where there is a lot of dust floating around, You will be in for a great trouble. After just a few days, my one seemed to catch a lot of dust particles & the worst part is, they are not easy to get rid of & as its white color only, those dusts easily becomes noticeable pretty quickly. A simple wipe wont work at all. I had to go as far as to use a glass cleaning chemical and rub it hard with a towel to brush them off. But you can fix it though, by using some kinda cover over it or if you are like me, You can also use the plastic cover it originally comes in on the box. It might not be that convenient to watch but it will do the job anyways.So I think in this perspective, it could be better, but I don't think there’s much to complain about at this price range! Now let's talk about the build quality. Though in theory it's not that important for a router to have some tough build quality, As its supposed to stay in a place, not something that it would be moved around quite often. But I think the router is good enough to withstand normal drops/fall from.the hands. So nothing to complain about here.
Setup Experience:Fortunately, another reason behind its success, is its amazing & easily laid out software/firmware. It was so easy to use & It literally took me just around 3 minutes to take it out from the box and set it up and to running. Though a huge part of that is thanks to my broadband dial-up connection, But I think you can easily do it with those ip configuration setups too, provided that you have the authorities from your Isp to do so. Though I am aware that some reported the setup experience to be quite challenging & hard, but those are with the ones with chinese firmware, which can be found for a little bit cheaper than the global one,which is the one I am using for this review. So, to save some time and efforts, you can pay the extra to get the global firmware variant, which will be English language by default & you won't have to flash some extra firmwares to make in English again. But with all that, when you considered the fact that routers from similar budget range (Ex-DLink,TP-Link,Tenda) isn't anywhere near as advance as the xiaomi one, this thing is a win by huge margin anyway! Also to add even more to this victory, their mi router 3 app for smartphones is one of the best in the business, and during my usage time I found it to be really stable, & it works without any flaws. So again, it gets an A+ from me!
Connectivity:This router has 1x 10/100M self adaptive WAN port(connection-IN) & 2x 10/100M self adaptive LAN ports(Connection-Out) as well as an USB 2.0 port. Couple of things to notice here. firstly, there is only two out ports, so if you have more than two devices in your desk to connect the wire to, you will be out of luck. & The USB port is only in 2.0 speed,so no super fast data transfers there, but you can connect storage devices to act as an NAS there, or you can even charge your device through this. Or you can even install their repeaters in that USB port.
Features:As expected, this router is filled with tons & tons of features. I am going to highlight a few of them over here, specifically the ones I found them to be most useful. First stuff, this router is one of the cheapest to have the dual-band capabilities. So it can generate both traditional 2.4Ghz(upto 300Mbps) wifi signal as well as the 5Ghz(upto 867Mbps) one. It can even combine & switch between the two depending on which one has the best connection at that moment. I have to say I really liked it. Also the repeater mood is quite nice and useful as you can connect it to other routers to use this one to boost your wifi signals.
Range:At a first glance,it might seem that that this router has some amazing range specially given that it has 4 really huge antennas. I don't think it will disappoint you, as it certainly didn't to me. In my 2200-2300S.ft apartment, I’ve achieved strong connection throughout. I would say this router could easily handle 3000 plus or minus S.ft apartments quite easily. so from that point of view & considering the budget with the competition, I would say yeah it's totally on par if not better.
Before ending, I would like to say my time with this router has been amazing. Though after the first setup it did some weird stuffs like re-starting, Range going up & down etc but eventually it got fixed automatically & it never failed in any perspective from my point of view,at least. I had so much better experience using this router compared to my previous/other ones at this budget.So would I recommend it? I surely will.Like I said,some might experience some issues while setting up the router, But that also can be fixed easily by either spending 100-200 Tk more or spending some extra time & flashing the firmware. So,I Think you won't be disappointed at all if you buy this router. The purchase is 100% worth it.
Thanks for staying with us and reading the whole review. Follow us on our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube for more & stay tuned to frenzy’s for all the best.
For more pictures of this router-click here
No comments