Tenda AC10 review: A wireless router full of contrasts

Tenda is a Chinese company that manufactures very affordable wireless routers. We recently received for testing their Tenda AC10 - an AC1200 wireless router with support for modern wireless networking standards. We were curious to see whether it offers fast transfers and a quality user experience. If you want to know whether to buy the Tenda AC10 wireless router, read this review: NOTE: We received the Tenda AC10 wireless router for testing, from Gearbest.com. It is an online shop that offers excellent prices and international free shipping. You can buy this router at a discount price, from here. Tenda AC10 AC1200: Who is it good for? This router is a suitable choice for:

• People who have a low budget
• Users who are not interested in security
• Home networks with devices that operate mostly on the 2.4 GHz wireless band
• People who do not need to connect a USB device to their wireless router

Pros and cons

Tenda AC10 has the following positives:

• Affordable pricing
• The performance of the 2.4 GHz WiFi band is better than what you get from other AC1200 wireless routers
• The Tenda WiFi mobile app is responsive and easy to use
• You can mount it on walls

Unfortunately, there are many downsides to using this router:

• The firmware and the mobile app do not meet modern expectations regarding security
• The multi-lingual support is weak. The user interface is available only in English and Chinese
• The user interface for administering this device is rough, with typos and mistakes
• There is no Help available in the admin user interface
• It does not offer a USB port

Verdict

The main selling points of the Tenda AC10 AC1200 wireless router are the low price and its surprising performance on the 2.4 GHz band. If you value price above anything else and you have a small or medium-sized apartment, with network devices that use mostly the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency, then Tenda AC10 is a good choice. Otherwise, you should look at AC1200 routers from other brands, which offer better firmware, multi-lingual support, and improved security.

Unboxing the Tenda AC10 AC1200 wireless router

The Tenda AC10 wireless router comes in a black box with orange accents, traditional to the Tenda brand. On the top, you see a picture of the device, alongside its most essential features. Since we received this router straight from China, we got the packaging used for the Chinese market. In the US and European markets, all the writing on the box is in English. On the back side of the box, you see other information about this product's features, including a comparison with other routers from Tenda. Open the box, and you see all the items that are bundled. You should find the following items: the router, the power supply, the user manual, the warranty, and a short network cable. The unboxing experience is quick and painless. Also, Tenda bundles everything you need to set up your new wireless router.

Hardware specifications and design

Tenda AC10 is a reasonably good-looking wireless router. It is made of plastic, it has a matte finish, and only a few LED lights:

• sys - indicating whether the router is turned on
• WAN - indicating whether the connection to the internet works
• LAN - indicating whether you have PCs connected through Ethernet cables
• WiFi - indicating whether the wireless broadcast is turned on

Tenda AC10 has a single core Realtek RTL8197FS processor running at 1GHz, 128 MB of DDR3 RAM, and 16 MB of storage space for the firmware. It offers support for the 802.11ac Wave 2 standard, and 2x2 MU-MIMO transfers, delivered with the help of four external non-detachable antennas. As with many other routers, it can also work using the older 802.11n/b/g wireless standards. The total theoretical maximum bandwidth is of 1167 Mbps, split as follows: 300 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz band, and 867 Mbps for the 5 GHz band. On the back side of the router, you can find four Gigabit Ethernet ports, one of which is used for the connection to the internet. Therefore, you can use only three for the local network. You also have buttons for WiFi and WPS, and the power jack. Unfortunately, there is no USB port on the Tenda AC10. However, there is a Tenda AC10U model, with almost identical specifications, and one USB 2.0 port. On the bottom of the Tenda AC10, you can see the ventilation grids, four plastic feet for placing it on flat surfaces, as well as two holes, for mounting it on walls. There is also a sticker with the connection details for your router. Tenda AC10 is not large, just 8.6 x 5.5 x 1.9 inches or 220 x 141.5 x 49 mm in length x width x height. It also weighs just 12.3 ounces or 350 grams. If you would like to read all the official specifications of this product, go to this page: Tenda AC10 Specifications.

Setting up and using the Tenda AC10 AC1200 wireless router

Setting up the Tenda AC10 wireless router is done the same as any other router. Once you turn it on and connect it to the internet, it opens a web browser and loads its quick setup wizard. Enter the details of your internet connection (if necessary), set the name of the wireless network, and its password, and choose whether you want a different password for administering the device. Setting the same password for administering the router as for your wireless network access is a security risk, and we highly recommend that you never do that. Tenda should stop offering this option. During the quick setup wizard, you cannot personalize the 5 GHz wireless network. Tenda only adds "_5G" to the name you set for the 2.4 GHz band, and uses the same password. Again, it is not a wise choice from a security perspective, and you should load the administration user interface to personalize further the way your wireless network works. The user interface is simple and split into logical sections. It also looks dated and uses English that is written by a non-native speaker. There are typos and mistakes, made by someone with a not-so-great command of English. Leaving these issues aside, most users should have no issue in finding what they need. There is no form of built-in Help system and, if you need to understand what a certain setting does, you need to download the user manual from Tenda's website. Also, the user interface is available only in English and Chinese. Other languages are lacking completely. Regarding advanced settings, you get everything that you need. Knowledgeable users can configure almost everything about how this router works. Beginners though will have a mixed experience: the basics are easy to set but the advanced settings need help documentation, and that is missing from the user interface. While delving into all settings for the Tenda AC10, we noticed its automatic maintenance feature which, by default, reboots the router every night. Some users might have an issue with that, even though the reboot takes just two minutes. Tenda says that this feature helps you "maintain your router" and "improve performance." Once you are done configuring the router, start connecting your wireless devices to the network. We had no issues joining all kinds of gadgets, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart plugs, wireless printers, a wireless camera and an Xbox One gaming console. The speed we had was excellent on the 2.4 GHz band and lackluster on the 5 GHz band. One aspect we noticed on the 5 GHz band is that the variability of the speed you get while making data transfers degrades dramatically between rooms. For example, here is a network transfer in a room that is close to the router, separated by just one wall. As you can see below, the speed was relatively constant through the duration of the transfer. When we moved to a room separated from the router by two walls, data transfers had much higher variability, similar to the analysis below. While it is normal for this to happen, what's different about Tenda AC10 is that, on the 5 GHz band, the variability increases much faster than when using other routers in the same situation. We were pleased by the speed offered by Tenda AC10 on the 2.4 GHz band, and unimpressed by the speed on the 5 GHz band. While the administration user interface is not complicated, it does have typos, it lacks any form of Help documentation, and beginners will have problems in configuring the more advanced settings. If you want to know exact details about the wireless performance of this router, go to the next page of this review.

Wireless network performance

First, let's take a look at the apartment that was used in our testing and how it is set up. You can see that the router is placed in the living room. With most wireless routers, the signal strength is not that high in places like the Kitchen and the Medium balcony. Our testing was done using a fast 1 Gigabit Internet connection that is capable of uploads on the internet of up to 500 Mbps. We used an HP Spectre 13 laptop for all our measurements and several software tools. To get a better idea of the performance offered by Tenda AC10, we compared it with two of its fiercest competitors: ASUS RT-AC1200G+ and TP-Link Archer C1200. We started by evaluating the 2.4 GHz wireless network and measured the signal strength provided in each room, using a tool named inSSIDer. As you can see below, Tenda AC10 delivered very good signal strength in all rooms, which is an encouraging start. Then, we used SpeedTest to measure the speed of the internet connection, on the 2.4 GHz band. As you can see below, Tenda AC10 was faster than the competition in all rooms. A similar picture was painted when comparing the upload speed obtained with SpeedTest. Continuing our measurements on the 2.4 GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. Again, Tenda AC10 performed very well in all rooms. The upload speed was also high in all rooms. The wireless performance of the Tenda AC10 on the 2.4 GHz band is excellent, beating other AC1200 wireless routers in most rooms. For the next set of measurements, we analyzed the performance of the 5GHz wireless frequency. We looked at the evolution of the signal strength, from room to room. Tenda AC10 delivered very good signal strength in many rooms, but not all. Then, we ran SpeedTest to see how fast the internet connection is when using the 5GHz frequency. As you can see below, Tenda AC10 was very fast in the living room, which is the room where we placed the router. In other rooms, it performed worse than its competitors, and its maximum speed degraded much faster than that of other routers when we moved further away from the router. When measuring the upload speed with SpeedTest, we noticed a similar picture, but not as dramatic as in the case of the download speed. For the last measurements on the 5GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. Again, Tenda AC10 was very fast in the room where it was placed. However, its download speed degraded quickly from room to room and, in the Medium balcony, we could barely transfer data over the wireless network. The story repeated when we measured the upload speed while transferring data over the 5GHz WiFi. The wireless performance offered by Tenda AC10 on the 5 GHz band is worse than what its competitors are capable of delivering.

Wired network performance

To test the quality of the wired Ethernet connection, we used a desktop PC, equipped with an Intel Core i5 4460 processor, running at 3.20GHz, 16GB of RAM and a very fast Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD, and a Lenovo IdeaCentre 610s mini PC. We measured the speed of the internet connection when using a 1 Gbps Ethernet cable, using SpeedTest. Tenda AC10 delivered fast downloads while being slightly slower than its competitors. The reason why you see ASUS RT-AC1200G+ providing less than 200 Mbps for the upload is that, when we made the measures with that router, our internet connection was capped at 200 Mbps. Since that time, the limit went up to 500 Mbps. For the next measurements, we ran a network transfer between the two computers, using the PassMark Performance test. This time, Tenda AC10 performed better, being on par with its competitors. Tenda AC10 delivers real 1 Gbps Ethernet connections that deliver data transfers that are close to what is promised.

Extra features

Tenda AC10 stands out by offering a mobile app for remote management. The app is named Tenda WiFi, and it is available for Android and iOS. We tested the Android version, and we got worried when we installed it. Tenda WiFi requires access to lots of confidential information it does not need to work: your device and app history, your SMS messages, your files and pictures, your camera, Bluetooth information, Device ID and call information. Such permissions should not be required by an app for managing your wireless router and network. However, the app works well, and it is responsive and relatively easy to use. With it, you can control most of the features that the Tenda AC10 has to offer, including when you are not at home. However, you need to create a Tenda account to use it from anywhere on the internet. You also need to configure your router, so that it uses the same account too. Another issue with the app, besides its excessive requirements for permissions, is that the Tenda account is not protected with two-step verification. Also, there is no online Tenda account that you can access in a web browser. We were not comfortable to find that we have to use a mobile app that requests access to a lot of personal data, using an online account that is protected only by a standard password, and with no possibility of seeing how our data is used. Tenda AC10 also offers a few additional features, alongside plain networking:

• Guest Network - you can enable two guest networks: one for each wireless frequency. An important issue is that you cannot isolate guests from the rest of your network. But, you can set the maximum number of guests that you allow, and how long they get access to your WiFi.
• Parental Control - a basic service that allows you to set time limits for accessing the internet and a manual blacklist for websites that are banned for children. It is hard to maintain, and most users will not use it.
• WiFi Schedule - you can set a daily schedule for when the broadcasting of the wireless network is turned off.
• VPN Server - you can set the router to work as a VPN server, using the PPTP protocol.
• IPTV - a service for connecting set-top boxes to the router and the network, through a dedicated port
• DDNS - a service that allows you to connect to the router from the internet, even if your internet provider gives you a dynamic public IP address.
• Bandwidth Control - a basic feature for setting download and upload limits for each device in your network. While it is not difficult to configure, it is no match to the QoS (Quality of Service) feature that you find on routers from other brands.

Tenda AC10 offers a few extra features that are useful, including a mobile app for remote management. However, this app requires access to personal data it should not have access to, so you may want to think twice before using it.

What is your opinion about Tenda AC10 AC1200 wireless router?

Now you know our opinion about the Tenda AC10 wireless router and how it performed in our testing. If you already have this router at home, do not hesitate to share your experience in a comment below. Other readers will find it useful.