The Tenda F3 Aims For The Sub-$50 Router Market

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By Tom's Hardware News Team
published

A wireless router doesn’t have to be an expensive investment. The models that top the best selling lists offer extravagant speeds and expensive, additional features that some users would find unnecessary. For some consumers, a router just needs to provide Wi-Fi, period.

Tenda announced the availability of the R3, an affordable low-profile router that offers up to 300 Mbps. The F3 contains a Broadcom BCM4708A dual core processor with DDR3 memory, which provides connected devices stable connections for video streaming, large file transfers and other high-bandwidth applications. The rear I/O is minimal, with three 10/100M Ethernet LAN ports and one 10/100M WAN port.

The Tenda F3 router boasts an easy, streamlined setup that the company claimed can be performed within 30 seconds. Once set up, you can manage the F3 from the control panel. The device features bandwidth priority control using IP-based control settings, which allows priority to be assigned to certain devices and applications.

The Tenda F3 router is currently available on Amazon for $24.99.

Update, 3/9/16, 2:45 PT: Updated information on Broadcom processor.

Alexander Quejado is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware and Tom's IT Pro. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Tom's Hardware News Team
Tom's Hardware News Team

Tom's Hardware's dedicated news crew consists of both freelancers and staff with decades of experience reporting on the latest developments in CPUs, GPUs, super computing, Raspberry Pis and more.

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5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • kenjitamura
    I think they're a couple years too late with this. It will certainly dominate the inexpensive sub $30 N300 offerings but how many people are really rushing to buy from that segment rather than wait another year for the good sub $30 AC routers to arrive?

    We still need good cheap Broadcom AC chips for the inexpensive AC routers to be interesting though. I personally don't want myself locked into a sub-standard AC900 router based on Mediatek with its inferior performance and single proprietary only firmware offering.
    Reply
  • DouglasThurman
    My mother was one of those people of her generation that couldn't set the time on her VCR. I've finally convinced her to get basic internet and this wifi router is perfect for her demographic. It's all she needs. It's simple. I can buy it new instead of a Craigslist iffy deal.
    Reply
  • zahoome
    I think they're a couple years too late with this. It will certainly dominate the inexpensive sub $30 N300 offerings but how many people are really rushing to buy from that segment rather than wait another year for the good sub $30 AC routers to arrive?
    What you fail to consider is all the non-technical people that need a router now, either because their old one died or somebody told them they need one. They won't know or even care what the specs are, since that's beyond their knowledge or interest. All they want is something cheap that they can hook up and forget about. That's a very big market. Somebody like that isn't going to wait a year because something they don't know about is coming next year.
    Reply
  • sylentz199
    I think they're a couple years too late with this. It will certainly dominate the inexpensive sub $30 N300 offerings but how many people are really rushing to buy from that segment rather than wait another year for the good sub $30 AC routers to arrive?
    What you fail to consider is all the non-technical people that need a router now, either because their old one died or somebody told them they need one. They won't know or even care what the specs are, since that's beyond their knowledge or interest. All they want is something cheap that they can hook up and forget about. That's a very big market. Somebody like that isn't going to wait a year because something they don't know about is coming next year.

    ISPs gladly provide you one for a very easy $10/mo "router fee" etc. Such a scam but it's not like everyone is out buying routers. This is nice if you don't want to flush $120/yr on the ISP crap and can fight with CS until they let you return their equipment. They've gotten very tricky now by telling you that they won't come and install your service unless you have "supported" equipment. Guess what are the 2 supported devices...
    Reply
  • Amy_18
    Good Router with powerful network
    Pros:-
    1.Covers my whole home
    2.Even with walls in between I get around 20% network in corners
    3.No heating issues faced till now.
    4.Amazing Price (1074)
    5.Universal Repeater function works perfectly.
    6.Easy Installation
    Reply