Tenda AC18 Smart WiFi Dual-Band AC1900 Gigabit Router

There are hundreds of wireless routers on the market and it can be confusing on which one to purchase. There are low-end models, mid-range models and high-end, high-performance models. The majority of consumers just want a solution with features that will allow them to connect their multiple wireless devices, be reliable and not cost an arm and a leg. Tenda does that with their latest offering, the Tenda AC18, which was announced back in January just after CES.

A Smart Dual-band Gigabit WiFi Router

The Tenda AC18 is an all-new 802.11ac WiFi router that sports a powerful dual-core Broadcom ARM Cortex-A9 CPU. This helps provide the performance needed to run the 2.4GHz connected devices at up to 600Mbps and 5GHz connected devices at up to 1300Mbps for a total bandwidth of 1900Mbps. Combine that with Beamforming+ technology and coverage up to 500m² and this WiFi router can ensure you’ll have proper WiFi signal in practically any part of your home.

• Up to 1900Mbps using Broadcom Turbo-QAM technology
• 5x Gigabit Ethernet Ports (1 WAN and 4 LANs)
• Dual-core Processor
• 256MB of DDR3 Memory
• High-powered amplifiers with external antennas
• Beamforming+ Technology
• 1x USB3.0 Support for Printer or Media Server or Drive Sharing

What’s in the Box?

The one thing I noticed about the box of the Tenda AC18 was how it differs from other retail boxes. With the Tenda AC18, you just lift up the top of the box to display the insides. No need to open a flap and pull out some cardboard insert. Call me lazy, but the less I have to do to open it up, the quicker I can get into the insides!

So once you pop the top off, what is inside waiting for you?

There’s the AC1900 smart dual-band router itself, along with a power adapter, install guide, and a Cat5e Ethernet cable. Pretty straightforward for WiFI routers these days. You don’t really need anything much more than what Tenda has included here.

First Impressions

Now that the box is open and the Tenda AC18 is out and ready to be played with, we can go over the look and feel of the device itself.

The overall look and feel of the Tenda AC18 is like that of a stealth bomber with its fingerprint-resistant matte black finish and angular edges. The case of the Tenda AC18 may leave more to be desired, though, as it feels of less expensive plastic. The upside is the router itself is fairly light.

At the front, you can see the 8 status LEDs, as well as the concealed USB 3.0 port. I’m not entirely sure why there is a USB port at the front of the device. The 8 status LEDs (which are blue when on) are for Power, WAN activity, LAN activity, WPS, 2.4GHz, 5GHz, USB3.0 attached device and system diagnostics.

The sides of the router are vented to let air passively cool the mainboard.

The back is where the party is at. You have your 1 WAN and 4 LAN gigabit Ethernet ports, power input, power switch, WiFi On/Off, WPS and factory reset. You should note that the antennas are not removable, but they should be more than adequate for the job.

Using the Browser-Based Setup

As with most WiFi routers, the setup is done via your favourite web browser with the use of a wizard. Just navigate over to the default IP address of 192.168.0.1 or the URL http://tendawifi.com. This will bring up the following simple welcome screen.

You will be asked to set up a password for not only the WiFi connections but the router itself. I would highly recommend changing the default password that shows up on the screen. This is also the same password that is on the top of the device if you are trying to set up the router via your smartphone.

After the passwords have been dealt with, it is time to tell the Tenda AC18 what sort of Internet connection you have. Most people will probably have a DHCP type connection, though for some reason the Tenda AC18 thought I had a PPPoE connection. My testing setup just has the Tenda plugged into a switch that is on a larger network, but DHCP probably should have been its first choice.

If everything has gone well, you should be presented with the Internet Status screen. Here you can ensure you are good to go! You can click on the parts of the image to have status information shown to you or you can drill down further into the side menu options.

Fiddling with the Settings

Wireless Settings is a place you might want to visit if you want to tweak your WiFi network. Most people will want to at least create their own names for the SSIDs.

For those who are a bit more power consumption weary, you might want to enable the Sleep Mode. As long as there is no active network activity (greater than 3kbps), the router will go into sleep mode and use less power. At our household, I don’t think the network will ever see less than 3kbps of network traffic. Then again, I don’t typically trust network devices going to sleep and waking up when they are ready.

USB Application is where you can go and enable the NAS (network-attached-storage) type feature of a connected external USB 3.0 drive, enable the media server ability or connect a USB-based printer.

Advanced Settings is fairly straightforward. Most settings people will probably not make use of, but it’s definitely nice to know that they’re there.

Now the last one is System Settings. Some of it I would have probably grouped in the “Advanced Settings” or a Network Settings option such as the LAN IP, DHCP Reservation, etc. I guess I am used to seeing those sort of items on their own with things like Firmware Update or Diagnostics being on a System type page.

Overall the web-based configuration of the Tenda AC18 is good. It is easy to navigate and change the features that most people would like to change. The minimalist sort of approach without filling the page with a lot of options or text to confuse someone I think is good. There are advanced features that can be enabled and modified but for the most part, it is an easy-to-use web-based interface.

Tenda WiFi Smartphone App

In a past experience, I have been unable to make use of a router’s smartphone app, but I am happy that Tenda’s app works right out of the gate. This is also how I think a smartphone app should be for a consumer-grade WiFi router. Not only does it easily recognize the router itself on the network, but it also shows me the other devices that are connected to it.

You can also find out more information about a connected device too.

There are oodles of information at your fingertips when you make use of the Tenda smartphone app. The diagnostic features are nice to have without having to sit down at a computer and configure them. It is nice to see more mobile-friendly apps that allow you to maintain your home or small office network.

While playing with the mobile app, I did notice that the USB 3.0 drive I connected to the Tenda AC18 was not available, according to the smartphone app.

The app told me to check for the latest firmware, which I did. The router (at the time of this review) is running the latest firmware available and it will not let me make use of my 1TB ADATA rugged drive. When I log in locally to the router via a desktop computer, however, I can access the USB Storage settings without any troubles. I can still access the drive via the desktop through SMB client and such too.

Testing and Performance

There can be many factors that affect your network performance. Things such as how many people are currently using the network, what sort of other radio interference is there in the general area, what are the devices you are trying to communicate to and from, and so on.

When making use of an iOS app called Wi-Fi SweetSpots, we can check out what some average speeds can be had around the area. The environment the Tenda AC18 is being tes,ted in is very noisy with at least a dozen of other Wi-Fi routers and access points nearby. Those I have no control over so we will see how the Tenda AC18 can handle a noisy place.

First up is the 5GHz side of the Tenda AC18. The app revealed an average speed of 236.8 Mbps (29.6MBps) while walking at least 50 feet away from the device.

Switching over to the 2.4GHz side of the Tenda AC18, of course, you see a drop in speed but you are able to go a further distance than you can with 5GHz. The average speed I observed was about 62.7 Mbps (7.8MBps). Still plenty useful for the average user.

In the next test, I took an ADATA 1TB external USB3.0 drive connected to the Tenda AC18 and transferred a 450MB file between the drive and some connected devices. Did I mention that the placement of the USB 3.0 port is very odd?

The connector is right in the middle of the front of the router itself. Not the back with all the other connections, but the front. Depending on the device being connected, it may be hard to keep an externally attached device with a cable sticking out the front of the Tenda AC18. Imagine having a printer plugged in there?

Now depending on the network traffic, plus the speed at which the 1TB drive reads/writes and the speed in which we’re connected to the Tenda AC18, these can all factor into the test results. Unfortunately for the wireless tests, I do not have access to anything higher than a single antenna 802.11n capable device that file transfers can be done with.

• External Drive to Desktop (wired): 450MB file at 366.24mbps (45.78MBps) (download)
• Desktop to External Drive (wired): 450MB file at 307.08mbps (38.39MBps) (upload)
• External Drive to Laptop (5GHz 802.11n): 450MB file at 121.86mbps (15.232MBps) (download)
• Laptop to External Drive (5GHz 802.11n): 450MB file at 89.84mbps (11.23MBps) (upload)
• External Drive Laptop (2.4GHz 802.11n): 450MB file at 42.17mbps (5.39 MBps) (download)
• Laptop to External Drive (2.4GHz 802.11n):  450MB file at 34.42mbps (4.3 MBps) (upload)

These numbers should give you an idea what to expect with an external drive connected to this router: probably good enough for a general purpose, network-accessible drive. I probably would not go streaming 4K UHD videos from it, but 1080p would be okay or saving family photos to it would be ideal. You can also make the drive accessible via the Internet, but I would advise against that as the only option I really saw was for regular FTP. You would want a more secure form such as sFTP when accessing your files from the Internet side.

What About Beamforming?

The nice thing about a dual-band WiFi router is that you do not need to think too much about which devices you should put on which frequencies. If you want the best speeds with data transfers, then you will want to have your devices associate to the 5GHz channel. Devices that may be older or are further away from the WiFi router should be placed on the 2.4GHz channel.

Beamforming is a feature that most WiFi routers will have these days. What beamforming will do is allow devices that are on the edge of the wireless signal to get a boost of signal to ensure the best possible performance. That means the “blanket” that the WiFi Router will cover will move and morph based on where your devices are and where a signal may need to be boosted. The further away from a WiFi router you are, the slower the data transfer rates will be. Beamforming can help boost the signal and thus give the connected device a bit more speed.

Final Thoughts

The Tenda AC18 (around $85 online) is a great little router for the price point. You have access to dual-band features and Beamforming technology while having a simple and easy-to-use web UI to make your changes.

The Tenda smartphone app is a nice touch and, so far, it’s the nicest mobile app I’ve used with a router. Not only can you change settings via your smartphone, but you can also do some nice diagnostics from it too. The one odd point was how it told me the Tenda AC18 was not capable of making use of an external hard drive, where you can clearly see in the UI screen shots above plus the testing that I could make use of an external hard drive.

Performance of the router in terms of data transfer speeds is where I would expect them to be for not being a MU-MIMO type WiFi router. This also helps keep the cost down. Besides, not many client devices (such as smartphones, laptops, or desktops) that exist have MU-MIMO support anyhow.

If you are looking for a good router that doesn’t break the bank and is easy to set up, then take a look at the Tenda AC18. It has the features most people will use at a price that will still allow your kids to go to college.