Redmi Router AC2100 Review | The Best Price-to-Performance Router?

With the rapid development of the Internet today, it can be said that people’s needs for the network have become very dependent, and having a high-speed and stable network environment has also become the basis for users’ daily office, life, and entertainment. As a bridge between networks, routers also play an important role in our daily work life. At the Redmi new product launch conference held on December 10, a brand new product, the Redmi Router AC2100, came into our view, and today we are going to look at it and its features in this Redmi Router AC2100 Review.

As Redmi’s first router, the Redmi AC2100 router continues to maximize the price/performance ratio. The official price is 169 yuan (USD 24), full Gigabit network port, dual 2.4GHz + four 5GHz antenna design is very eye-catching, six-channel signal amplifier, beamforming technology. Thus, it is very suitable as a medium-sized home router. Also, the Redmi AC2100 router and NetEase UU accelerator have reached cooperation. The router comes with NetEase UU acceleration plug-in, and new users can get up to 3 months of free acceleration experience.

How does this router perform? Can it provide comprehensive protection for our daily use of the network? Keep with us and let’s find out.

Redmi Router AC2100 Review – Design and Appearance

In terms of design, the Redmi Router AC2100 uses the traditional geometric body and external antenna design, and the pure white color tone is as clean and elegant as ever. Although it is a plastic shell, the matte material still brings a good texture, and the simple style inherits the characteristics of Xiaomi’s products, so it is not surprising to place it at home or in any corner of the office. In the antenna part, the Redmi router AC2100 is equipped with six external antennas, which gives people a very domineering feeling.

This product uses a large area of ​​openings on the front and bottom to form a good heat dissipation. Besides, the main chassis also uses a large area aluminum alloy heat sink and high thermal conductivity thermal adhesive, which can effectively improve the heat dissipation efficiency of the whole machine. Among them, there is also a Redmi brand logo and two lights on the network and the system in the middle of the front, which makes it easy for users to see the working status of the router at a glance; and the bottom is printed with some product parameter information.

In terms of interfaces, this router is also a standard specification, including one 10/100/1000M adaptive WAN port and three 10/100/1000M adaptive LAN ports, which can make fuller use of each megabit bandwidth; also, there is a power interface and the reset button. In fact, for a router device, it does not often show its heads like products such as phones.

Close-up on top, below the simple Redmi logo are the network indicator and system indicator. It will be displayed in red when a fault occurs, and both lights will be white in normal operation.

The power adaptor has a maximum output of 18W.

Redmi Router AC2100 Review – Performance Configuration

In terms of performance configuration, this Redmi router is equipped with a dual-core four-thread CPU, with a single-core clocked up to 880MHz. Compared with traditional single-core processors, the overall performance is greatly improved; on this basis, it integrates 128MB of memory and has 128MB of Flash memory. On the other hand, it provides two frequency bands of 2.4GHz and 5GHz, of which 2.4GHz covers a wider range and 5GHz is faster. The dual-band concurrent wireless connection rate can reach up to 2033Mbps, which meets the requirements of equipment networks.

In terms of signals, the 6 external 5dBi high-gain omnidirectional antennas of the router can have wider coverage and longer transmission distance after reasonable structural layout and precise debugging. To ensure the stability of the signal through the wall, the router is also equipped with 6-channel high-performance signal amplifiers, of which the 2.4GHz band is equipped with 2 external high-performance signal amplifiers and high-sensitivity signal receivers, and the 5GHz band is equipped with 4 built-in high-performance signal amplifiers. Performance signal amplifiers and high-sensitivity signal receivers easily handle complex network environments.

Redmi Router AC2100 Review – Speed Test

The broadband used for the test is Unicom’s 300M broadband. First, the user uses a phone to connect to 2.4G and 5G Wi-Fi respectively to see how the Wi-Fi speed of the Redmi AC2100 router.

We can see that the 2.4G frequency test speed of the Redmi AC2100 router reached 72.8Mbps download and 35Mbps upload. The 5G frequency band of the four-way antenna easily ran over the upper limit of theoretical broadband speed, and the download rate reached 353Mbps.

For the home broadband packages, they are usually of two types: 100Mbps and 300Mbps. We can see that the Redmi AC2100 router can fully meet the upper limit of broadband under 5G Wi-Fi, allowing wireless devices such as phones and tablets to be used.

Redmi Router AC2100 Review – Signal Test

At 5GHz Networking

The test was carried in a 70-square-meter room. The Redmi AC2100 router is set in the living room. We have selected 6 test points to test the Wi-Fi signal strength and speed respectively to see how the signal coverage of the Redmi AC2100 router is.

At each test point, we sequentially test the Wi-Fi speed and the Wi-Fi signal strength.

Here are the results of all the points:

5G band Wi-Fi is generally considered to be high in speed but poor in coverage. But after testing on the Redmi AC2100 router, we can find that it can cover a 70 square meters room. No matter the signal strength or the point (5), the signal is still -61db, and the Wi-Fi rate can reach 267Mbps. It can be said that it will not affect our speed that much.

At 2.4GHz Networking

2.4GHz doesn’t have that much speed but high penetration and coverage when compared to 5GHz. So, here is the result of the speed test done on 2.4GHz:

The signal strength at 2.4G is smaller than 5G. Even at point 5, the signal strength is still 51db. But because the rate under 2.4G is not high, the result is that the Wi-Fi rate is reduced to 36.3Mbps.

In general, the 5G Wi-Fi of the Redmi AC2100 router can meet the needs of a home. The coverage is wide and the speed is strong. The 4×4 Mimo in the 5G band of the Redmi AC2100 router is a huge improvement for ordinary users. Although most phones still use 2×2 MIMO antennas and cannot fully utilize the speed of the 4×4 MIMO on the router side, on another level, the four-way 5G Wi-Fi of the Redmi AC2100 router can enhance these devices. The stability, while being able to connect more devices at the same time is excellent.

Redmi Router AC2100 Review – Software Review

In addition to ensuring a fast and stable network experience, this Redmi Router AC2100 also brings a smarter experience at the management level of the device. With the newly upgraded Xiaomi Wifi App, users can not only easily manage routers and access devices, but also enjoy many practical functions. We know that the app has a poor rating of 2.5 out of 5 with many users facing a lot of stability issues and frequent disconnects. However, we didn’t experience any of this. Moreover, the app supports multiple languages as well.

NetEase UU Game Accelerator

For gamers, Redmi router AC2100 adds support for NetEase UU; it can accelerate mainstream overseas games and support the acceleration of console games such as PS4, Xbox, and Switch, which can reduce delays and stutters, thereby bringing a smoother gaming experience.

Note: You will have to buy membership of NetEase UU to use the acceleration feature after the 3 months trial. It’s for 90 yuan ($12) for three months.

At the bottom of the toolbox, you can find the NetEase UU accelerator plug-in. You can make a new account from there and get the 3-month trial.

Device Management

In the device management interface, we can see all the devices connected to the Redmi AC2100 router. You can view their connection time, device information and manage them.

Child Device Protection

Features like child device protection and access control are very interesting. It’s not just a simple disconnection, but advanced controls such as setting up Internet time and whitelisting/blacklisting of website access. It is very convenient for family members to manage the Internet. Notifications will be sent as soon as the specified device is detected to be online.

Separate Menu for Smart Home Products

And you can see that in the device control of the Xiaomi Wi-Fi application, there is a separate menu for the control of the smart home products. You can implement various intelligent controls on them through the router. In particular, the smart home products in the Xiaomi ecological chain can automatically connect to the Redmi AC2100 router without entering a password.

Intelligent Speed Management

If you don’t want to limit the speed of each newly added device, there is also an intelligent speed limit available. You only need to input the download and upload rate of your broadband. The Redmi AC2100 router can intelligently manage the network speed of all devices. In addition, it also provides video priority and game priority.

How to Connect Your Router To Mi WiFi App?

1. Download the Xiaomi Wi-Fi application on your phone.
2. After opening, it will automatically scan the nearby Wi-Fi router
3. After recognizing the Redmi AC2100 router, click Connect and Bind.
4. You can choose to automatically set or import the previous settings.
5. After a few simple steps, you can enter the APP main menu, and the router can only be managed by the currently connected APP, greatly improving security.

As we all know, most routers today are divided into two frequency bands of 2.4GHz and 5GHz, so how to choose has become a doubt in the minds of users. The Redmi router AC2100 supports the Wifi dual-band integration function, which can save users the trouble. After this function is turned on, 2.4GHz and 5GHz will use the same name, and the router will automatically select the best Wifi network for the device so that users no longer have to worry about it.

Our Verdict

The Redmi AC2100 router can meet our daily needs. After all, 5G Wi-Fi is standard for today’s phones, and it does not make sense to use the 2.4G Wi-Fi specifications. Consumers will choose 5G Wi-Fi with higher speed and less interference, and just leave 2.4G Wi-Fi for smart home products.

The performance of 5G Wi-Fi of the Redmi AC2100 router is beyond our expectations. The Redmi AC2100 router not only maintains signal strength in a good range, it still has 267Mbps download speed when the Wi-Fi signal strength is the lowest. In our test environment of more than 70 square meters of space, there is no place for 2.4G at all. The 5G Wi-Fi of the Redmi AC2100 router can perfectly meet the needs of full coverage and high speed.

Therefore, there’s no doubt that the Redmi AC2100 router is the most cost-effective Dual-Band router. After all, its signal and speed are so strong, and there are very rich management options and functions. These include the game acceleration plug-in for 3 months trial (cost 90 yuan for the 3-month membership) for free.

Where can you buy this product?

You can now buy Redmi Router AC2100 for the lowest price of $37 to $38 from Aliexpress.

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We hope you loved the article. Want to know anything about the router? Let us know in the comments.

Redmi Router AC2100 Review | The Best Price-to-Performance Router?

Summary

Redmi AC2100 Router is certainly the best price-to-performance router out there. Not only it has an incredible hardware configuration for the price but also offer tons of features and game acceleration.

Design and Appearance

Set Up

Speed Performance

Distance Operation

App

Price

Features

Reader Rating203 Votes

Pros

Incredible Hardware (Dual core, 128MB memory)

Best Price to Performance ratio

3 months of free game acceleration plugin

Dual-Band (surprisingly good 5GHz networking)

Tons of Features

Easy to Set up and Operate

Cons

Mi WiFi has some bugs and stability issues

4.5

Total Rating

Where to buy?

Aliexpress