Tenda Router 5G NR LTE - AX1800 Router WiFi 6 with Gigabit LAN/WAN Port, 4G/5G or Wired Connection, Portable Mobile Router, Nano Sim Card, Pulg and Play, 5G03

If you’re looking for a high-performance 5G router that delivers speed, reliability, and future-proof Wi-Fi 6 technology, the Tenda 5G03 is an absolute premium features at a competitive price, making it one of the best investments I’ve made for my home network.

I took a risk as there were no reviews to look at for this specific device (5G SIM Card Router), but drastically unimpressed with the device that arrived, and my expectations were low... My friend came over to help set it up, I'm okay with networking, but he has experience, and it was my first try with a SIM router. 1. Most importantly, signal strength was tested in four locations in the home where my phone was saying signal was strongest, I tried 4 different SIM cards (Vodafone, ID, Smarty and O2) and not one of them went above 15mbps down and 3mbps up. Whilst I wasn't expecting 5G, I don't live in a 5G area, but I expected the antenna to beat my phone which was able to pick up 40mbps on 4G in the same spot. 2. The device was seriously light, I have looked at a friend's Huawei 5G Pro 2 alternative and that weighs way more than this, I suspect Tenda put all their effort into its looks & they cut cost on the internals. Given the weak signal, light weight, etc, etc, this is a small array of weak antenna and some very basic processing power. I can't stress enough how weird it is picking it up, given its external dimensions, and feeling such little weight... 3. Changing out SIM cards was a pain as there is no recess to help you push the Nano SIM in before it pops back out. I used the SIM tray of my phone to push the edge just enough for the spring to activate and eject the SIM each time. 4. Price is seriously tone-deaf, considering the poor performance, £300+ is frankly ludicrous. Again, my friend showed me a little Netgear mobile hotspot which he says was around £250'ish when he bought it several years ago, and that had better reception and Wi-Fi performance than this device. Using that little Netgear in my home, he swapped between the same 4 SIMs and each were pulling in excess of 50mbps apart from O2 which fell behind to 28mbps. Ultimately, I hope this helps someone, I have been looking at these for months and took the plunge on Prime Day, I now wish I had spent the money on a competitor that's a little bit older, but has considerably better reviews. Oh, and my friend knew on the first SIM when it pulled just under 7mbps that this was a non-starter.

I've been running this in a house in France for about two months now and am very impressed. It replaces an ADSL line and so for Euro 20 pcm I get about 450 Mbps down and 200 up. The ADSL and phone line cost about 50e pcm and gave me 4 Mbps down and <1 Mbps up, so no contest. 5G really is a game changer for wireless broadband. In France (but not, sadly, UK) it has been rolled out almost everywhere, even small villages. I also run a Wireguard VPN over the link back to our office and this has been very stable and reliable. 5G setup can be fine tuned to the various 5G carrier frequencies but basically it works out of the box with a suitable sim. ( 'Free' 300GB pcm in my case.)

Taking advantage of an Amazon Black Friday deal, I purchased this router with great expectation - to replace my old TP-Link 4G+ device. Alas, I am hugely disappointed. This is not a cheap device and I expected much better. The router arrived next day and I set about unpacking it and setting it up. It's a good looking unit though surprisingly light. Anyway, try as I might the device refused to recognise my SIM card ("SIM not installed"). I tried the SIM card from my mobile and that wasn't recognised either. Both SIMs worked perfectly in my mobile and my old router. After an extended chat with Amazon Technical Support it was decided I had a faulty unit and a replacement was scheduled for next morning delivery - hence my 2 rather than 1-star rating.... The replacement duly arrived at 8am and it appeared to work correctly. I had to manually change the APN setting for my Lebara SIM (running on the Vodafone backbone) and everything else was automatic. Without the external antenna attached, I saw 20-30 mbps 5G downloads (my old 4G router manages about 25-30 mbps). Connecting my 4/5G Poynting antenna, download speeds increased to a very creditable ~175 mbps with a 90+% signal rating (3 out of 3 bars). Uploads were ~50mbps. I was so chuffed.... However, I then found that the internet connection would consistently drop after about an hour or 2 and not recover. This is not a desirable feature while watching football or a movie! Anyway, sometimes I was able to manually reconnect, more frequently I had to power the unit off and on and occasionally, I had to do a full factory reset. If I forced a 4G connection, the same happened. I tried the O2 SIM from my mobile and the problem remained 😔 My old 4G router continues to work fine using the same antenna and SIM card! After a further 2 hours chatting to Technical Support and much poking about, I was offered another replacement - an offer I declined and I asked for a refund instead. So, I suspect this router is a triumph of style over substance and explains a number of less than positive reviews I have seen - many citing similar issues. I previously set up our next door neighbour with a ZTE MC801A 5G router and similar Poynting outdoor antenna. That works perfectly - so, I will probably do the same here - once my refund turns up.... PS. And don't try for Support direct from Tenda - that is conspicuous by its absence.....

This review may be a little unfair as I simply couldn't get my Vodaphone 5g data sim to work. However product quality seemed reasonable. don't be deterred by this review as I've used lots of Tenda products in the past and I've been delighted with them. I did buy the following day through Amazon a TP-Link X-50 5G router put the sim in and simply worked.

Quality nowhere near the same as the Huawei 5g router which I've been using a number of years. Signal and speeds continued to drop which is why product was unsuitable.