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There are two things that make a good router – powerful hardware to ensure great wireless performance, and good software that gives users plenty of ways to customise their network settings, and is easy to use. ASRock has definitely done well with the hardware, with generally good wireless performance in our tests and fast performance from the USB ports, but the software needs more work.
The software offers the basic functionality you’d expect from a router but the busy visual design isn’t the best approach. The red graphic surrounding each page of settings is highly distracting, and ruins the interface, when a more simplistic design would have worked better. ASRock could retain a red and black appearance, but with a more subtle usage of graphics.
There are small things left out that some other manufacturers see as important. For example, any time a MAC address needs to be entered, many routers provide a list of connected clients and let you pick one from a drop-down box. ASRock offers this on a few pages, but not across the software. Nobody wants to type a MAC address manually.
And it’s a bit light on advanced features. The basics are there but to command a high price tag, a router needs to go above and beyond the usual offering. When paying a lot of cash for a piece of networking kit, it’s great to find a clever feature or two, but here it’s just the usual router functionality, and no more.
Meanwhile, the H2R dongle works fine, but it doesn’t work brilliantly. The setup process is clunky, and it needs to be made more user friendly.
But, we’re not sure the dongle is an essential part of the product anyway. If sold as a standalone device without the bundled dongle, the G10 would be a bit cheaper, and although features like quad-stream wireless add to the price, other 4×4 routers are also quite pricey, so it should be generally accepted that this one feature commands a high price (despite not actually being usable until wireless clients take advantage of it.
Add this all together and it looks like a reasonable first effort from ASRock. Performance is solid, the mobile app performs well, although the software needs a bit of work. The solid foundations are here for future models, but perhaps ASRock needs to ensure it gets the basics nailed before aiming for the high end, as other routers can match or even beat the G10 for less money.
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Pros:
- Good wireless performance, if not the best we’ve recorded.
- H2R dongle works quite well.
- IR Blaster works really well.
- Powerful internal hardware makes software interface load quickly.
Cons:
- A pricey package.
- Visual design of software needs work.
Kitguru Says: The G10 isn’t bad, but the dongle pushes the price up, when it really would be better as a separate product, while good router performance and design is all ASRock should have focused on.
