Tag: Huawei 4G WiFi routers

Huawei 4G Router 3 Pro B535 Test

The new router Huawei 4G Router 3 Pro (Huawei B535-232) was available in European countries for a few months, which is integrated LTE Cat7 modem and allows speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s in the downlink. As we introducted before, Huawei B535 router has many predecessor such as the Huawei B618 or the Huawei B818, which can provide much faster link speeds, but they also cost a lot more expensive than Huawei B535.

Like other Huawei 4G WiFi routers, the Huawei B535 LTE router is packed in a simple cardboard box. In addition to the router with the model number B535-232, you will also find a power supply unit (output: 12V, 1A) and a stand dock. A multilingual quick start guide and a warranty card are also included.

 

If you already had a few LTE routers in hand, the first thing you notice about the Huawei B535 is the comparatively flat design. The body of Huawei 4G Router 3 Pro is made of gray and white plasti and visually unobtrusive. Various LEDs are located on the front, which indicate the operating status. For example, the reception strength is signaled using five bars. There are also LEDs for power, internet, WLAN and LAN.

There are two buttons for power and WPS on the top. These have a clear pressure point. All connections are on the back of the Huawei B535 4G Router 3 Pro. There are four Gigabit LAN connections, a connection for the power supply, a reset button and two SMA connections under one cover for an external cellular antenna. The Huawei B535 does not offer support for USB devices or telephone.

 

 

Huawei 4G Router 3 Pro Specifications

In theory, the modem of the Huawei B535 LTE router can reach speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s in the downlink and up to 100 Mbit/s in the uplink (LTE Cat7). Almost all frequency bands important for Europe are supported, as the following list shows. Only the band 32 (1,500 MHz) cannot be used by the router, but there are no restrictions. Huawei does not provide any information about the possible CA combinations.

  • 4G/LTE Band: B1, B3, B7, B8, B20, B28
  • 3G / UMTS: B1, B8

 

2G GSM network is not supported. In view of the now very good LTE network expansion, this is surely not be a good problem for most users.

 

In terms of LTE speeds, the Huawei B535 was able to convince in the test. Although the device was tested in the test with unlimited SIM cards from Vodafone, it was far from the theoretical maximum, but with well over 150 Mbit/s in the downlink and up to 70 Mbit/s in the uplink, you can do a good life. We also take a comparison test with the Netgear Nighthawk M2 Router and it shows that the network theoretically enables even higher speeds.

 

 

The latency was usually well below 30 milliseconds, and the peak was even less than 20 milliseconds. The reception and transmission power was very good in the test (LTE B3, B7, B20).

The Huawei B535 4G Router 3 Pro also offers the option of connecting an external cellular antenna. The effect of a 4G LTE outdoor antenna was not tested separately in the test. If the external antenna is not automatically recognized, you can manually switch to the external antenna in the web interface.

 

Fast dual band WiFi

So that the maximum LTE speed also reaches the connected end devices, a fast WLAN module is of course required. The Huawei B535 supports WLAN ac at 2.4 GHz with up to 300 Mbit/s and at 5 GHz with up to 867 Mbit/s. In the test, the 867 Mbit/s could also be reached up to 5 meters by line of sight.

As soon as a wall came between the router and the end device, the data rate dropped noticeably. Fast surfing and video streaming was also about 10 meters away from the router and was still possible without problems after two walls. The Wi-Fi range of the Huawei B535 was convincing in the test!

 

The Huawei B535 can simultaneously supply a maximum of 64 end devices with a WLAN connection. The WLAN name can be set separately for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, so as the password. There is also the option of setting up a guest WLAN. The guest WLAN can either run indefinitely or be automatically switched off after one or four hours.

The Huawei B535 does not have a WLAN extender function, i.e. the use of an existing WLAN as Internet access. There is also no WLAN timer.

 

Gigabit LAN and WAN function

The four RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet LAN connections on the back allow the connection of devices such as computers, televisions or games consoles via cable. The connections worked smoothly in the test.

 

If desired, the LAN 4 connection can also be used as a WAN connection. This means that the internal cellular modem is switched off and the Internet connection is processed via an existing LAN connection. Of course, this is particularly useful if you only occasionally use the Huawei B535 as an LTE router. For the rest of the time, the device then functions as a normal WLAN access point.

 

Software and operation

To set up and configure the Huawei B535 4G Router 3 Pro, you can either use the Huawei Smart Home app (available for Android and iOS) or the browser web interface. Both the app and the web interface have a modern, functional and clearly structured design and are easy to use.

 

 

In addition to the usual settings for WLAN and network, which were mentioned in the test, there are also some more special functions. These include, for example, the VPN function, the bridge mode and the dynamic DNS function. There is also the option of filtering IP addresses or domains.

 

In addition to an SMS function, there is also a statistics function with which the data volume used and online time can be checked. There is also an easy-to-use parental control function, which can limit the usage time (separated by days and times) for individual devices, for example.

 

Unfortunately, neither the app nor the web interface offer the option of displaying detailed information about the Internet connection, such as the frequency band used, the antenna technology used or the CA status. There are also no such settings, for example to set the router to a specific frequency band. The LTE router models from AVM, for example the FRITZ! Box 6820 LTE offers significantly better equipment in this area. After all, there is the possibility to use “only 3G” or “only 4G”. The Huawei B535 does not support GSM / 2G anyway. 

 

Test conclusion: good performance at a low price

The Huawei B535-232 4G Router 3 Pro left a very good impression in the test. The design of hardware and software is simple and functional, operation via app and web interface is simple and well thought out. In places, however, more information and setting options would be desirable.

 

 

The connection speeds via LTE and WLAN are good, and the many RJ45 Ethernet LAN connections are commendable. You have to do without a telephone system and a USB connection, but Huawei has installed connections for an external 4G LTE antenna. If you can live with the few functions described, the Huawei B535 is a very good LTE router at a fair price.

 

Five Tips to Buy a Huawei 4G Router

Huawei had presented many LTE Routers to the network providers worldwide, there are many models of Huawei LTE Routers, many customers are confused what’s the difference between the Huawei 4G WiFi routers? How to select a Huawei 4G Router with SIM card slot and Ethernet port for my home or small office? In this article, we will provide a guide about how to buy a Huawei 4G router.

 

To buy a Huawei router, you must know where you will use the router, in home or office, in a car, bus, boat, farm, train or basement. And what the WiFi range of the wireless router would cover, this will decide you need a huawei indoor router or outdoor router. If you use the Huawei router in a small office and at home for small space, an indoor router would be enough, but if you use the Huawei router in a large farm or basement, we think a Huawei outdoor antenna would be better. Or course, indoor router may also be enough in a basement only if a high-gain LTE outdoor antenna is connected with the huawei router.

 

For example, if you would buy a Huawei router with SIM card and Ethernet port for home, you should also know how many devices would connect to the Huawei LTE router via WiFi and how many to connect with Ethernet port. Usually, Huawei 4G router may have one SIM card slot and 4 Ethernet ports (3 ports for LAN and One for WAN & LAN). For example, the Huawei B525s-23a Router has 4 LAN ports (one of them for WAN/LAN). But some Huawei routers have only two Ethernet ports, such as Huawei E5172 and Huawei B618 router. If more than 4 devices would connect via Ethernet port, you can get one more Huawei router with more Ethernet ports or connect your devices with WiFi adapter so that the device would connect via WiFi rather than Ethernet. Regarding the WiFi users, Huawei LTE WiFi routers usually supports maximum 32 wireless devices. So this is enough for common use in most case. If you are looking for Huawei 4G Router with Two SIM card slots, as we know, Huawei doesn’t provide such product. Maybe you can check other brands.

 

After confirming the interfaces, you must concern the network compatibility of the target 4G router. For example, you would just connect the Huawei router via WiFi, then the latest Huawei B618 router would be enough. But if you would use it with AT&T or T-mobile in USA, the Huawei B618s-22d CPE may not be a good option to select because the Huawei B618s-22d would not compatible with the 4G LTE networks from AT&T and T-mobile, even though it’s already unlocked. Huawei B618s-22d supports LTE frequency band 1/3/7/8/20/38, while AT&T deployed LTE networks on band 2/4/5/17/30 and band 2/4/12/71. Now you should select the Huawei B890-66 Router, which supports LTE band 2/4/5/7/12/13/17. It could support band 2/4/5/17 for AT&T and band 2/4/12 for T-mobile. So Huawei B890-66 Router would work both for AT&T and T-mobile 4G SIM. If you would use Huawei B618s-22d in European countries, there will be no any problem because it’s compatible with almost all the network providers in Europe such as Vodafone, Telekom, Orange, EE, OnePlus, Telenor etc. Because the main LTE frequency bands on LTE is B1, B3, B7.

 

The third factor that you should concern is the location to use the Huawei router. If you are located at city center, you can ignore this. But if you are located at the place far from the city center or cell tower, it would be much important for the Huawei LTE router to have connectors for 4G external antennas. The antenna connectors provide the possibility to improve better signal with help of high gain LTE antennas. The 2 x 2 MIMO or 4 x 4 MIMO may provide better performance with the LTE antennas. But if you would use outdoor antenna, this antenna factor may be not that important because the outdoor router already has high gain antenna. When installed the outdoor router, the signal would be better enough even using it at places of weak signal.

 

Then the fourth factor to consider is the LTE speed. Since the LTE develops to LTE advanced Pro, here now there are many Huawei routers with different LTE Categories, such LTE cat.3, LTE cat.4, LTE Cat.6 and LTE advanced Pro Cat.9 or Cat.11. They supports different LTE technologies with different LTE downlink & uplink speeds such as DL 100Mbps/UL 50mMbps(for LTE Cat.3), DL 150Mbps/UL 50Mbps(for LTE Cat.4), DL 300Mbps/UL 50Mbps(for LTE Cat.6), DL 600Mbps/UL 150Mbps(for LTE Cat.11). And we suppose there will be more Huawei LTE advanced Pro routers available in near future with the evolvement to 5G. Before you buy a LTE router, you need check whether your network carrier already provides the LTE or LTE-A networks, and then buy the appropriate router. But if you want the Huawei router to future proof, you can buy the LTE advanced Pro router even your network provider didn’t upgrade the LTE basic network to advanced pro.

 

Then you should consider the fifth factor: price. With more and more vendors presented their LTE routers to the markets, the price of Huawei 4G Routers is becoming cheaper and cheaper. The support of higher LTE level, the price is also higher. And with the support of higher level LTE networks, the routers can achieve faster download and upload speeds. Currently, most of Huawei routers are not more than 200.00USD. Some Huawei LTE WiFi routers are even around 100.00USD. The LTE cat.6 routers are the mainstream now. But most users are interested in LTE advanced pro routers since the faster, the better. Hope you will buy the best one on your budget.