Huawei LTE Cube Archives

Huawei B528 VS Huawei B529 LTE Cube

Since more and more Huawei LTE cubes available in the market, more and more people accept the Huawei Cubes as consumer electronics. Actually, they are still the wireless routers essentially. Huawei assigns the 4G wireless gateway to a new design and combines the workmanship with router functions to make the Cube series product very special but attractive for home use. Huawei B528 and B529 cube are two latest LTE cube for Europe market. Since they are very newly released, many people may don’t know them or don’t know what’s the difference between the Huawei B528 and B529. We will have a review about the two LTE routers and give some buy recommendation for potential users.

Huawei B528 VS B529 Appearance and Interfaces

Frankly speaking, the Huawei B528 LTE Router and B529 Cube are both cool in the design. You may not think they are Huawei wireless 4G Router when you first look at them. The Huawei B528 is in black like a cake and the Huawei B529 looks like a humidifier in white. On the front of Huawei B528, there are indicators for Mode, LAN, WiFi, and Power while the Huawei B529 Cube changes the Mode to Signal. The power button is below the indicators. On the back of Huawei B528, only one Ethernet port is available for LAN. The Huawei B529 has one Gigabit Ethernet port for LAN with one VoIP port. The same feature is the power plug below the Ethernet port. And above the Ethernet port, there are two connectors for external antennas. The connector type is both TS-9. So if you have a Huawei B528 external antenna, you can use it with Huawei B529. What’s more, the two WiFi Cube both uses Micro SIM size and locate the SIM card slot at the bottom of the devices.

Huawei B529 VS B528 Specs and Variant model

Currently, the Huawei B529 is only available for T-mobile in Europe and get a new name as HomeNet Box. The specific model number is Huawei B529s-23a. Like the B529 Cube, the Huawei B528 is available for the network provider Vodafone and gets a new name Vodafone GigaCube with specific model number Huawei B528s-23a. Unlike the Huawei B618 Cube, they both have an only variant model now. But we are not sure whether there will be more variant models in near future.

From the appearance and interface, you may not get the core difference between the two routers. Let’s have a looks at the Vodafone B528 specs and Huawei B529s-23a specs in the tables below:

Model	Huawei B528s-23a	Huawei B529s-23a
Product type	LTE WiFi Cube	LTE WiFi Cube
Category	LTE Cat.6	LTE Cat.6
Chipset	HiSilicon Balong 722	HiSilicon LTE Cat6 Chipset
Data rates	DL 300Mbps/UL 50Mbps	DL 300Mbps/UL 50Mbps
Supported 4G LTE frequency bands	LTE B1, B3, B7, B8, B20, B32, B38	Band 1/3/7/8/20/32/38
WLAN	802.11a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band 2.4GHz & 5GHz	802.11a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band 2.4GHz & 5GHz
Max support users	64 users	64 users
MIMO	2 x 2 MIMO	2 x 2 MIMO
Connector for external antenna	Two, TS-9 jacks	Two, TS-9 jacks
Buy Antenna	Huawei B528 External Antenna	Huawei B529 External antenna
App management	Huawei Hilink APP	Huawei Hilink APP
SIM type	Micro SIM	Micro SIM
Battery	NO	Yes, non-removable 3000mAh battery
Dimensions	105 mm x 90mm x 181 mm	120 x 120 x 125mm
Interfaces	* 1 x power adapter port * 1 x LAN port(RJ 45)* 1 x RJ11 (VoIP)* Two external LTE antenna ports (TS-9) * One micro-SIM card slot	* 1 x power adapter port * 1 x LAN port(RJ 45) * Two external LTE antenna ports (TS-9) * One micro-SIM card slot
Datasheet	Huawei B528 Datasheet	Huawei B529 Datasheet
User Manual	Huawei B528 Manual	Huawei B529 Manual
Other features	IPv4 /IPv6 dual stack	DHCP Server, DNS RELAY and NAT
Reviews	Huawei B528s-23a Review	Huawei B529 Review
Price/USD	399.00USD	299.00

Conclusion

The Huawei B528s-23a and HomeNet Box B529s-23a are both LTE Category 6 router, which could support peak download speed to 300mbps and upload speed. They could both support maximum users up to 64 devices. They support even same LTE frequency bands. The only difference is on the Huawei B529 has one more VoIP port than B528. So if you would buy one home router between the two, you would consider the interface first. If you don’t use the VoIP, just take the preferred appearance and make the decision. Per our test, the two routers could support fast internet connection in the real network.

Huawei E5180 4G LTE Cube Review

The Huawei E5180 is a 4G router with a nice look. Working with a 4G sim card, the Huawei E5180 could provide wireless network for home or office, and it can easily replace an ADSL box when you have a deplorable throughput.

The Huawei E5180 is an unlocked 4G router that user can use with any 4G SIM card in European and African countries. Like all these 4G routers, simply put the SIM card in, start it, connect to the web interface with the information displayed under the router and you start a connection in minutes.

Comparing with the 3G router such as Huawei B683, it is more powerful but comparing with the other 4G routers, it may not be the best. Based on the functions, Huawei E5180 works perfectly if you do not have an internet to use. The only important point to note with these devices is that it is necessary to find the ideal location to have a good flow. We had tested it on many devices that they provide different data rates at different location. You may find the best one to use the Huawei E5180 router.

Technical Specifications

Dimensions: 70mm wide, 110mm height, 70mm depth

Weight: 250 grams

Supported LTE category 4

Supported frequencies FDD 800/900/1800/2100/2600 MHz and TDD 2600MHz

1 RJ45 female (fast Ethernet), 1 RJ11 female, WIFI N 300Mbps

2 CRC-9 ports to connect an external antenna available on the left side

SIM Card Type: micro sim

Some more info

You have two LED indicators on the front. The top one lets you know the quality of the received signal.

blue: signal is strong
yellow: Signal is weak
red: No signal

To use the router quickly, just insert the micro sim card into the router, plug it in and wait a few moments. Using the RJ45 cable, connect the router to your PC. You can also connect wifi to your router by looking underneath it! A label includes the SSID (name of the wifi network of the router) and WIFI KEY (the password to access this network). In a web browser, type the address http://192.168.1.1/ You will then access the interface to configure the router. The username and password are both admin.

External Antenna

If you want to have the best possible reception especially if you are very far from the cell tower, you can connect an external antenna to this E5180 router. The ideal antenna is obviously an outdoor LTE antenna, which has two connectors and when installing the antenna, make sure it pointing to the 4G cell tower, the cable entering your roof and going down into the room. We had one tested outdoor external LTE antenna, which can work well with the Huawei E5180 to get much better signal and surfing speed.

Conclusion

The Huawei E5180 4G router does the job perfectly. Capturing much better 4G than a mobile phone, it allows you to replace a box at the ASDL. The download speed on LTE reachs 150Mbps and upload speed to 50mbps. And the price of Huawei E5180 is not expensive since it’s available for long time in the market. Even though there are many 4G routers in the market, the functions of Huawei E5180 are enough for most cases.

Huawei E5170 LTE Cube Test

The market appeared an interesting new modem / router Huawei E5170s-22. It is interesting in that it can be used on both fixed and mobile internet connections and in all 2G, 3G and 4G LTE networks. The Huawei E5170 Cube consists of two parts. The lower part of the docking connector for wired LAN. The upper part of the battery serves as a WiFi hotspot for up to 32 devices.

After unpacking Huawei E5170, we can see the simple shape with blue backlight which looks really nice. The front parts are LED indication to display 2G, 3G, 4G signal, wifi, battery charging, SMS messages. On the side of the main body and behind the upper part, there is its own power supply (for battery charging) and two CRC9 connectors for external antenna connection. The lower part of the docking connector includes RJ-45 (Ethernet port) to connect a LAN and power connector.

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Inserting the SIM card and then power on the LTE Cube E5170, it then starts working. Huawei E5170 is SIM unlocked for any operators, it is therefore possible to use any sim cards. (The battery cover has the password for wifi and battery reset button next to the entire router). After inserting the card (tested with Vodafone, T-Mobile), the Huawei E5170 connected very quickly to the network and be able to use the Internet for available networks. It was unnecessary to set anything (APN) or to download new software, as sometimes happens with other manufacturers.

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When you start, I had attached a small wideband external antenna with the E5170 Cube. (I’m in the area where no external antenna to get a LTE signal). Huawei E5170 automatically connects to the Vodafone LTE network although the signal is weaker than a 2G network. After disconnecting the external antenna, the cube switches to unusable 2G networks. Just to test the SIM card from another operator, I put the T-Mobile card and to my surprise, E5170 modem with external antenna connected to LTE network from T-Mobile.

huawei-e5170-e5170s-22-lte-cube-5

To setup the Huawei E5170, user can access the interface by entering http://192.168.1.1 and entering the username (admin) and the password is the same (also admin). You can do the personal settings for the network such as wifi network.

huawei-e5170-e5170s-22-lte-cube-7

In conclusion, we can say that Huawei E5170 very elegant (compact) resolved a combination of fixed and mobile 4G router. You can simply take the upper part (hotspot) on you trips and use over WiFi for up to 32 devices. Huawei E5170 performs better than my favorite set of ZTE 4G USB modem + router. And the LAN option and built-in antenna for mobile use, the LTE Cube E5170 provide the most possibility for users to connect with network conveniently. It’s recommend in our opinion!

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