Tag: ZTE MF980

Huawei E5788 VS ZTE MF980

With the development of LTE technology, LTE networks are evolving from basic to advanced, or LTE advanced Pro. To support the high-level LTE networks, many manufacturers are presenting their new LTE-A products to accomplishing the data transmission. Huawei, as the top telecom equipment supplier, had recently released the latest new LTE mobile hotspot E5788, the model number is E5788u-96a. The other Chinese competitor ZTE also has its own LTE advanced mobile hotspots named ZTE UFi MF980. You may ask what the difference between Huawei E5788 and ZTE MF980 is. And you want to select one between the two mobile routers, which one is better. In this article, you will find the answers.

Appearance

ZTE MF980 is earlier released than Huawei E5788. But the shape of the two LTE gadgets looks very similar. They are both in cuboids shape, but very thin. The Huawei E5788 has a 2.44-inch color touchscreen, where the user can easily set up the router on the screen. The screen of ZTE MF980 is 1.44 inch TFT screen, and the user can’t do settings on the screen. The Huawei E5788 screen is at the left part of the front while the ZTE MF980 has the screen in the middle.

The USB interface of ZTE MF980 is in Micro USB format while the Huawei E5788 using the USB 2.0 Type-C Interface. The MF980 has two connectors for external antennas while Huawei E5788 has no external antenna connector, which feature is a great disadvantage for the LTE Advanced Pro mobile hotspot. They both use SIM in Micro SIM size.

 

The batteries of both the two LTE mobile routers are non-removable. We think this feature is also not good comparing with another LTE-A pro mobile router Netgear Nighthawk M1, which has large battery capacity and could be removed for changing to spare battery.

As we know, the Huawei E5788 has many colors such as gold, black, blue etc. And the ZTE MF980 also has white, black colors which could be chosen for the customer’s preference. It’s good.

 

Specs

As the LTE advanced mobile hotspots, they both support high wireless download speed. ZTE MF980 supports LTE category 9 which could achieve download speed up to 450Mbps and upload speed to 50mbps while Huawei E5788 could support LTE Cat16 and could achieve download speed to 1Gigabit per second & upload speed more than 100mbps. They are both with WLAN standard on 802.11b/g/n/ac dual band (2.4Ghz & 5Ghz) and support maximum up to 32 wireless users. ZTE MF980 is with 2 x 2 MIMO technology while Huawei E5788 has 4 x 4 MIMO feature.

Below you will see the details for the Huawei E5788 Specs and ZTE MF980 Specs:

 

Model Huawei E5788u-96a ZTE MF980 Ufi
Product type LTE Mobile Hotspot LTE Mobile Hotspot
Category LTE Cat.16 LTE Cat.9
Chipset Qualcomm MDM9250 Qualcomm Cortex-A7 1.2GHz
Data rates DL 1Gbps/UL 100Mbps DL 450Mbps/UL 50Mbps
Supported 4G LTE frequency bands * FDD-LTE: Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/19/20/28
* TDD-LTE: Band 38/40/41/42		 * FDD-LTE: B1/B3/B5(26)/B7/B8/B20/B28/B32
* TDD-LTE: B40(or B38 or B41)
WiFi 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 32 users 32 users
MIMO 4 X 4 MIMO 2 x 2 MIMO
Connector for external antenna No connector Two, TS-9 jacks
App management Huawei Hilink APP ZTELINK APP
SIM type Micro SIM Micro SIM
Battery 3000mAh 2200mAh
Dimensions 129 x 65 x 13.5mm  122 * 65 * 10.6mm
Other features 3CC+256QAM
Price 499.00USD 259.00USD

 

From the above, it’s no doubt that Huawei E5788 is more advanced than ZTE MF980 technically. However, the Huawei E5788 doesn’t have the connector for external antenna, which may not be a good news for the users who are located at the areas of weak signal. With the advanced features, Huawei E5788 price is much higher than the ZTE MF980. So if you just need a decent LTE pocket WiFi with high speed, ZTE MF980 is comparably budget one for most users. But we believe the price of Huawei E5788 would be down when 5G devices coming out.

Vodafone R230 4G LTE Cat9 Hotspot Presented

With the development of the LTE network, Vodafone offers a new 4G/LTE mobile WLAN hotspot R230. The R230 pocket router supports speeds of up to 450 MBit/s in the downlink and up to 50 MBit/s in the uplink (LTE category 9) and is manufactured by the Chinese manufacturer ZTE. For a fast connection to wireless and wired devices, there are dual-band Wi-Fi and USB 3.0. With the unlocked Vodafone R230, users can use it with any SIM cards in Europe and take it for global travel.

Vodafone R230 — Successor to R226

The Vodafone R230 is the successor to the Vodafone R226 LTE hotspot in the product range. Improved mainly the maximum downlink speed in the LTE network, further improvements are minimal or barely noticeable.

 

Vodafone R230: Fast LTE modem

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X12 LTE chipset in the Vodafone R230 hotspot can technically reach up to 450 MBit/s in the downlink and up to 50 MBit/s in the uplink, but Vodafone Germany only advertises the device with a maximum download speed of 375 MBit/s. The following LTE frequency ranges are supported: 800 MHz, 1400 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2600 MHz.

 

Of course, the Vodafone R230 router can also support UMTS/3G and GSM/2G networks, in the UMTS network, up to 42.2 MBit/s in the downlink and up to 5.76 MBit/s in the uplink are reachable. In the UMTS network, the bands are supported by 850, 900, 1900 and 2100 MHz, in the GSM network the bands can be used at 850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz.

Vodafone R230: WLAN and other technology

On the front of Vodafone R230, you will find a small color display, on which the most important information about the Internet connection and device status are displayed. These include, for example: reception status, mobile phone technology, WLAN status and used data volume. On the side of the R230 MiFi, in addition to the USB port for charging the battery, there is also the slot for the SIM card as well as two connections for an external antenna. On the other hand, there is a power button and a function button. The battery has a capacity of about 2,200 mAh and is not changeable, according to Vodafone, the R230 provides an operating time of about 10 hours.

 

The WLAN works both on the 2.4 GHz frequency band and in the 5 GHz frequency range. The WLAN standards 802.11b/g/n/ac are supported, ie the fast LTE Internet connection should also arrive at full power at a connected terminal. As an alternative to WLAN, a USB 3.0 port can be used. The approximately 105 gram is very light, which makes it very easy to take in hand or pocket.

 

Vodafone R230 Availability

The Vodafone R230 LTE hotspot comes pre-installed with Vodafone software and is offered by Vodafone in conjunction with the DataGo data plans. It’s a customized hotspot from the ZTE MF980 4g mobile hotspot. We can provide the unlocked Vodafone R230 without the data plan. You can get unlocked R230 and use it with any network providers’ SIM cards in Europe. The unlocked Vodafone R230 would soon be available on www.4gltemall.com. We will keep updating the news. If you prefer the pure R230 without Vodafone customization, you can choose the factory model ZTE MF980 UFi, which has same specifications and functions.

ZTE UFi MF980 VS UFi MF970

With the upgrade of LTE network to LTE Advanced or Advanced PRO, the vendors are also trying to upgrade their wireless gadgets so as to meet the market demand. As we introduced the ZTE MF970 UFi last year, ZTE presented a new 4G LTE Router ZTE UFi MF980 as a successor. In this article, we will see what has been improved on the new ZTE MF980 UFi comparing to ZTE MF970.

Appearance

As we showed the images, ZTE MF970 UFi is in white color and the screen is on the middle of front with “ZTE” and “UFi” listed at each side of the 1.44 inch screen. Following this design, ZTE MF980 UFi also has a 1.44 inch screen and the same two words ZTE and UFi, but MF980 is in black color. But ZTE MF980 is thinner than MF970 and has long body.

ZTE MF980 has power and func button on the top edge, which is same to ZTE MF970, but the SIM card slot is also with the two buttons in MF970, while the SIM card slot is at the opposite edge in ZTE MF980. The two connectors for external antenna for ZTE MF980 are located together while the MF970 has two connectors located at each side of the USB 2.0 port, where ZTE UFi MF980 has USB3.0 port. On the back, UFi MF980 has ZTE logo on while the MF970 shows some information about certificate for CE, WiFi and RoHS.

Technical Specifications

As we introduced before, the ZTE UFi MF970 is a LTE Category 6 mobile router which could support peak download speed to 300mbps and upload speed to 50mbps. In real product, it may be the Vodafone R226 or R226Z model. As the upgraded model for LTE advanced network, ZTE MF980 UFi supports LTE category 9 technologies and peak download speed to 450Mbps and upload speed to 50Mbps. They both support the common LTE FDD & TDD networks with 3G UMTS and 2G GSM networks backward. On this point, there is no doubt that ZTE MF980 UFi is more powerful than ZTE MF970 if working on LTE-A networks.

ZTE UFi MF970 could support up 14 wireless terminals to access internet when working with a valid SIM card, while the new MF980 UFi can support almost double of the qty to 32 WiFi-enabled devices. They both provide the WLAN standard to latest 802.11 ac with dual-band.

 

Battery

Like Huawei E5786 4G Mobile Hotspot, the ZTE MF970 and MF980 are both with the built-in battery, which can’t be removed for change. One question that we don’t understand is that the newer model ZTE UFi MF980 has battery capacity to 2200mAh when the predecessor MF970 has larger battery to 2300mAh. Many of the current 4G mobile router with same level are with 3000mAh battery or even more. What frustrating is the battery can’t be removed for backup battery. So if you would keep them working for long time, you’d better to take a bank power with large capacity. On this point, the latest Huawei E5885Ls-93a seems more powerful with LTE-A support and built-in large battery.

Summary

There is no doubt that the ZTE MF980 UFi is powerful on technical features, especially working on LTE advanced Pro networks for multiple users with group activities. But the decent battery would limit its long term performance. ZTE MF970 UFi is also good if you don’t quite need the LTE advanced pro network and just need a budget mobile pocket router. After reviewing the two ZTE LTE UFi, which one will you buy?

 

 

ZTE MF980 4G Mobile Router Test

With the LTE network evolving to LTE-Advanced, more and more LTE gadgets are needed to support the advanced network so as to meet the requirements from end-users for faster internet speed. ZTE MF980, also named ZTE UFi MF980, is one of the new gadgets.

We got the ZTE MF980 4G mobile router for a couple of weeks and today we have time to take a test for this new LTE router. It’s in black color but much thinner than current popular models such as Huawei E5786 and Mobile WiFi Pro 2 E5885.

Appearance

The ZTE MF980 has a 1.44inch screen, but not like the high-end 4G LTE-A mobile hotspots from Netgear such as Aircard 790s and Aircard 810s, it’s not a touch screen. The ZTE and UFi are listed at two sides of the screen. On top edge, the power button and func button are there with a reset hole. At the opposite edge, two connectors for external 4G Antennas are covered by a small cap. The USB3.0 port is at the middle of the edge while the right side is SIM card slot. It uses Micro SIM. On the back of the ZTE UFi, there is only ZTE Logo. The back cover is not tight with the whole body, which makes you think it could be removed, but we tried, the back cover can’t be removed. So the battery is built-in and can’t be changed.

Operation

Long press the power button for 3 seconds on the top edge, the ZTE UFi MF980 will start working. The screen will show the signal bars, network provider’s name, users quantity connected from WiFi, battery status and the consumed data. For simple setup, users need to press the FUNC button to switch menu and power button to confirm.

In the simple menu, we can see it includes Data Connection, Device Info, WiFi QR Code, WPS, Global Roaming, Quick Boot. Click FUNC to next and click Power button to OK. Users can click to connect the data, and scan the QR code to connect to the router with the ZTELink APP. No more setup is allowed through the two buttons on ZTE UFi. If you want do more settings, you need log in the web page http://ufi.ztedevice.com or 192.168.0.1. Firstly, you need connect the WiFi from ZTE MF980 and enter WiFi key. When log in the web UI, the default password is admin. And there is PC and Mobile option per user preference.

On the head of the web page, user can shutdown the device, modify login password and logout by one click. Two languages are available: English and Chinese. In the middle of the page, there is a switch button to on and off LTE connection. Below is the setting button to click and enter into the setting options. Users can setup the connection by adding new APN, select preferred network (four options: 4G only, 3G only, 2G only and Automatic).

There are more options to setup the WiFi, user can setup the SSID name, security mode and password. If necessary, user can also enable the Guest SSID and WPS. In the WiFi advanced settings, user can select the WiFi band (2.4GHz and 5GHz available), Network mode (two options: 802.11b/g/n and 802.11 n only), Channel Bandwidth(20MHz/40MHz or 20MHz) and frequency channel. User can also select the country if necessary.

In the Advanced Settings, user can setup the power-save mode by choosing the WiFi coverage distance and WiFi Sleep time. And the router settings allow user to setup the IP address and DHCP. There are also options for firewall settings, such as Port filtering, Port mapping, UPnP and DMZ. User can also setup the firmware update check and reset or restart the router manually.

All setting for the ZTE MF980 UFI is very simple but important if you need them. User can also do the setting through the ZTELink APP, but has to install the APP in the smartphone first. We didn’t take the speed test this time, we will do the speed test by comparing it with the latest Netgear Nighthawk M1 MR1100 in following weeks and will provide full report after test. You can follow us for coming testing report.

ZTE MF980 4G LTE Category 9 Mobile Hotspot

With the development of the LTE technology and deployment of LTE-advanced networks, the manufacturer offer new 4G mobile gadgets to meet the market required. The ZTE MF980 Hotspot is a 4G mobile hotspot that offers LTE Category 9 carrier aggregation technology. The specifications for ZTE MF980 makes it’s dominates in the mobile hotspos in the market.

ZTE MF980 front logo

Technical Specifications

This 3-band technology allows reach a download speed of 450 Mbps and 50 Mbps in upload. The bands supported in FDD are: B1 / B3 / B5 (26) / B7 / B8 / B20 / B28 / B32

For Europe area, the bands that concern in 4G are therefore B3, B7, B20 but also the B28 which supports the 700 MHz of Free Mobile.

For the rest the supported bands are:
* TDD-LTE: B40 (or B38 or B41)
* UMTS: B1 / B5 / B8 / B2
* GSM: 850/900/1800 / 1900MHz

A fairly wide coverage therefore, makes the ZTE MF980 mobile hotspot a good partner for traveling. We do not have exactly the carrier aggregation of supported 3 bands, but we remain optimistic for a support in France (B20 + B7 + B3 or B28 + B7 + B20).

ZTE MF980 back

Wireless Features

The ZTE MF980 also offers Wi-Fi 802.11 ac running dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz simultaneously. And up to 32 users can connect to the MF980 hotspot for internet access. It is of course also compatible with the 802.11b/g/n and it also offers a 2 × 2 MIMO technology.

 

The 1.44-inch color TFT screen allows you to view the usual information such as the operator, connection type and level, battery level, number of users connected and data consumption.

ZTE MF980 power button

The ZTE MF980 is small enough to fit easily in the pocket or in a bag. What’s more, it has 2 connectors for external antennas, which makes it possible to connect external antenna to improve the signal strength so as to get faster surfing speed. The connector type is TS-9, we recommend below the external antenna for ZTE MF980 mobile hotspot: http://www.4gltemall.com/4g-antenna-two-ts-9-connector.html

4G LTE Indoor Antenna (2 x TS-9 Connectors) for Huawei/ZTE 4G LTE Modems/dongles/mobile hotspots

 

It has a micro-USB port and a slot for micro-SIM. Equipped with a 2200 mAh battery, it can keep working for up to 10 hours according to the manufacturer. It is compatible with the Android application (or IOS) ZTELink APP.

 

Summary

With the support of LTE Cat.9 and 3 band carrier aggregation, ZTE MF980 supports fast download speed to 450Mbps while currently the LTE Cat.6 up to 300Mbps is the mainstream. Up to 32 wireless users could access internet with the ZTE MF980 and large battery of 2200mAh, which makes MF980 a powerful partner for outdoor activities. The possibility of connecting external antenna and control via ZTELINK app is also very useful for operation.

ZTE MF980 USB port

Actually, there are many LTE cat.9 and cat.11 mobile hotspots in the market now, such as the Netgear Aircard 810s hotspot etc. They already get great fame from the end-users. We suppose the ZTE MF980 would also be a good star for LTE-A networks.