Zte Mf 62 Wifi Mifi Hotspot Full Review

[4evermaat]

These things always end up taking longer than I think. I had a screencast recorded, but then it got deleted, and now I will do another one. Then my battery ran out on my laptop twice, restarted browser several times then I kept putting it off. You can thank Textarea Cache and Lazarus Firefox addons for making this possible to read now. I would have been too pissed of to re-write this which is the reason why I got those add-ons in the first place.

- opening box and inspecting package. I bought from totalaircard.com for 3990 bt and it came with an option for free sim card from any of the major thai carriers. Truemove H was the smartphone SIM. When you open the ZTE box, you will notice the tamper seal is already broken. The seller put his warranty sticker inside. You'll find english instructions with battery in one packet, microUSB cable, Malaysian usb female power adapter, and base unit.

The look and feel of the device is very sleek. I just like looking at the screen and for a second there it almost looks like glass. Not sure if I should buy a screen protector; if it is glass I shouldn't need one, but I just hate to get scratches on it. Almost too smooth; the back cover you must press just right towards the end (where you charge it) in order to take it off. No grips, grooves, or ripples on the cover to simplify this.

- turning unit on and connecting to device settings 192.168.0.1

Before inserting the battery, take notice of the label inside and write down the default device id and password. You will need this to connect to wifi the first couple of times.

Keep this with the box/instructions, as you would also need it if you restore the device to factory settings. Then insert SIM card and the battery, and hold the power button for 3-4 seconds to power it on. It takes about 24-27 seconds for the device to fully initialize. It might be a good idea to plug it in, as the battery may not be fully charged. Note that the plug is Malaysia, and surprisingly the thai seller did not include an adapter. I happen to have a couple of extension plugs that accept that type of plug, and you can get them at big c/tesco/electric shop for 100bt or maybe only the adapter for 20-60 baht.

The device has an OLED display that gives users ready information about the current status of the modem. Most of the symbols are self-explanatory.

I particularly like has an automatic standby mode which will auto-disconnect sim card from internet and turn off the wifi radio whenever there are zero devices connected after 5 min or so. The result is very little battery being used in standby mode. This is useful if you turn off your laptop or phone wifi, but forget to power off the mifi device. Then once you press the power button and the LED comes back on, it will re-enable the wifi radio and connect the sim card shortly afterwards. My CAT CDMA mifi device will just run out regardless of if someone is connected. Whatever does not show up on the device OLED can be found in the device admin page 192.168.0.1. There is also a method in which you can disable/enable the wifi radio and/or internet manually using the WPS button.

I notice that sometimes the battery does not charge. I will continue to watch this, but it seems that the battery will report that it is full but it is not. Or the battery display will show that there is only 25% remaining, but when you plug it in, battery shows immediate full (not charging). I'm not sure what this is (edit: see below for solution).

You can connect the device using wifi or usb cable. When you connect via usb cable, a flash drive will appear with the driver install package for windows/mac (unsure of linux).

Once you install the driver for mac, when you plug in the device, it will be recognized as an alternate ethernet connection and should show "connected" on the mac (not the MF 62). The easier method is wifi. Remember that device username/password underneath the battery you were supposed to write down? You simply go to the wifi connection manager (airport), and connect to the MF62 using the password you wrote down. Then take any internet browser and go to 192.168.0.1.

You will see a bunch of statistics. Login to the device administration at the top right corner using the default password in the device instructions pamphlet.

You can notice that even before you login to the administration panel, you can see a wealth of information related to the device. This is very refreshing and prevents a user from having to login just to get basic operational stats. One stat that is missing is a data counter / uptime counter, which would keep track of the MB used and the uptime since last connect and since last reset. This would really come in handy for heavy internet users who want to micro-manage their usage.

Note: you can use the device as a USB modem, or as wifi hotspot, but not both functions simultaneously. It looks like you can use the wifi hotspot mode and still charge the device with a USB port simultaneously. You can also use wifi hotspot and access the microSD card via USB (and charge device) simultaneously. I think you must disconnect the ethernet modem that mac airport will automatically detect and connect to when you plug in via USB in order to continue using the wifi hotspot.

Note 2: You cannot use the Mifi without the battery (power adapter only). You must have the battery inserted to use. You will get this error:

- input settings to get internet up/running with truemove h. Login to the device admin control panel at 192.168.0.1 and go to Settings >> 3G Settings >> APN settings. Select "Add" to add a new profile. then label it appropriately (e.g Truemove H, AIS, etc) with the correct apn settings. Here is truemove h:

*99#,

internet

true

true

This same APN profile should also work ok with MyByCAT. Here is a more complete list of thai mobile internet carriers with full instructions on setup (english translation).

Save the profile. Within 10 seconds you should show that the internet is connected. If APN settings are correct, you can select "set default" so the mf 62 will auto-connect to internetwithout problems in the future. If you are positive that the APN settings are correct, you may have toYou may have to restart the device.

Optionally, you can also switch to the network settings tab and force 2g or 3g only by selecting "GSM only" or "WCDMA only" respectively.

- SMS

- Text messaging seems a tad bit buggy. I can send SMS no problem, but I only get 1 reply when i try to check my balance on truemove h. You normally get two SMS, the second one gives you the actual plan volume amount and how much you have used. I do not know why this is the case. Maybe if multiple sms come at the exact same time, they count only as 1?

- show SMS settings.

BTW, do not change the number that is in the SMS settings. When you first insert the sim, it looks like this field is pre-filled will the correct SMS # for the SIM. Not sure what the number is for other carriers, but it should read +66830032000 for True H and +66864220014 for MyByCAT.

I changed this number and then all my text messages that I sent failed. Luckily I took screenshot so I was able to change it back.

- Speed

The MF 62 takes about 27 seconds from cold boot to fully connect to 3g network. 10 seconds to finish startup logo screen + 14 seconds to finish initializing + 3 seconds to actually connect to the sim card.

The internetspeedtests are interesting. I use speedtest.thaivisa.com, tot speedtest, mLab speedtest (usually). and dslreports speedtest. I have the unlimited plan, with 3GB fair use for 855 baht w/VAT. The speedtest results vary, even at around the same times each day. but it seems like 0.5-2.5Mbps down and Upload speeds are 2-3Mbps consistently; very fast. Don't know how long that will last. Maybe next year we will see. In practice though with actual web surfing, the internet is stable. 3gb is not a lot even if you do not download a lot of music/movies. Surfing 20+ websites a day and doing some forum posts can easily consume 100 MB data, especially with auto-play youtube videos and flash presentations. But if you take days off, then 3GB may be plenty. As I see now what looked like I would run out quickly, I still have 1GB left and about 8 days left in the month. I think the speed is very closely related to WHERE you are (in Thailand) and the capacity of the tower you are in. Please advise.

Note: The direct USB tether does seem to be slightly faster upload than with the wifi connection. YMMV.

- MicroSD card

I think you must install the device driver first before the microSD card would be recognized. The first time you connect to the computer via USB, it will prompt to install the device drivers for USB internet connectivity and to use as MicroSD card.

I am happy so far overall. You could have used a budget/small android phone and tethered, but i could not find one with wifi b/g/n protocol or 21Mbps down. In practice, (for thailand) i doubt that we will ever get close to 10 Mbps down wireless anytime soon, but I'm ready for it when does.

Here's an interesting question: Does TrueMove H actually have the bandwidth in areas and is just shaping each user? Maybe not 42Mbps, but 5-10Mbps that it could give to each subscriber unshaped until the fair use limit is reached? I'm considering testing with MY by cat to see if postpaid clients are getting different speeds than prepaid clients. After successfully obtaining MyClick 590 plan, I can confirm that the speeds are comparible with true H. They do use different DNS, so real world performance to accessing different servers outside Thailand may differ, although it should be slight.

What I would like to see on a future MiFi device:

- grips/groves to make sliding off the battery cover easier.

- device LCD should show actual type of 2g/3g (G, E, H, H+, etc)

- the device main menu should show total connection uptime / total MB up/down for the current session. Perhaps along with a log of previous connections and MB Up/Down, or a cumulative MB count.

- i noticed one time the device did not re-charge correctly. The battery actually ran out despite it being plugged into the charger. It could have been the outlet I was using, or i just needed to power off the device and begin charging it first, then turn it on. (i know, weird). But that problem has not happened since. Edit: This problem occurred a few more times and I think I figured out the cause. If you use multiple different chargers with different Amp outputs, it somehow throws off the "charging memory". To fix this, turn off and turn on back the device. Or turn off, remove/re-insert battery, and turn on device. Avoid interchanging charge devices of different outputs.

- notches to raise the device off the table slightly to assist in cooling. Or a cradle-style charger to hold the device upright and in a way that promotes cooling. I guess you can get around this by finding some cheap plastic holder at the 20 baht store (dollar store). The device gets hot when laying on its backside. Perhaps leaving the battery cover off will help? Or how about this setup where you take the battery cover off and set the device on top at a perpendicular:

Promotes air circulation and you don't have to fumble around for the back cover when you need to go.

- include an antenna or at least show in instructions what size/type antennas are compatible with device.

- Of course we would all love a quad-band 3g mifi device; why are these so hard to make?

- dual sim mifi device. Standby management similar to current device.

- uptime counter, which tracks MB and uptime since last connection, and cumulative since last reset or over xx days.

Video overview to come at some point. Hope this helps someone.