Almost three weeks of almost daily usage of the ZTE MF932, the Smart LTE Prepaid Pocket Wifi, I am happy to report that I have been properly served with LTE signal.
Design & Build
The ZTE MF93D is a unibody design with a glossy finish on top, it has about 1-inch LCD display where you see status of your connectivity, number of devices connected, number of hours online, signal strength, battery status and the consumed data. On top of the pocket Wifi is the SIM-Card slot, reset button with the SD card reader, and the WPS button. The power button is awkwardly located on the lower right side of the LCD display, while there are two external antenna ports at the bottom. The micro-USB charging port is likewise located at the bottom.
An improved designed would have been better by putting the micro-USB charging slot in the side, together with the power button. But its not the design that we need here, its the LTE service and battery life that will be provided by this little LTE Pocket WiFi.
Check our unboxing and first impression article with photos in this link.
In the three weeks that we’ve been using the ZTE MF93D (the original pocket wifi offered by Smart was Huawei E589), it has served me very well. I give attribute to the LTE signal that I have in the house, I only get about 2-3 bars LTE signal but it delivers an average of 6Mbps and burst of 12Mbps during midnight to early morning usage.
ZTE MF93D will connect up to 10 devices at the same time, but we’ve tested up to four only. We did not notice any slowdown in the performance with the 4 devices connected all together, however the battery drained faster as opposed to the regular 2 devices connected to it.
We have recorded the fastest LTE signal in SM Megamall near Jump at 27Mpbs, but on a regular day in our headquarters we get an average of 6Mbps. In Greenhills shopping center, we recorded a 20Mbps LTE speed.
Charging will take you about 3 hours. It is advised that you turn off the device during charging otherwise, it will take more than three hours to fully charge it. However, you can still use it during charging but it is not advised. ZTE MF93D has a 2800mAh non-removable battery. It gives us up to 6 hours of sustained battery life with LTE signal on.
CONCLUSION
ZTE MF93D Pocket WiFi is locked with Smart, and is offered on Prepaid LTE bundle. It cost P6,995 and includes a micro-SIM with 7 days unlimited LTE access. The price is expensive at P6,995, it is already compared to a price of a smarthphone but, for people that needs LTE speed (up to 42Mbps in the Philippines), ZTE MF93D is the perfect device for you. Its competitor model Huawei E589 is still sold in the gray market for more than P7k (check listings in Sulit). The price is dictated by the law of supply and demand, only Huawei and ZTE has LTE pocket WiFi today. You can check in stores in malls and you can’t find LTE pocket WiFi.
With Smart extending its unlimited LTE access, including its wide reach of LTE areas extending to the whole of Luzon, this Smart LTE pocket WiFi is your perfect buddy. Prepaid load is available in P50 and P300, you can go Unli LTE for a day for P50, 7 days for P299 and 30 days for P995.
why My mf93d gets a low Internet??? it only gives 0.26 to 0.70kbps in a 2 bars LTE Signal…. please reply if you know how to troubleshoot it… Thanks! :3
Thanks Spidey, hows zte mf93d working so far? would you still recommend it or huawei e589? whats the advantage of zte, is it just because its cheaper than e589?
Yes, yes.
If you are getting lets say 10mbps in your area, is that going to be constant or fixed 10mbps the whole day? TIA
Hello, my zte prepaid smart Lte pocket always gets a download speed of 2 Mbps and below while the upload speed is 15 Mbps and above? Have called Smart support yet they have not found a solution.. Help please…
i have a unlock device only 599 bili ko sa jarir
Hi Joseph
Thank you so much for your help. I just adjusted my router settings like yours. I’ll let you know how it goes for the next few days. However, I wonder if the security mode would affect the stability of the connection?
Under Wi-fi Settings > Basic Settings > Security Mode, I chose WPA2(AES)-PSK. Do you think that would affect anything?
Thanks again!
Hey Mark
Perhaps I should have come back and updated. Mine is no longer hanging.
This is what I did
1. Restore to factory settings
2. Under router settings, Ive changed the DHCP lease time to 2 hours.
3. Under Wifi Settings -> Advanced settings, changed wifi to 802.11n mode only (I’m not sure this is necessary, but all my devices are N capable)
4. same section: channel bandwidth 20mhz, country NONE, and frequency is AUTO
this config has been stable on LTE only for 3 weeks
Hope you can get the same stability
To get all the settings, make sure you click disconnect from the settings homepage first.
Hi Joseph,
I’ve been experiencing the same issue and it’s really annoying. Whenever I push its power, it almost always hangs. I have to restart the router for it to work again. Do you have any temporary fix for this? I can’t seem to disable DHCP since the DHCP options are greyed out.
Thought I might update this.
If I disable DHCP, it will stay connected and not hang (tested over a sustained 50 hour connection), but upon switch off, it fails to re-allocate IP (expected) and have to perform a hard reset for it to work again.
Put DHCP back on, and have limited the unit to 801.11n only, 20mhz width on a preset channel. This seems to be holding at present.
It appears to be a power / load related issue. the more I ask of the device the easier it hangs, but if I back off on usage, or wifi range, it seems to be a bit better.
still a strange bug.
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Wireless devices always hanging? Not from where I’m from! (AUS)!
There’s not much point trying it in other areas, as this happens from Home and Office (Both in Eastwood QC).
It does seem to happen more often when I put more load on the system (as in more use of the internet bandwidth).
Certainly only happened in the recent days, and wasn’t happening when I first got it. weird fault.
Try it in other areas, wireless devices are always like that. 🙂
Hi all,
Have been using my Smart MF93D for a month and a bit now, and have been absolutely happy with the device. But in recent days, it has been hanging – on the display it will still appear connected, but all my devices (phone, table and laptop), will lose connectivity to it. Not sure if anyone else has suffered this? Appears to be worse during network busy periods…… Not sure if its a Wifi setting, a network setting, or if there is a fault with the network which causes it to hang.
Thoughts?
Hi Munding, hindi naman.. Its not too soft, not to hard naman.. pero you have to do a little long press para mag react sya. 😉
@digitalspidey Sir G.day.. maitatanong lng po sana ako sa review nio bout sa pocket wifi. Are you having hard time pressing the power button on your pocket wifi? Ung sa akin kc dapat mong pindotin ng malakas. Hope to answer my concern. Thankyou
Oh yeah! That’s cool! In my side here in Makati I get an average of 6Mbps to 16Mbs. Tonight, here’s what I got –
Ok update, as of today I am smoking my previous sustained speed with 1.2Mbps to 3Mbps downloading from Google play (paid version of nba2k13)…LTE rocks
Well I’m not really complaining that much, 3G Smartbro in my area is slower than the 4G for sure (noted the 4G or 3G identification on the LCD screen)… maybe the rollout isn’t that good yet in Cebu…. but for sure 4G is in my area by the 4G indication in my ZTE device and the speed is better than any of my previous mobile internet packages I got.. but definitely not in the speeds of Mbps range (how I wish).
I’m not discouraged, I know when my wife comes back from her vacation she can view videos without (much) that dang buffering notice we usually get from our old setup/provider.
Hi Andrew. You should check Smart’s list of LTE hotspots in the country. They have a very specific list (mostly by the name of street, village or building), maybe your area is not ideal for LTE connectivity.
I’m also using the Android app “System Monitor” by Christian Gollner (paid version) to monitor the actual speed when streaming videos via the floating network monitor window… Again maybe it’s just because of my area? But definitely showing 4G on the unit. I never tested it outside our house… All my data are inside the house
Yup, the screen in the ZTE (upper left side besides the signal bars) says 4G. Maybe it’s because I’m in Cebu and not in metro manila?
Andrew, are you getting the 4G signal in your pocket wifi? I get an average of 6Mbps to 13Mbps on a three bar signal inside my house.
I’m using this same setup (smart zte mf93d) but can only sustain an average 200kbps to 300kbps speed. I also have just 2-3 bars of signal… My best burst speed is 1.5Mbps to 2Mbps viewing youtube but that’s only for a really short burst and not a sustained speed. But it’s still better than my 50kbps 3g I got 2yrs ago from ***
Na try nyo ba ang Smart LTE Prepaid Pocket WiFi? Can you share your experience?