ZTE U50, 5G Portable WiFi Hotspot with SIM Slot Unlocked, Lowcost 5G Modem Router for 32 Home/Business Devices, 5G&4G+, AX1800 WiFi 6, up to 32 Devices

This is a review for the ZTE 5G CPE MC888. I live in the country and we have terrible wired internet, and no fibre broadband available here. 4G coverage is excellent, so we've been using '4G broadband' for a few years now, via a Huawei mifi device and a SMARTY card. We ended up needing two cards/devices as our walls are thick and the signal wasn't getting through. Wanted to get rid of having two devices, and use a better router with a mesh system...... I did LOADS of research before getting this!! I'd tried a cheaper Archer MR 600 CAT6 4G device first, which just got very hot, kept dropping out and was disappointing! Sent it back, did more research and came up with this. I'm using a SMARTY card in it, and I'm on the edge of a 5G network, so thought I'd get the 5G capability, even if we can't get 5G just yet. As I thought, I'm only getting 4G, BUT the speeds I'm getting are still amazing compared to the old wired BT internet, and to the SMARTY card used in the mifi device. Setting up the device was easy. It works best in a very specific spot on a window sill in the living room. I moved it all over the house to see if anywhere else was better: upstairs was worse strangely. Bought a set of three Deco mesh hubs (TP-link Deco X10 AX1500, £144.99 on Amazon), as on its own the ZTE couldn't get through our very thick walls. The set up works perfectly. The first Deco hub connects to the ZTE router directly, and becomes Hub number 1 (hidden under an old 50's radio's shell in the photo!) which then sends the signal to the other Deco hubs. I now have a brilliant signal all over the house, with two Decos, and one extra one which we only use when people stay in the Granny annex. We've had this set up for a couple of months now, and we only lost signal once, when it was chucking it down with rain/stormy. We've had bad weather since then, and all has been well. Copes with three devices at once streaming films with no problem. No problems with Teams meetings for work, with lots of people on the meeting, and sharing presentations etc. It's fairly pricey (£212.49 when I bought it), but so far this has been money well spent.

Decided to try this router after my ISP had a price increase and have to say am not disappointed. Very easy to set up, excellent WiFi signal around my house. Using a Voxi (Vodafone) unlimited data sim & getting around 500-600MB download & 30-70MB upload speeds. Had to change the APN settings as kept dropping connection with the auto setting used when inserted the Sim. Bonus that you can plug a landline into the router so can make & receive calls using unlimited calls included with the sim plan, though caller ID does not work which seems strange why the router cannot send this info to the phone. Highly recommend much better then paying for a overpriced landline service where you only get 40-50MB

It turns a weak signal to decent speed and improve download speed significantly but upload speed is slow but much better than other routers (if not the best). I tested portable ZTE router, 2 different TP link routers and a Huawei router and this was the 5th. I used to live in an old flat building that was blocking the signal. I used it with SIM from Three (which might not be good everyday and every where). You should investigate it with other SIMs before committing to long term plans. It's extremely useful to have 2 connection ports in this router for my PC and laptop to give me stable internet connectivity. try placing it in a room with good 4G or 5G signal and test speeds in different places in your home then you might want to connect it through cables to your PC/Laptop When I moved flat, I didn't have down time in my internet connection using this router and SIM card and I rescued myself from long contracts with TalkTalk which increased prices after contract and they didn't offer better terms, they just kept taking a lot of money every month from my bank account without letting me know if there are better contract terms. Leave alone the issues I had with OpenReach to connect the new fibre and had to reschedule and didn't get a satisfactory solution.

This product is insane. As long as your provider gives good speeds, this modem delivers. Im getting shy of 500mb all day long. Super powerful, great range and no performance issues even with multiple devices connected. But ultimately I got this device as a portable modem so when I travel I have internet on the go. The bad news is this device doesn’t not worm on certain 5G bands especially US ones. Which ultimately was a deal breaker for me. Went to states and couldn’t use it. Would not get service at all. ZTE said they don’t support US 4G/5G bands. A little bit of a disappointment but no big deal.

Straight out the box put my personal EE phone sim in it. Plugged it in Switched on and perfect 5G within seconds. A little point to note the password is where it says pass key on the sticker under the battery cover. connected tablet and phone played 2 films at the same time and no wheel of death. You can plug an external antenna into it if you wish to buy one. But it works bang on at the site we are at in cornwall so no need at the moment. It will come in dead handy for car journeys as well as it charges from a standard use C charger. And my personal phone is on a sim only contract and unlimited data but at 100mps max speed but on 5G it is spot and plenty for a couple of tablets playing films or 4 phones Web browsing. And as its 5g and wifi6 it will be good for a few years without it being totally out dated. Obviously all this is dependent on the signal you have in your area. But my phone had reasonable 4G in the same spot and this is getting 5G full strength so it's a definite improvement. All in all I would recommend and if it's not working in your area due to signal strength you can try an external antenna a change of service provider and if all that fails just send it back free return. Worth noting it came with a free smarty data only sim which you can just activate if you wish and add credit as you go as there is no contract. I think they use the 3 network so good for cornwall. I will update if I have any issues but at the moment so far so good.

Do not buy! Very good at the beginning, absolutely useless in a few months when connection starts to drop frequently. No response or support from seller. I purchased a ZTE 5G CPE MC888 router 10 months ago. Around 5 months ago, it began experiencing connection drops, and over time, the issue has worsened. Initially, I thought it was due to problems with my network provider, but after testing several SIM cards from different providers, I determined that the router itself is the problem. The same SIM card works well on an iPhone and provides similar speeds without connection drops, but on the router, drops are frequent. It is impossible to rely on it, and no point in keeping it. Just a money waste…

Good router with fairly stable performance in poor reception area for 5g. Not able to add external aerials, but knew this as purchase. Where service is good it's a really really fast router. Dropped stars as didn't come unlocked, but in Network 3. However, I did buy through the "Other Sellers" link for a refurbed one....but was still listed as unlocked. They didn't even reply to question I sent. Should have returned really, but I'm using 3 at the moment so not a massive issue unless I want to change network.

Bought this to replace a malfunctioning Netgear Nighthawk and so far it has been absolutely brilliant. Easy to set up, swap SIM cards and the range is much better than any other mifi I have owned or used. It's quite big and quite heavy but it is also a very good power bank and so I guess that you need a lot of (heavy) battery power to provide charging for other bits of kit on the road. The touch screen isn't as sensitive as we are all used to with iPhones and similar devices but that took about two minutes to get used to and doesn't justify taking a star off of this excellent product.