Vodafone R216(Huawei) 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Review

As the successor of the LTE router R215, Vodafone takes the new mobile hotspot R216 in its range. The R216 dominated LTE category 4 and is again produced by Huawei. Alternatively, the sister model produced by the Chinese competitor ZTE R216Z to select which has features similar specifications.

Features and characteristics of Vodafone R216
Manufacturer and model number Vodafone R216(Huawei)
Chipset: HiSilicon Balong 711
LTE Category: CAT4
Download rate up: Up to 150 Mbit/s
Upload rate to: Up to 50 Mbit/s
Supported LTE bands: 800 MHz / 1800 MHz / 2600 MHz
Backward compatible with: DC-HSPA+ / UMTS / GSM
Support of LTE-Advanced: no
MIMO Support: Yes
External antenna connector: no
Telephone
With integrated telephone system: no
Connector for ISDN telephones: no
Connection for analog telephones: no
DECT: no
integrator answering machine: no
Network | LAN & WLAN
LAN Ports: no
WLAN Standards: Fi 802.11 b/g/n
5 GHz WLAN support: Yes
Encryption: WPA, WPA2
Wireless Internet Hotspot function: Yes, for up to 10 devices
Others
Battery pack: 1,500 mAh, exchangeable
Dimensions: 96 x 58 x 13 mm
USB: USB 2.0
Memory card expansion: no
Release: April 2015
available at: www.4gltemall.com

 

Technical Features

 

The Vodafone R216 accepts cards on the mini SIM format and accesses the LTE network of category 4 to download with speeds up to 150 Mbit/s and 50 Mbit/s upstream. Here, the mobile router uses 5 frequency bands: Besides the usual bands 800, 1,800 and 2,600 MHz additionally 850 and 900 MHz, which are used in the US and Asia for LTE.

 

 

LTE to 150 Mbit/s and UMTS to 42 Mbit/s

 

The R216 is backwards compatible with UMTS, including DC-HSPA+ and GSM and radio in the WLAN b/g/n to 2.4 and 5 GHz. WLAN ac is not supported. Up to 10 connected devices can be supplied. The router does not have connections for external antennas. The Vodafone R216 has a Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Balong-711 chipset, the 128 MB RAM and 256 MB ROM stand aside. A memory expansion via an SD card is not provided.

No status display

 

Vodafone R216 does not have a display. Information on the device itself can only be seen from the LED, and this indicates only when the battery has enough charge, the connection is active on the network or a new SMS has been received.

Future-proof thanks to IPv6

 

So you have access to more information and settings on the interface of the router on Web PC – or you use the Vodafone Mobile Internet App for smartphones and tablets. After all: The Vodafone R216 already dominates the Internet Protocol 6 (IPv6), which may facilitate, inter alia, the configuration of connected devices in a home network.

 

Replaceable battery

 

The battery of the R216 comes with only 1,500 mAh somewhat underpowered, and the battery

Is changeable. Vodafone provides a runtime of up to 8 hours in 3G network and 6 hours in 4G network, with each 5 users simultaneously. In standby, the battery will hold about 300 hours. Charging battery can use the supplied USB cable, either on the PC or via an adapter to the electrical outlet.

 

Vodafone R216-Z( ZTE)

 

There is a brother model named Vodafone R216-Z. The slightly more compact sibling with the suffix Z is also designed for LTE Cat4, is equipped with a different chipset Qualcomm MDM 9225 from the manufacturer ZTE. The Vodafone R216-Z has 512M ram bout twice as much flash memory, the router also can be used for memory expansion micro SD card holds up to 32 GB. It also has a wireless repeater function and two sockets for external antennas to improve reception quality. Also the R216-Z battery is significantly stronger than the R216 with 2,300 mAh. However, a display does not have even the Vodafone R216-Z.

 

Conclusion

The Vodafone R216 Huawei is a mid-LTE router, the display and SD card slot is missing. The Vodafone R216-Z ZTE has to offer as even more with memory expansion and a stronger battery. If you want to see more details, welcome to check on www.4gltemall.com .

 

Vodafone R216 and R216-Z 4G LTE Router

Vodafone Introduced new mobile hotspots this year from the manufacturer Huawei and ZTE. Vodafone customized its brand to them and put them in its product range. As we introduced before, Vodafone R226 is a high-end LTE Pocket WiFi Router, now Vodafone Group introduced two new mid-price range MiFi hotspot Vodafone R216 (manufacturer by Huawei) and Vodafone R216-Z (manufacturer by ZTE). Both of them can support LTE Cat4 with up to 150Mbit/s in the downlink and have a powerful module with 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

 

Vodafone R216 is the successor of the Vodafone R215 mobile WiFi. They are both made by Huawei. There are three LEDs on the front of R216. The battery, message and network status can be shown on the LEDs. If user wantS to know more information, the Vodafone Mobile WiFi App (for smartphone and tablet) may help. User can also log in the web interface in browser to check more details. The Vodafone R216 is available for black and white color with replaceable battery for capacity of 1500mAh, which can continue working for 6 to 8 hours.

The R216 could support almost all the mainstream LTE frequency bands (800/850/900/1800/2600 MHz) in Europe. The chipset in Vodafone R216 comes from Huawei HiSilicon Balong 711. It can support the maximum download speed to 150mbps based on the LTE category 4 technologies. In addition, the DC-HSPA+ and GSM/EDGE network could also be backward supported. On the DC-HSPA+ download speed to 42.2Mbps and upload speed to 5.76Mbps.

 

Vodafoe R216-Z is manufactured by ZTE, so it’s also called ZTE R216-z. The R216-Z is better than Huawei R216 because R216-Z has a battery of 2300mAh capacity, which is slightly stronger and there is a wireless repeater function. The R216-Z supports the same frequencies and radio technologies as Huawei R216, but the chipset comes from Qualcomm MDM9225, not Hisilicon modem.

 

Vodafone R216 and R216-Z both look cool, but it seems Vodafone R216-Z is better than R216-Z. We will introduce more details when we get the sample and test them. We suppose users may get some tips from our test.