-
Join the MyBroadband community
South Africa’s biggest forum. Discuss, discover, and connect with thousands of members.
-
Question of the Day: What's the most interesting small town you've visited in South Africa?
HUAWEI E5331 MiFi Router
- Thread starter nfbs
- Start date
NeonNinja
Neon Resident
Battery 5 hours acc to one YouTube review.
I.am.Sam
Honorary Master
price ?
NeonNinja
Neon Resident
Free with Afrihost.
Compton_effect
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2006
- Messages
- 12,287
- Reaction score
- 1,102
Actually R145 with Afrihost
NeonNinja
Neon Resident
PriceCheck starts at R1001.95
http://www.pricecheck.co.za/offers/38567449/Huawei+E5331+Mobile+WiFi+Router/
http://www.pricecheck.co.za/offers/38567449/Huawei+E5331+Mobile+WiFi+Router/
Rocket-Boy
Honorary Master
My brother has had one for a few months now. Battery life is around 5 hours. He absolutely loves the thing and says is very simple to setup and to use.
Seriously
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2012
- Messages
- 16,595
- Reaction score
- 220
Correct, not for code.Thats for the data only
It's R800-odd if you buy it from Afrihost, or about R1000 if you pay it off.
AfricanTech
Honorary Master
4-5 hours depending on coverage area.
Brilliant device.
Brilliant device.
Check this out: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.huawei.mw
NeonNinja
Neon Resident
R796 from Afrihost using the special email link.
NeonNinja
Neon Resident
RichardG
Honorary Master
I did spot them on BoB(Bid or Buy) for R450 (excluding import duties etc).
I know google is your friend and all but does mifi have a dashboard where you can set APN etc or does one have to do that manually by inserting the sim card in a handset device.
I know google is your friend and all but does mifi have a dashboard where you can set APN etc or does one have to do that manually by inserting the sim card in a handset device.
Tango
Senior Member
Hope I am not hijacking the thread - I can't seem to find out anywhere if the Huawei E5331 unit works with Windows 8.1?
Anybody shed some light on this?
Anybody shed some light on this?
Terencek
Expert Member
OK to answer a couple of the questions here and add a few other facts those interested might find useful; I have been using this device for over a month as my primary modem and it's great.
An average price for an online purchase of the E5331 is about R700, but your mileage may vary. Unlike in some international markets, here it is supplied with a wall charger (and USB cable) to use if you prefer not to hook it up to your computer. Charging takes about five hours, and with careful use will give you about the same on battery power when travelling. Note that the WiFi range on battery is stated as 10m, or 20m when tethered to a computer, or 100m when running off the wall charger. In practice that turned out to be about right in my own use.
It has a fairly decent built-in dashboard for PC use, and a very minimalist one for use on Android. I also just stumbled across a far better free Huawei Mobile WiFi app for Android devices in the Google Play store, which adds a few extras, e.g. the ability to turn off the automatic battery-saving hibernation which kicks in after X amount of time, if you are using the device mainly on the mains charger. Be sure to turn off Roaming in the dashboard if your data plan is restricted to your service provider, e.g. some of the 8ta/Telkom plans. The PC dashboard also allows you to set the modem to 2G or 3G, either exclusively or preferred.
Note for travelling that the version we buy here (or in Europe) does not include the USA 3G frequencies, so that in the States you would be restricted to 2G, which is a bit of a bummer but fairly standard for our mobile modems unfortunately.
One minor irritation is that when the device does go offline, you have to log in again, with the admin password -- the easiest is to change this to one letter to minimise keystrokes needed. I could not find any way of disabling this.
The device can get fairly warm in use, and the LED icons are minimal to say the least -- but the dashboard (PC or Android) can tell you the state of your battery (replacements available online at a very reasonable price if and when needed), your signal strength and more. Unlike some devices, the E5331 will work happily even when the signal strength meter shows no bars, which is my default situation more than 5 km from my nearest Telkom tower. Despite this I regularly get 7 Mbps speeds or slightly more, despite being in a very rural area 'out in the middle of nowhere'. LTE is of course not covered.
If you're carrying it around a lot, you can buy a generic cellphone pouch for most keyboard smartphones for about R50 or less in your favourite oriental store; it's about the size of a Blackberry or Nokia keypad phone.
If you tether it directly to your computer you don't need the WiFi as it acts as a normal LAN modem.
Good luck and enjoy!!
An average price for an online purchase of the E5331 is about R700, but your mileage may vary. Unlike in some international markets, here it is supplied with a wall charger (and USB cable) to use if you prefer not to hook it up to your computer. Charging takes about five hours, and with careful use will give you about the same on battery power when travelling. Note that the WiFi range on battery is stated as 10m, or 20m when tethered to a computer, or 100m when running off the wall charger. In practice that turned out to be about right in my own use.
It has a fairly decent built-in dashboard for PC use, and a very minimalist one for use on Android. I also just stumbled across a far better free Huawei Mobile WiFi app for Android devices in the Google Play store, which adds a few extras, e.g. the ability to turn off the automatic battery-saving hibernation which kicks in after X amount of time, if you are using the device mainly on the mains charger. Be sure to turn off Roaming in the dashboard if your data plan is restricted to your service provider, e.g. some of the 8ta/Telkom plans. The PC dashboard also allows you to set the modem to 2G or 3G, either exclusively or preferred.
Note for travelling that the version we buy here (or in Europe) does not include the USA 3G frequencies, so that in the States you would be restricted to 2G, which is a bit of a bummer but fairly standard for our mobile modems unfortunately.
One minor irritation is that when the device does go offline, you have to log in again, with the admin password -- the easiest is to change this to one letter to minimise keystrokes needed. I could not find any way of disabling this.
The device can get fairly warm in use, and the LED icons are minimal to say the least -- but the dashboard (PC or Android) can tell you the state of your battery (replacements available online at a very reasonable price if and when needed), your signal strength and more. Unlike some devices, the E5331 will work happily even when the signal strength meter shows no bars, which is my default situation more than 5 km from my nearest Telkom tower. Despite this I regularly get 7 Mbps speeds or slightly more, despite being in a very rural area 'out in the middle of nowhere'. LTE is of course not covered.
If you're carrying it around a lot, you can buy a generic cellphone pouch for most keyboard smartphones for about R50 or less in your favourite oriental store; it's about the size of a Blackberry or Nokia keypad phone.
If you tether it directly to your computer you don't need the WiFi as it acts as a normal LAN modem.
Good luck and enjoy!!
KhoisanX
Expert Member
It doesn't matter which OS you're using.