ZTE H1600 Modem Router Review: Get Full Speed

The ZTE H1600 is off to a great start. At an affordable price. About WiFi6 A modem router with a slim design that can also be placed vertically. All ports are included, NBN connection type is supported and is also offered by Superloop, Exetel and Origin. Internet Speed ​​Test The antenna-free design is also particularly striking.

But then the wheels come off. As an everyday networking device, the H1600 falls woefully short on the WiFi front. Some apps work, some only partially, and some are basically useless. It also suffers from sporadically large lag spikes that ruin latency-sensitive apps. Online games Voice and video calls are awful.

I thought I would like the H1600, but after hours of testing it, I disconnected it and never wanted to use it again.

Here are the NBN 50 plans from providers selling the H1600:

What makes the ZTE H1600 modem router so great?

First of all, the ZTE H1600 Modem RouterIn fact, it can move with you to another address and you don’t have to worry NBN Technology Type It’s compatible so I can connect it to my new home. I tested the H1600 as a router over my FTTC connection and was initially very impressed.

I’m often critical of modem-routers, especially the cheap ones, because while they can act as both a modem and a router, they represent a compromise, and considering the H1600 is small, light and has no external antennas whatsoever, I wasn’t expecting much when I bought it from Exetel for $151. NBN Plan add on.

The main benefits of buying NBN-enabled router, modem router, or mesh WiFi system from NBN Provider It should arrive pre-configured, which in practice means it should be a plug-and-play device, which was the case with the H1600. In terms of physical setup, the H1600 is built to stand vertically, so it doesn’t take up much space.

There are four Gigabit Ethernet ports on the back which, if you’re like me, will come in very handy for your compatible preferred wired devices. only Four, which is unfair as that’s been the standard for a long time – it’s the reason network switches exist. As for the other port, there’s DSL. FTTN and FTTB House, couple Voicemail Options for those looking for home phones, as well as ad-hoc network storage, printer sharing, and even 4G modem dongle.

I had low expectations for the Internet speed test, especially compared to my reliable and powerful Synology RT6600ax router, but the H1600 defy my low expectations. WiFi latency remained stable at less than 3ms throughout the test, even when I was more than 25 meters away across the road. Indeed, download and upload speeds dropped by about 80% and 55%, respectively.

Other tests showed a baseline download speed of 97.75Mbps and an upload speed of 18.97Mbps (Exetel NBN 100/20 plan), with a maximum drop of 5Mbps for downloads and 0.1Mbps for uploads. That’s impressive considering that in an apartment building, where WiFi dead spots are often created by placing network equipment on the edges of the house (which, let’s be honest, shouldn’t be the case). What’s more, the impressive speeds continued through the building’s thick exterior walls to about 13 meters outside the property. If you want to extend your WiFi coverage, the H1600 is mesh-compatible with the ZTE H3601 extender, but I didn’t find it necessary for my home network.

It is very disappointing that after such a strong start, the H1600 failed in further testing.

What I don’t like about the ZTE H1600 modem router

Back to the setup process: This product, while lightweight and highly recommended to be held upright, loses stability once you start plugging in Ethernet cables to wired devices. There were a number of times when it nearly fell over. To be fair, it didn’t fall over during testing, but there were times when it nearly popped out mono.

The plug-and-play setup was a godsend, even though the ZTE H1600 doesn’t appear to be compatible with ZTE’s companion app. Granted, there’s a disclaimer that the H1600 came pre-configured by Exetel and I was connected to an Exetel plan. If you change NBN providers, that may change. That said, in my experience with the H1600, it reconnected reliably automatically, even after multiple power cycles (powering it off and on again) and after a factory reset.

Speaking of factory resets, the Exetel-branded pamphlet that came with the unit advised against doing a factory reset, but when I contacted Exetel technical support, I was ultimately advised to ignore that warning. It’s worth noting that if you use a router or modem router from your NBN provider, you’ll get a more detailed level of support; in my case, Exetel technical support was able to remotely access my H1600 and make administrator-level tweaks.

This is a good thing, because the H1600’s web portal is a nightmare to navigate. By way of background, I’ve been comfortable working with GUIs on numerous network devices over the years, some better than others. The H1600 is the worst I’ve ever come across. Another issue was that the H1600 I bought from Exetel came with low-level user login information rather than the admin-level credentials I’m used to. Even so, some basic settings were hidden in odd places, with obscure text that sometimes required a Google search to find someone explaining what they meant.

But the reason I ended up talking to Exetel tech support over multiple emails and phone calls was because of WiFi issues I’d never experienced before. Ethernet was perfectly fine. But when I tested multiple smartphones, tabletWhile using Steam Deck, I noticed inconsistent WiFi performance. Some features worked fine while others had errors. On my phone, GIFs wouldn’t load and images wouldn’t send. On my tablet, some streaming services were very slow to load or the content library would fail to load.

Once I switched back to my regular router the problem went away immediately. VPN Server It turned out to be a workaround (on an easily supportable device). Eventually, one of Exetel’s tech support guys solved the issue by tweaking the IPv6 settings and changing the default DNS setting to a Cloudflare option (the latter step had been tried previously without success). If the second part of that last sentence was confusing, it highlights the main issue with the H1600: troubleshooting intermittent WiFi connectivity is an absolute pain, especially if you’re not good at digging through device settings.

The relatively quick solution was possible because we were able to isolate the problem. Modern networking equipment is designed to be set-it-and-forget-it. More importantly, most modern devices that connect to routers, modem-routers, and mesh systems are WiFi only. This poses a major concern for the ease of use of the H1600.

After that issue was fixed, I had more problems with latency testing. When using an app like Ookla Speedtest to find a latency score, it only gives you a snapshot score, which is useful but not necessarily an accurate representation of everyday use. A better way to test is online gaming and voice or video calling, both of which are real-time tasks that are very sensitive to latency changes. I ran multiple online games over the course of several days (on a PC with an ethernet connection) while simultaneously voice chatting on Discord and experienced lag spikes, distorted calls, and VoIP dropouts. These latency issues combined with my previous WiFi issues made me completely unable to stand the H1600.

ZTE H1600 Modem Router – Final Thoughts

The ZTE H1600 is a pocket-sized, rocket-shaped modem-router that had a spectacular launch, but then exploded shortly after launch. It’s a lightweight modem-router whose vertical stand means it takes up a fraction of the space of its horizontal counterparts, and our internet speed tests gave us a promising snapshot of coverage throughout our apartment, even at a typically problematic WiFi spot.

But ultimately, WiFi consistency was a major concern and required Exetel intervention to fix. This, combined with the instability during real-time latency testing, means I can’t recommend the H1600. Sure, it’s possible the latency issues could be fixed, or that I received a defective unit, but I found other reports of similar WiFi issues online, which helped streamline troubleshooting with Exetel. Still, I can only reflect on my experience, and in reality, I have no intention of ever connecting the H1600 to my modem again.