ZTE Miracle WiFi 6 AX3000 Pro Review As budget phones and tablets have started to support WiFi 6, an often-ignored device once again gets our attention, that is the router. You might have complained that the internet connection does not reach the speed promised by the provider, and then just called the provider directly to ‘fix’ it and forgot about the router.
Actually, you don’t have to feel so helpless and the truth is not so complicated. Instead, you might just need a new router.
Without investing a lot of money, users can now easily find an advanced router. The ZTE Miracle WiFi-6 AX3000 Pro is a great example. It provides great features that we might only have on some high-end devices, such as dual-band Wi-Fi 6 connection, up to 2976Mbps (theoretical) speed, EasyMesh system, and NFC one-touch connection. For less than a hundred euros, it will bring better connectivity and greater network control via the exclusive phone app or you can even use its Web UI.
ZTE Miracle Router Is Compact & Elegant
The low-key minimalist design of the Miracle router looks stylish and exquisite. The thin and light body comes with dimensions of 250 x 180 x 45 mm and a weight of 430 grams. When unfolding the antennas, the height will be around 190 mm. Unlike other powerful but complexly-designed routers, the white variant of the device blends well into most interior styles. This may also be why it won both, the iF Design Award 2022 and Good Design Award 2021.
The ZTE and NFC logos are at the top and an indicator light is well-arranged on the front. And there are two LAN ports and two WAN/LAN ports on the back, which support dual broadband of two operators to double the speed of the total home internet.
It’s common for high-performance routers to become unstable due to thermal issues. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen on the ZTE router, since you can see a lot of ventilation holes covering the sides and bottom. The reset hole and the information sticker are at the bottom too, which helps easily reset the device or check details like Wi-Fi SSID and default password. For the first connection and setup, you can find the network name and password on the sticker. And before that, make sure you already plug in the power adapter and Ethernet cable, both of which can be found inside the package.
I strongly recommend that you download and install the ZTELink App (available on Android & iOS devices) or Web UI to set up the router further after first connecting to your home internet. In the app or the Web UI, users can check uplink speed and downlink speed, as well as general information of the connected devices.
Every connected device’s connection can be modified. You can set a parent control to it or even block it from the network.
In addition, to setting up the connection, the toolkit integrated into the app also adds some useful features that help better manage the network, such as Guest Wi-Fi, speed test, and Wi-Fi-sleep schedule. In both app and Web-UI management, more advanced settings are supported, including night mode, dynamic IP settings, firewall, and firmware update.
The router is powered by the Qualcomm IPQ5018 routing chip, which is a dual-core 64-bit CPU plus a built-in advanced 12-thread network processor and 256MB of storage.
ZTE Miracle Router Connection Speeds
For connectivity, the Miracle router supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz dual frequencies, and the concurrent wireless access rate theoretically reaches up to 2976Mbps, which is 250% of the rate of Wi-Fi 5 AC1200. 160MHz large bandwidth is also supported to meet the latest connected devices’ largest available bandwidth.
Although as mentioned, the router’s wireless access rate can theoretically reach up to 2404 Mbps (5G) and 574 Mbps (2.4G), most of us do not have access to such fast speed from our providers. Unfortunately, neither can we. Our studio has contracted connection speeds of 500Mbps (download) / 50Mbps (upload). We tested the connection speed of 2.4G and 5G at 1m and 8m from the router, and around 15m through a wall, respectively.
The device we connected and tested is a Huawei P50 Pro.
At the closest point (1m), the 5G Wi-Fi connection’s download speed reached up to 621.6 Mbps and the upload speed was 60.1 Mbps. The 2.4G’s download/upload speeds are 79.3 / 57.1 Mbps.
At 8m from the router, the 5G’s download speed was a bit down to 607.6 Mbps while the upload speed was not significantly affected and remained at 58.7 Mbps. The 2.4G connection was still stable at 70.7 / 53.8 Mbps.
At the position through the wall (15m), the 5G connection had a download speed of 463.4 Mbps and an upload speed of 57.8 Mbps, which still maintained impressive performance with good stability. While the 2.4G signal was a bit more affected. Its download speed was 37.1 Mbps and its upload speed was 18.8 Mbps.
To conclude, we found that the wireless internet speed can maintain a decent level in an area of around 100㎡ and it could drop 5%-40% through walls. According to the tested result, it’s predicted to have good coverage in a house of 120 ㎡ (1291 ft²) if you place it at the right centre position. During the test, there’s no problem when we connected up to 12 devices. As claimed, the number of devices supported is up to 128.
ZTE’s Miracle Router Supports Mesh System
The Miracle router is also an excellent budget option to build a house mesh system. In the Web UI/app, users can find the built-in EasyMesh feature to easily set up the connection among ZTE routers with one click.
The NFC feature is so convenient. As the user can set one of the main SSIDs or the secondary SSID (Guest Wi-Fi) for the NFC one-touch connection, any visitors can touch the router with their phone to build up a connection without a password, while the host doesn’t have to worry about any security issue.
Another great feature is the dual-WAN support. It truly can double the internet speed and make full use of dual broadband. This is only applicable if you’ve installed two broadbands in the house.
While the ZTE Miracle AX3000 Pro WiFi-6 is a budget router, it’s suitable for most households. The AX3000 kit can access the internet at a fast and stable speed with superb bandwidth support. The Mesh support also makes it as expandable as high-end mesh devices, offering wider coverage. If you are interested in improving your house network, you can click here on Amazon to learn more about the on-sale quality router.
