Medion Life E5005 (MD-60168)

[Brainwar]

Received a Medion Life E5005 (MD-60168) smartphone as Christmas gift. Lovely phone!

I look inside the back, under the cover, beside the battery and the SIM slots there appear to be two user-accessible coaxial microwave frequency connectors which are not blanked off.

Are these just manufacturers test points, or are they antenna connectors that can be used to attach external antennas?

If they are antenna connectors, what are they for? 3G, 4G, 4G MIMO, WiFi, FM radio antenna etc?

I have a rooftop LTE antenna which currently terminates in two SMA connectors and feeds a Huawei B593 mobile 4G router - I can get useable broadband with this setup but no internet access in my location without the rooftop antenna. If the facility is available I'd like to try replacing the SMA connectors with ones suitable for the connectors on the E5005.

Is this a workable plan or, are the E5005 connectors just test points / just for WiFi or FM / otherwise unsuitable for connecting external LTE antennas?

Thanks for any info 

[Brainwar]

Thanks to member cxb1 who wrote in another recent thread "firmware":

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These smartphones aren't made by Medion directly. I have a Medion Life E5005, but when I load AIDA64, from the playstore, this reports that the device is made by Lenovo, model B5060, with Mediatek mt6735 hardware (quad ARM A53). By going to the Lenoveshop site, I can see the equivalent Lenovo B model (not the same screen however, but the rest seems the same). 

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Maybe this is helpful wrt my question above.

[Bodgekin]

Hi @Brainwar, 

Could you perhaps make a picture of those connectors and add them in a reply? 

[Brainwar]

  Sorry - best I could do with webcam and a magnifying glass

[Brainwar]

Here is a similar port, on a different phone - in this instance it's definitely not an external antenna connector:

http://www.mydigitallife.us/2008/05/verizon-samsung.html

Once, I looked very carefully at similar ports on other phones, and found them to be isolating test points attached to the phone's internal antenna. With nothing attached to the port, the phone's antenna was connected straight through the port itself, to the phone's receiver circuitry. If a probe were inserted into the hole in the port, then the antenna would be disconnected from the phone, and connected instead to whatever was on the other end of the probe.

So.. what are these, on the back of the E5005... useable connectors, or just test points. This is the question.

I do suspect they're just test points, but I really hope they're not. I don't want to mess with them until I know for sure what they are though, because if you mess with those test port things, then you can easily destroy the phone by making the connection between antenna and receiver unreliable.

[Brainwar]

... and here is a page that suggests sometimes, ports similar to these actually can be ok to use for external antenna connection:

https://telcoantennas.com.au/site/patch-lead-samsung-galaxy-s4

paraphrased quote - "...these are auxiliary ports, not switching ports, the internal antenna will remain connected..."

so just a case of trying to find out the E5005 ports true nature..

[Bodgekin]

Hi @Brainwar, 

I want to start of with saying that I have no experience whatsoever with external antenna's on smartphones, but I looked into it a bit out of curiousity. 

As I see it, all the antenna leads on the site you linked seem to be model specific, and the link with the samsung suggests that the same type of port could be used as a testport or as an external antenna connection. I think there is no way of knowing for sure just by looking at how the port looks, there does not seem to be any kind of standard for an external antenna.Perhaps there is some information on the circuitboard describing its function, but for that you'd have to disassemble the phone, which might void your warranty, so I dont know if that's a smart idea :P. 

I have not been able to find any leads for the E5005 or for the lenovo B5060 (which is also named a Lenovo vibe K5?), my guess is also that it is a testport. 

[Brainwar]

Thanks for taking the time to have a look, appreciated 🙂

If it was an old secondhand phone I'd be straight in there with the soldering iron etc but yes - don't want to wreck a lovely new phone.

I'm not sure I even trust the info on any of these third party antenna sellers sites.. I guess if I can get any info straight from the Lenovo 'horses mouth' that'd be good enough. I did find a line somewhere on Medion's main site that confirms they actually are part of Lenovo.

I guess I'd need the exact part number of those connectors even if they're not excIusively just test ports; might email their tech support.

[BennVb]

It is not phone that's causing the problem, but the problem is with poor signal connectivity. If you need to have improved 4G signal then you should use a 4G signal booster that will enhance your signal strength and then you can use high speed 4G data on your phone.