I received a note today from Elecevolve, the manufacturer of the MLite-880, offering a review unit. Nearly all the radios I review are ones I purchase outright, but this will be one of those rare exception.
The MLite-880 was not on my buy list for a couple of reasons. I was little put off by its appearance and particularly the black and white screen, where color is the norm for SDRs. I had decided that if I were going to pursue the portable SDR genre, then I wouldn’t compromise and get a top-of-the line Mahahit DSP4 when they came available (rather than the discontinued DSP2, DSP3, whatever Deepelec may come up with someday, or a clone).
The portable SDR market, from where I sit, seems a mess. First there are clones that take shortcuts, units that can’t get firmware updates, and devices with big overload problems. There are prices that vary all over the map. I bought a bottom-of-the-pile “DSP digital radio SDR V6” clone with all those problems except the insane price (SDR V6 – The Good, the Bad and the Review); I mostly ignore it.
The MLite-880 avoids some of those issues. It’s not a clone, and indeed there are purchase links to it on the Malahiteam website itself, and it has a price (4/7/2026) of $180 plus shipping, which at first blush seems reasonable. I won’t be worried about firmware updates since it’s not a clone.
Highlights
The full feature list is long. Frequencies covered are LW starting at 130 kHz, all the international FM broadcast ranges, MW and SW topping at 30 MHz. There is also VHF from 118 MHz-148 MHz including AIR band. It demodulates SSB, CW, NFM, WFM and AM. It has synchronous tuning. FM RDS is included. One promising feature, standard fare for an SDR, is digital noise reduction. It uses a 21700 battery (same as a Tesla).
The radio has an SD card slot and can record to the card. It also has a feature that I do not ever recall encountering in a radio before: Bluetooth output.
There are two nice things about antennas. First, it has a built in telescopic antenna that’s a boon for portable operation. The second is the capability to power an external antenna such as the MLA-30+ without having to carry around a separate Biasing T and power supply.
Independent Review
Reviewing free stuff is tricky. It’s easy to say that the review is independent and unbiased. I’ll only say true stuff, but when someone provides a product, I think that entitles them more attention to detail. I’m making fewer videos these days, but the MLite-880 will probably get more video.
Certainly when I get the Malahit DSP4, there will be some serious comparisons between it, the MLite-880 and my SDR V6 clone.
It should be fun.
While you’re waiting, there are some YouTube videos on the MLite-880 on the OfficialSWLChannel, and there is a manual!