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Huawei E585 Wireless Modem
by Jcm222
INTRODUCTION
I used to have a traditional USB dongle from 3 to connect up to the internet while travelling. As a loyal mobile phone customer, they offered me a deal where I could switch over onto this wireless modem very easily. I jumped at the chance, because I have lots of devices (iPad, iPhone, and laptop) which I need to ... get access to the internet on.
WHAT IS IT?
Three UK have a service called MiFi which is part of your mobile broadband contract. With this product, you can set up your own personal WiFi Hotspot. Now recently there have been more and more public hotspots, but when I bought this there weren't as many in my area. You can connect five devices up to it, so is also suitable for going out with the family.
DESIGN
The item is about the size of a credit card and is only a centimetre or so thick. Mine is in an obsidian black colour, but I believe white is available also. The device is very simple with a slot for your SIM card as well as an LED Display on the top. The display is extremely useful as it tells you if there is signal, what level of battery is left in the unit (it can be mains powered too) and how long you have been online, including the data usage you have incurred.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
You place your Micro SIM card which you receive as part of your mobile internet contract into the device and this gives you the access to the network. Coverage is also very good with 3.
You can charge up your Modem and then carry it around without the need to have any bulky leads or chargers with you. The full charge gives around 5 hours usage when two devices are connected, and then battery life decreases as the number of devices increases. (Inversely proportional for the mathematicians out there!!)
To access the internet, you go about the normal procedure of connecting to a network. On the back of the modem the name of your network and the password is printed. Quite honestly, it couldn't be easier!
COSTS / CONCLUSION
The router can be purchased on a pay as you go basis for around £80, and then you pay a particular rate for access. Alternatively you can get Pay Monthly deals where the modem is either free or has a nominal cost. For me, on a loyalty deal, I get 5GB data per month for £15, where the modem was free.
I think it is a great device, and considering it costs just a few pounds more that the USB Standard dongle, it definitely is worth it, because you can connect multiple devices.
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Huawei E585 Wireless Modem
by alexandjef
I picked this up a couple of years ago, free on a 18 month contract from 3 (only £7pm for 1gb of data), a couple of years ago when I was a heavy iPad user.
I had a WiFi only iPad and I found the fact I had to hunt for a WiFi connection - ideally a free one, a bit of a chore after a while. It seems like when you don't want to ... find a connection all your device will do its try and connect to 100 WiFi spots at once, but when you do need one they are impossible to fine.
I found out about this simply by seeing it in the window of a local 3 shop, went in asked some questions and it seemed like the product I was looking for - and it was. It never left my side as long as either my iPhone or iPad were with my.
This product works in a really simple way - it creates a WiFi hotspot around the device and upto a reasonable distance - 20-30 feet, and upto 5 devices can connect to the device and take advantage of connectivity. Its stated that it is capable of reaching speeds of upto 7.2mps, but you will never get this - your more likely looking at 50-100kps, occasional more if you are lucky. Security wise, to connect a device to the hotspot you must enter the passcode which is printed on the inside of the back cover of the unit. Its really easy to open, unlike lots of smartphones these days that require a lot of patience and fiddling around to get the battery cover off.
As I mentioned, the speeds this thing are capable of are not what you would get on your home broadband - but I found them adequate. I used the device mainly for enabling me to listen to online radio and watch Youtube clips when I was out and about and it handled this fine. I very rarely lost connection and everything I wanted to play played pretty smooth - the occasional buffering that you would expect but nothing too frustrating.
The one real flaw of the device is rather than have a brilliant battery life, its is only fairly average - at around 5 hours when being used and about 24 hours of standby. Now, 5 hours might seem like more than enough time connected to the internet - but as I was streaming internet radio on it whilst working 10-12 hour shifts I needed to ensure it was plugged in at all times. On the odd occasion I needed it on the move, for train journey etc - it usually proved sufficient but I was always keeping an eye on the battery level. I think the problem here is that it has a smaller life than the devices your using it with - smartphones or iPads - that can go much longer without charge.
A hand feature of the device is that it has a small screen on the front that shows how much data it has used since it has been switched on (as well as battery life, how many devices are connected and its connectivity status) so if you are concerned about exceeding your allowance you can keep an eye on it. The unit is charged by a mini USB charger, similar to most smart phones these day - which to my mind is great - I found that most of my phones and devices have either had mini USB or Apple Chargers meaning there is always an abundance around the house.
Its a durable, small (pocket sized) device - I dropped it many times and its still fine, and you can easily store it on your person when out an about, with it emitting a signal. It doesn't need to be set on a table or anything.
I would reccoemnd this to iPad users who don't have 3g iPads, but also people who are heavy mobile data users. Its a more cost effects way to consume data (I now pay £7 for a gig, but I was paying £17 for 15g) and its generally faster than the 3g most smartphones come with. Its a product that I have got a lot more use from than I expected and has come in much more handier than I thought it would
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Huawei E220
by katykicker
For a couple of years when I first met my husband he did not have a fixed internet connection and then we both ended up using wireless 'dongles' to keep in touch when away on business courses and other things that kept us away from home.
When the first package was taking out we had to pay around £40 for the modem and then be ... tied in to a contact for a year before being able to cancel. The Huawei dongle was the one that we were first provided with and ended up being the one that we used for several years, on and off, and have only stopped using very recently, in the past few weeks, and this was only because of moving on to using a mobile phone as a tethered device while on the move.
Using this modem has been very simple, all we had to do was plug this in to the USB port and we had a flexible clear and metal coloured wire that run from the modem to the computer. Our speeds usually ran at around 4mps but this was dependant on where in the country we were using this modem as well as the time of day that we were using it and we have found up to 6mps when I was working away up North for a few weeks last year.
This has been very simple to use and there is just a little slot that you put the sim card in, we never needed to take ours out, and the only part that ever needed replacing was the wire which became a little more difficult to work with over time and we found that we had to sit holding it a particular way to keep a strong signal. The signal can be seen by the sometimes flashing green light that turns blue when the signal is strong & connected.
The on screen console that we used to run this was also very easy to use and it was possible to receive text messages on this. This was a feature that we only utilised on two occasions, both times when one of us did not have a mobile phone with us and needed to get an important message to each other and we haven't used this feature for about 2 years now either.
Overall this modem worked well for us. Back in 2009 I used just this modem to access the internet for around 6 months and it worked well, particularly when I was reading/rating/commenting on reviews and it was only once, sometimes twice a day, that the connection would dip out but it would reconnect quickly enough. For a mobile device this worked quite well and we have definitely had our use from it!
We used to have a 3GB £15.00 per month package from the mobile network Three and we only cancelled this contract and switched to pay as you go back in 2011 once we got BT installed in our home. We continued to use this for another year before cancelling it entirely and in this time we have always been happy with the quality of this modem, its connection speed and the service in general. A few times they were 'upgrading' the service but this barely affected us at all and we were always warned well in advance if this was going to happen.
It appears that these are not widely available any more but if you could pick one up second hand for a few quid I would certainly recommend it.
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