I don’t know about you, but for me the internet has become almost as important as electricity. Ok I exaggerate a little but I do feel quite lost if I’m not within range of a sound Wi-Fi signal. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just chuck your modem in a bag so you always had a wireless connection wherever you were?
The Huawei E5830 wireless mobile Wi-Fi router from Three Network allows you to do just that. It is effectively a personal wireless hot spot allowing you to connect multiple devices to your own Wi-Fi connection as long as you can pick up a Three Mobile connection.
The Huawei E5830 is about the size and weight of a very small mobile phone and sends out a Wi-Fi signal allowing your wireless devices to connect to it. Using 3’s network it can give you a top download speed of 2.8 Mbit/s though this is highly variable and I think around 2 Mbit/s is more usual.
Setting up was quite straight forward. The first thing is to unclip the back and insert the battery and SIM card. Once you have done this you must charge the device for around 12 hours. Once charged you can turn the device on and start using it. Turning on is actually a three step process as the device has three power buttons down its side which turn the device on, turn the Wi-Fi signal on and then connect to the internet. It is necessary to hold each button down for two seconds for it to activate and the whole process seems a little long winded. Im still trying to decide if it is really necessary to have three buttons. Once powered up you have your personal, portable Wi-Fi connection to which you can connect your wireless devices in what ever way they usually connect.
The Huawei E5830 has no screen as such but instead has a black window through which five coloured indicators tell you if you have a mobile signal, if you’re currently roaming,if your Wi-Fi is on, if your battery has power and what broadband mode you are currently using. The colour of the lights and whether they are flashing indicate the status of the various components. I find these indicators to be a little inadequate at providing sufficient feedback and they leave me feeling vague about the status of the various parts of the device.
On the whole I really like this device and I think it will prove to be very useful. I connect my Powerbook and iPod Touch without a problem. The only connection issues I have had have been to do with poor reception of the 3 network in my area. It is a good size and works very well. My only slight complaint is to do with the switching on process and the related indicator lights which I still consider to be inadequate and confusing.
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