Huawei E583X Wireless 3G Modem And Wifi Router
The smallest USB 3G modems look like grossly over-sized thumb drives, while the biggest ones sport hinges or fold-out antennas that serve as tripwires for absent-minded businessmen with venti frappuccinos walking by your tiny little coffee shop table. Huawei’s E583X detaches all that bother, acquiring a 3G wireless signal and then beaming it out again as WiFi, meaning you can leave it in your pocket and get a double-dose of microwaves. It sports a 1,500mAh battery, giving it five hours of independent living, and in emergencies it can act as a tethered modem as well. Sadly this first version will only accept a single WiFi connection, but future ones will allow four others to mooch your data plan. That it also blinks randomly like a prop out of Star Trek’s utopian future is just an added bonus. It’s set to light up Europe next month — likely with some hideous contracts attached.
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For the US, this is a good deal: for $40, you get 30 days of unlimited Internet usage with no crcnoatt. Speeds are around 800kbps down and about 180kbps up in my area. That’s not great, but it works fine for most applications. It’s the same speeds you would get on Verizon (for comparison, in many places in Europe, you get nearly 10x the speed for half the price). Configuration is done through a straightforward web interface. The default setting for the MiFi is a secure network with a key printed on the back (this can be changed through the interface). There are some limitations: battery life is nominally only 4h and Internet connectivity in moving vehicles is not all that great. I’ve used this with iPad, iPod Touch, netbooks, and laptops, and it has worked well with all of them.