4G on the go

Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam were recently added to the catalog of Indian regions where Airtel has rolled out its new wave of 4G LTE services. And with great speed also comes a great WiFi hotspot router that allows compatible mobile devices latch onto the 4G network and experience superfast 4G speeds. The Airtel 4G Wifi Hotspot- Portable WiFi router.

In the box

Huawei Mobile Wifi (manufactured for Airtel)

Quick Start Guide

1 LAN Cable

Safety instructions

1500maH battery

Build & features

The router looks quite plain with a white plastic body with a giant sized power/ standby button in the centre. Along the power button on either side are indicator lights for battery and network selection (Green for 4G, Yellow for 3G and Red for errors or 2G), et al.

The device is pretty much a no-frills router, and supports 2.4 GHz/5GHz. It has a micro USB port on edge.

Setup & options

It took us 45 seconds to set up the router. Plug in the sim, push in the battery and voila, you have 4G at the go. The setup is simple enough without being anything special.

Performance

This is where the router really begins to shine. The wireless range is excellent. We kept the device in a large six-bedroom house that was originally being served by two dated routers working in conjunction. The 4G router served strong signal in every corner of the house.

The company claimed that it can support upto 10 devices at the same time, we could test upto seven and it worked pretty well.

The speed varies between 8mbps to 16mpbs (the highest we had clocked on 2Wire), and very effortlessly all the devices were managing well.

The wireless performance was excellent and we didn't experience any signal drops or any need to reset the router. And above all, the device gave us a decent back up upto 5 hours, which was just one hour drop from the claimed six hours.

Verdict

The device is mainly aimed at users who are frequent travelers, and mustn’t be your primary internet connection. Though it is a Wi-Fi device one can use the device on desktops without Wireless network adapters by plugging in the device to a USB Port through the supplied USB cable. The device is battery operated, which lasts for about 5-6 hours and usually takes about 4 hours to charge totally.

The device has the ability to confine the network mode to 2G, 3G or LTE. With the hotspot being a battery operated device, this feature can be particularly handy when travelling to regions with no 4G / 3G connectivity in order to stay connected to data and conserve battery as well.

Overall, the Airtel 4G Hotspot is a good to have device if you are a regular traveler and use multiple gadgets. With 4G available at the price of 3G from Airtel, you can certainly invest in this device and take advantage of good speeds.

Price

The device is priced at Rs 2,300 and is available in Hyderabad and Vizag.