Huawei E5 Wi-Fi/3G modem
Better known as the 3 MiFi
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery
Review Huawei's E5 is one of a growing line of compact, standalone HSDPA 3G modems that double-up as impromptu Wi-Fi hotspots. You may have heard of it as 3's MiFi.
Rather than hook the E5 up to a single device - your laptop, typically - the built-in access point means you can share its 3G link among all your gadgets: phones, tablets and so on. That said, the E5 can also connect directly to a computer and operate as a typical 3G dongle.
Huawei's E5: no bigger than an old-style 3G dongle, but with a Wi-Fi router on board
Don't have any other Wi-Fi devices? Then just treat the E5 as a dongle you don't need to plug in. Or even take out of your bag.
The Wi-Fi support is limited to 802.11b/g, but then most small mobile devices don't have 802.11n either, so this is perhaps no great loss. The E5's 3G radio operates in both the 900MHz and 2100MHz UMTS bands, and it has quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge support too should find yourself too far from a 3G basestation.
When you are in range, the device will support upload speeds to 5.76Mb/s and download speeds of up to 7.2Mb/s. These are theoretical maxima, so you won't get them in the real world, even if the network you're using supports them.
And, of course, you don't mind paying inflated data-roaming rates when you're traveling beyond your national borders.
USB or battery powered
The E5 is powered by its own, removable lithium-ion battery, charged over USB. A computer's USB port will do, as will any suitable AC adaptor, though you don't get one in the box, just a short cable.
COMMENTS
Use Joikuspot on wifi-enabled phone
This seems to work well although it is WEP only - not really an issue for the way I use it (short sessions out & about).
i can use my ipod touch for decent browsing etc and have a proper phone with real qwerty keyboard (E71).
Request for clarification
You talk about setting up a WPA key, then you refer to the wifi network as ad-hoc. These two statements are incompatible - the only kind of WPA you'll get on ad-hoc, to the best of my knowledge, is what they call WPA-NONE. I forget the details but this is not much better than WEP in its level of security.
Why in the world should a device like this be ad-hoc? It's a dreadful nuisance, many wifi cards have rotten support for it on Linux (sad to see you didn't bother discussing Linux support, but no big surprise) and it limits the strength of security that can be used. If it's managing all the outbound connections it should be operating in master mode like a proper AP, end of story.
Go 3UK unlock and save!
Rather than pay £180 for a E5, get 3uk one on PAYG and go to one of the unlockers or on EBay buy one ready unlocked for about £70.
But it's a nice unit - mine is now on Vodafone
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