When I’ve heard the first time that our friends in the US got to play with a new Wireless Mobile Broadband device, I thought that it was a great advancement in mobile broadband arena. Because not only that we can connect to the Internet anywhere, but also we don’t really need our laptop anymore. Suddenly all our Internet ready gadgets (but which lack of USB connection) would magically gain access to the cyberspace, this includes most Smartphones, iPod Touch, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and many more. The only thing was that, like many other new tech, it only available in the US … bummer!
So, imagine my surprise when a few months later I saw a similar device, called the MiFi, advertised on the window of my local 3 Mobile’s Store. But the best thing was when I got contacted by 3 asking if I could review this MiFi :)
Now, I had helped 3 to review some of their handsets before, but this time they had different approach in trying to get a better feedback from reviewers. Previously they would just send the unit to the reviewer, whom would keep the unit for a couple of weeks, and send it back when the trial finishes.
This time, we were being sent personally to our local highstreet stores, to try to get one while pretending to be a genuine customer (AKA mistery buyer). Each of us designated to complete a list of tasks that we needed to do during the buying process, e.g. they would like to know how we had been treated in the store and how knowledgable the staff were. Also, instead of being able to keep the unit for a couple of weeks, this time we could keep it for a couple of months. Which means we had more time to experience the device in a more thourough way. Lastly , the feedback session which used to be done only once toward the end of the trial, was done in several stages. This potentially gave more details picture in how each reviewer ‘live’ through the experience of the device.
I must say it has been a very interesting experience being involved in this project, not just for the reviewer, but more importantly for 3 themselves in term of being able to get a more complete picture of how a product works in a real-life situation. I’d like to thank 3 and 3MobileBuzz for the opportunity.
Now, of course, just like every other things, every person (reviewer) had experienced different things, and this was also true with MiFi which, you might’ve realised, is so dependent on the environment where you are using it.
So, here are my own experience, the good, the bad and the ugly ones :)
What is MiFi?
Before that though, let’s talk about what MiFi really is about:
If you were a Mobile Broadband veteran, you would’ve remembered the days before the 3G USB Stick became the default form-factor. It’s when all Mobile Broadband devices look like the following picture below.
I believe they were all produced by the same company, HUAWEI.
What about the MiFi? Well, surprise .. surprise, it also built by the same company. As a matter of fact, it’s the Huawei E5830 Wireless Modem, according to 3′s website.
To operate the MiFi so that you can use it to connect your other wireless devices to the internet, you need go through stages of button kungfu :)
Working from the bottom up, we need to press the first button to turn the MiFi on, this will light the battery indicators showing how much power you have left, and another light that shows how much 3G network coverage you have. Then pressing the second button will actually connect you to the 3G network. When the ‘connected’ light goes Green (yet another indicator), you can press the third button to activate the Wireless functionality. When the MiFi is ready to accept wireless connection, still another indicator should go Blue.
All these steps are all explained in the manual by the way :D
Connecting your wireless devices to MiFi is just as easy as finding the MiFi‘s SSID, connect to it and type the Wifi password (which is written on a small sticker paper on the manual).
You can see more or less how it feels like. Now, let’s see how it went with me.
The Good
Well the good news is, it worked exactly like what it said on the tin :) It connected to the mobile 3G network, and immediately after that it was able to start receiving connection from other Wireless Devices. I’ve tried it with 2 laptops and 2 mobiles, and it worked fine.
The unit has quite a small form factor that I could just put it in my pocket, forget that it’s there, and carry on surfing on my other gadget.
The Bad
Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are a few things that can be improved.
- Baterry Life sucks
You would’ve thought that for a specialised device like this, which only has one function, you would get a good battery life out of it. At least, if I compare it to my mobile phone, it should be the same.
But for some reason, I could never squeezed in more than 4 hours out of it, even when I was not doing anything with it.
It’s either it doesn’t have a good battery, or it’s just doesn’t have a good power management.
Talking to 3, they said that this will be fixed on the next firmware update.
- Too many button, too many indicator lights
There are 3 buttons and 5 different lights on this device which essentially has one and one purpose only … to provide wireless internet access. Why do we need these many buttons and lights?
While I can appreciate the designer’s good intention to make the device to be feedback-friendly, sometimes (and this is that time) the simplest one is the better.
In my opinion, all of these can be simplified into one on-off button, and maximum 2 indicator lights, one for battery indicator, the other to tell the avaibility of Internet Connection.
On the last feedback session with 3, all of the reviewers more or less had similar feeling on this matter.
3 themselves had actually acknowledged this problem and revealed that they had been working on a better solution for the next iteration (so there ‘will’ be a new version).
- The companion software was far from user-friendly, it looked very ‘raw’ as if it were made only for techie person. Even I found it quite confusing as there is no clear description on what is which.
Unfortunately, this is the only way to ‘change’ the Wifi Password that came with the device.
Again, 3 said that they were working on a better version.
- No companion software for Mac!
Why I was not surprised :) So, basically if you have a Mac, you are stuck with whatever password that the device came.
Mind you, I dealt with Huawei dongle before and I had to a long way to be able to use it with my Mac. Again, I wasn’t too surprised.
The good thing is, 3′s new version of the software is supposed to be a web-based, so technically it should work with any platform.
- The buttons were in the wrong side.
This was my personal grudge, and many people might not have agreed or even cared to notice. My problem was that the buttons were positioned on the right hand of side of the device. So, imagine if you are holding it with your right hand, you would need to curve your thumb pretty low (or down?) to reach the first button from the bottom. It was just too annoying for me that I gave up and either used my left-hand (using my other fingers to push the buttons) or just hold it with my two hands. Better that than RSI :)
This is why I said above that 3 buttons were just too many, if it had been just one, I might have been willing to tolerate it.
The Ugly
If you think the above problems were bad, try this one, what’s the worst thing that can happen for a device like this?
The worst thing is when the device doesn’t work! No, it’s not because the hardware was faulty, nor the software was buggy. It’s simply because we didn’t get any Network Coverage! Which basically rendered the MiFi as useful as a car with no petrol (or gas if you like).
I could live with the lack of juice or the myriad of buttons and lights, or the lack of Mac Software, but if the thing doesn’t connect to the Internet, it just became a nice paperweight with lights for me.
The good news is, this problem is exactly what 3 is working on at the moment as priority, according to what the CEO told us on their press release.
So, gradually we should see improvement on the Network coverage.
Final Thoughts
It’s been great to use the MiFi for this couple of months, though I had my ups and downs with it.
My recommendation is, if you can wait for the next hardware version, I suggest you do.
If you really need mobile broadband now, there are other options, such as the standard USB dongle, or if you are sure you will always get coverage, there is nothing to stop you to get it.
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