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Here at Blackberry Centre, our users are real users that use their Blackberries everyday.

We don’t just review for the sake of it, we actually put the devices through their stride.

The Huawei E5830 (also known as the MiFi ) is currently only provided and locked by the Three network in the UK. This is effectively a wireless USB 3G modem dongle/router. It allows up to 5 computers to connect via the single 3G connection wirelessly through WiFi as it creates it’s own internet hotspot.

The MiFi works well when there is good signal however, there are quite a few gripes with this mobile router.

For starters, there are three buttons on the side to get you connected. The power button, the connect button and finally the WiFi button. All buttons must be pressed in sequence in order to get started. Why can’t they just make it do all this automatically?

Then, there is the LED display. Single lights depict the status of the modem, but the LED’s are far from informative. The battery LED will either show there is charge or if the battery is dead so you don’t know when to recharge the battery until it is totally dead. The signal LED does not show signal strength, just whether it is connected or not.

The modem will not charge whilst you are using it, so you must have it switched totally off if you want to charge the battery which itself takes an eternity to charge. However, if you use it as a single USB modem, then you are able to do so even if the battery is dead.

Pro’s

• When it works, it is very good
• Relatively easy to setup through software
• Connection speeds are quite fast

Con’s

• Cumbersome startup process
• Useless LED display
• Cannot charge battery whilst operating

On the whole, I was pretty impressed with the MiFi. Once you get the modem connected to the broadband signal, everything works quite well. Annoying things like the problems with the battery charging and the un-informative display do let it down though.

All in all, a very good device and the three connection speeds ( in London ) are pretty impressive too. Is some parts, even better than my Vodafone 3G connection.

Three MiFi Huawei E5830 Review