Huawei E355 Mobile Wi-Fi datacard review: Complete Hands-on

Packaging

There’s not much to say about the packaging really – pretty standard cardboard pouch.

Hardware

The E355 Mi-Fi has a big body that can sometimes become sort of an obstruction especially when you’re connecting multiple peripherals and the ports are not very far apart. This can often happen on a 13-inch body. The body is matte plastic and good to hold. You can slide open one whole side to insert the SIM and microSD card. Yes, this guy also acts as a pen-drive.

We like that the E355 has an eyelet which we’ve been missing on so many USB network dongles.

Usability

Setting up is pretty easy. The moment you connect it to the PC via the USB interface, the auto-run will take you through the set-up process.

You can use the Mi-Fi as your 3G dongle a d at the same time it acts as a Wi-Fi hotspot. Up to 5 users can connect to the hotspot. Look for the Wi-Fi key just below the SIM card slot.

You’ll immediately get the Wi-Fi hotspot ready to connect to. The account page will let you know the connection status and no. of folks connected to the Wi-Fi.

Salient features

3G+Wi-Fi

Use it as a 3G dongle on your system but other folks can connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot it creates meanwhile.

Independent Wi-Fi hotspot

Don’t have a laptop? Don’t have a USB port to be precise? No problems – insert it to your USB power adapter and connect it to your power-source and it creates a Wi-Fi hotspot anyway provided you have the 3G SIM inside.

Performance

Speed

The speed depends on your data speed really but it gives you a fair percentage of that speed. My 3G connection that gives about 4.5mbps on HSPA+ gives out close to 3.6mbps.

Although up to 5 people can connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot but it drastically and expectedly slows down the speed, especially while you’re moving.