David Emery OnlineOf 3G iPads and MiFis
4 June 2010
Today I asserted on Twitter that a 3G iPad is far superior to a WiFi iPad paired with a MiFi device. To save myself answering the "why do you say that" question twenty times, here's the tl;dr version.
I disagree with Fraser on this – I’m incredibly happy with the combination of my WiFi iPad and a 3 MiFi. I think a lot of the problems he’s encountering are down to being in a poor signal area; for example, he says he gets around 2 hours battery life whereas I’ve used mine for 6 hours without it running out.
I’ve also been very impressed by the speed of it as well; maybe I’ve been dulled by the combination of O2’s poor coverage but I’ve always assumed that mobile broadband could never approach the speed of fixed broadband; the MiFi proves this is not the case. For normal browsing, it’s pretty indistinguishable from a normal connection, which is pretty amazing I think.
Sure, he’s right in that you do have to take a little bit of time to turn it on, but when I’m out and about I’ve just left it on without any problems so it’s not much of a big deal.
In short, I’m very happy with the £50 I saved going the MiFi route rather then then built in 3G route.
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