Originally Posted by
fredl
I have a Huawei e585. It is "3" branded buth Zibri unlocked it for me (via the Internet) for $5. I works quite alright as long as the cell site isn't too congested. The limit of 5 devices is quite a bother some times when people have ipods, ipads and laptops. It is very easy to reach that limit.
If you need a very portable solution I can recommend the Huawei MiFi routers, they can also work as a dongle with a micro usb cable. At home I use an Asus router which has a USB port which works with a 3g modem. That solution doesn't have the same limitation as the MiFi routers but it requires an electrical hookup.
I ordered one on eBay for about $120 shipped from Hong Kong. Looks like a number of sellers have bought them up and then unlocked it and are selling it on eBay, some in the UK and many in the Far East.
The Mifis look nicer and there is also an E5 Huawei model which someone said has 5 hours of battery life instead of 4 hours but it's over $150 before shipping and the Novatels are closer to $250.
I did see this video comparing the Novatel with an older Huawei:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrZD-UxJIR0
Looks like the Huawei has some more latency, slower to load web pages.
Oh well, for the price difference, it's worth a shot. If I couldn't find anything under $200, I would have looked at getting an unlocked Android or Nokia phone to run hotspot software instead. For that kind of money, it needs to do more than be a 3G to Wifi router.