Ding dong, the days of fiddly in-car Wi-Fi are dead. No more draining your smartphone’s data by turning it into an in-car hotspot, no more Wi-Fi hotspots insecurely placed in cars waiting to become a missile in the event of quick braking.
Telstra has come to the rescue like a superhero with its latest marvel – a diminutive Prepaid 4GX Car Wi-Fi hotspot that is larger than any ant, man, but infinitely smaller than a portable phone exchange.
Ok, so my superhero tie-in isn’t going as well as you’d expect from a certain cinematic universe franchise, especially as I watched Marvel’s latest movie last night at the cinema, but this is one nice little device.
Billed as being ‘the perfect travel tech companion for road trips or weekends away’, it either plugs into your car’s USB slot for power, or comes with a 12 volt cigarette-lighter-adapter shaped plug that, like you’ve seen for other in-car chargers, gives you the USB power socket you need to power up the prepaid Wi-Fi wonder.
You can share the Wi-Fi connection with up to 5 devices, so unless you’ve got more kids than your average car will fit or each person in a 5 seater car is trying to connect multiple devices at the same time, 5 Wi-Fi devices should be more than enough for most family road trip situations.
If you plug it into a PC or Mac, you can augment its inbuilt microSD card slot with a microSD card up to 32GB in size – so it can be transformed into a USB storage device if needed, as well.
Naturally, as one of Telstra’s latest and greatest, it’s a 4GX-class device, although only capable of still blazing fast Cat 4 speeds rather than the even faster Cat 6 4GX speeds that some smartphones and 4GX hotspots are capable of.
Telstra’s GM of Emerging Mobile Devices, Nick Broomfield, talked up the device’s reliability and car friendliness on those road trips, and said: “With coverage across more than 2.4 million square kilometres of land, this product will help Aussies connect to the Telstra Mobile network in more places when they’re travelling.
Telstra has come to the rescue like a superhero with its latest marvel – a diminutive Prepaid 4GX Car Wi-Fi hotspot that is larger than any ant, man, but infinitely smaller than a portable phone exchange.
Ok, so my superhero tie-in isn’t going as well as you’d expect from a certain cinematic universe franchise, especially as I watched Marvel’s latest movie last night at the cinema, but this is one nice little device.
Billed as being ‘the perfect travel tech companion for road trips or weekends away’, it either plugs into your car’s USB slot for power, or comes with a 12 volt cigarette-lighter-adapter shaped plug that, like you’ve seen for other in-car chargers, gives you the USB power socket you need to power up the prepaid Wi-Fi wonder.
You can share the Wi-Fi connection with up to 5 devices, so unless you’ve got more kids than your average car will fit or each person in a 5 seater car is trying to connect multiple devices at the same time, 5 Wi-Fi devices should be more than enough for most family road trip situations.
If you plug it into a PC or Mac, you can augment its inbuilt microSD card slot with a microSD card up to 32GB in size – so it can be transformed into a USB storage device if needed, as well.
Naturally, as one of Telstra’s latest and greatest, it’s a 4GX-class device, although only capable of still blazing fast Cat 4 speeds rather than the even faster Cat 6 4GX speeds that some smartphones and 4GX hotspots are capable of.
Telstra’s GM of Emerging Mobile Devices, Nick Broomfield, talked up the device’s reliability and car friendliness on those road trips, and said: “With coverage across more than 2.4 million square kilometres of land, this product will help Aussies connect to the Telstra Mobile network in more places when they’re travelling.
"And because it moves so easily from car to home, it’s ideal for families, weekend adventurers and business travellers as well.”
You can use this 4GX hotspot in homes and offices too, with Telstra noting how, ‘unlike other car Wi-Fi products’, Telstra’s 4GX Car hotspot ‘also comes with an AC wall charger, so it’s perfect for every leg of the journey in Australia turning a holiday house or hotel room in to a Wi-Fi hotspot too.’
In the packaging is also a USB extension cable making it easier to plug into fiddlier USB spot locations or when you have other things charging in tight places, and comes with indicator lights so customers ‘know when it’s time to recharge’.
This appears to mean recharging the device with more pre-paid data, as it doesn’t have a battery that you charge up with power, although as it plugs into USB, there’s presumably nothing stopping you from using one of those portable USB power packs to convert it into a battery powered Wi-Fi hotspot.
Available for $79 in store, it comes with 3GB data preloaded to use over 30 days.
You can use this 4GX hotspot in homes and offices too, with Telstra noting how, ‘unlike other car Wi-Fi products’, Telstra’s 4GX Car hotspot ‘also comes with an AC wall charger, so it’s perfect for every leg of the journey in Australia turning a holiday house or hotel room in to a Wi-Fi hotspot too.’
In the packaging is also a USB extension cable making it easier to plug into fiddlier USB spot locations or when you have other things charging in tight places, and comes with indicator lights so customers ‘know when it’s time to recharge’.
This appears to mean recharging the device with more pre-paid data, as it doesn’t have a battery that you charge up with power, although as it plugs into USB, there’s presumably nothing stopping you from using one of those portable USB power packs to convert it into a battery powered Wi-Fi hotspot.
Available for $79 in store, it comes with 3GB data preloaded to use over 30 days.
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Meanwhile, Telstra’s more affordable prepaid data recharge rates apply, giving you data amounts that you can optionally take up to one or even two years to use – details here and in this previous iTWire article.
While Telstra’s 4GX network coverage range is truly vast and bigger than any of its competitors, it isn’t available everywhere.
That said, it’s likely to be virtually everywhere you need it to be, but if you want to check, you can see 4GX and other Telstra 3G coverage details here.
Note – the device doesn’t appear to be 2G compatible going by the specs, so no EDGE or GPRS capability in truly remote locations, which if you were undertaking with your family would presumably be one heck of a road trip you’d want to be a lot more prepared for.
Here’s Telstra list of features and specs per the hotspot’s website:
Features
While Telstra’s 4GX network coverage range is truly vast and bigger than any of its competitors, it isn’t available everywhere.
That said, it’s likely to be virtually everywhere you need it to be, but if you want to check, you can see 4GX and other Telstra 3G coverage details here.
Note – the device doesn’t appear to be 2G compatible going by the specs, so no EDGE or GPRS capability in truly remote locations, which if you were undertaking with your family would presumably be one heck of a road trip you’d want to be a lot more prepared for.
Here’s Telstra list of features and specs per the hotspot’s website:
Features
- Turn your car and home into a WIFI hot spot.
- Share up to 5 WI-FI enabled devices.
- Perfect holiday companion when in coverage areas.
- Includes an AC wall charger and USB extension cable for those hard to reach spots.
- Indicator lights that let you know your connection status and when you need to recharge.
- Easily recharge, check your balance, monitor your usage and more with our handy home page support.
Specifications
- Band Support: 4G ( Cat 4 ) 700, 1800, 2100, 2600 MHz; 3G 850, 2100 MHz
- Display: LED
- Memory: Up to 32 GB micro SD/SDHC (sold separately)
- Additional Features: Includes: Compatible USB extension cable, wall and car charger
- SIM Type: Full size SIM (2 FF)
Telstra is making a review model available to iTWire, and I'll have a review up in due course, although with Wi-Fi hotspots now a mature technology, we expect it should perform exactly as advertised!
