Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot

It’s easy enough for one device to get online via 3G, but about when there are two or three? That’s the problem that gadgets like the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot are designed to solve.

In short, the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is a battery-powered 3G modem that other devices connect to via Wi-Fi — which makes it ideal for areas where there’s no nearby Wi-Fi hotspot. It’s also simpler than trying to share a 3G USB dongle plugged into one laptop and cheaper than paying for two or three mobile data deals at once if you have a few 3G gadgets. The term that’s cropped up to describe such devices is ‘Mi-Fi’ — pretty appalling, but it looks like we’re stuck with it.

The Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is about as big as two 3G USB dongles placed side by side, which means it’s still extremely portable and light enough to slip into a pocket unnoticed. Unlike similar devices from other manufacturers, there’s only one button to press to get started, but once you’ve waited a few connections for a 3G connection to be established, there’s nothing else to worry about.

Both 3G and Wi-Fi are turned on at the same time and the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot appears as just another Wi-Fi access point. The default password is printed inside the battery compartment and, with a connection established, your laptop or smartphone then thinks it’s online via Wi-Fi, but it’s actually piggy backed on the Novatel’s 3G connection.

Up to five devices can connect to the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot at once, but the bandwidth of the 3G connection is obviously shared between them. A full-strength HSPA connection provides a 7.2Mbit/s downstream and a 5.76Mbit/s upstream though, which is more than enough for web browsing and email.

The only hitch here is that the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot doesn’t provide any indication of how strong the 3G signal is — just whether there is one or not. This information comes from a single LED that lights up in five colours, with two different states for each (solid and flashing) to indicate what the device is up to.

Unless you’ve memorised the appropriate page from the manual, this can make figuring out what the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is up to a little tricky. There’s also no indication of how much charge is left in the battery, but the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot isn’t alone in either of these regards and all Mi-Fi devices could do with a simple LCD display to give a clearer idea of what’s going on.

The Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is configured by a web-based admin panel much like those on standard Wi-Fi routers. This is clearly presented and simple to use, and offers the usual array of settings — as well as icons for battery status and signal strength.

Battery life is rated as four hours of ‘active use’, though this will obviously drop with more than one active connection. The 1530mAH battery can be charged via the mains (a charger is supplied) or a USB port, but annoyingly, Wi-Fi is disabled with a USB connection — the device still works as a modem for the connected computer, but for no one else.

 Wi-Fi is still enabled on mains power, but this is where we encountered a problem. Plugging the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot into the mains caused an instant red LED — “error”, according to the manual. The device couldn’t be used at all in this state and needed a hard reset to reactivate. The same thing happened from time to time with a USB connection, with now obvious explanation for the cause.

Novatel couldn’t explain it either and could only suggest a replacement. We’ll update this review accordingly when it arrives, but in the meantime we discovered that this isn’t an isolated problem and a handful of other owners have experienced it too. Replacement units seem to be the solution and so one-off faults seem to be the cause — not really enough to count against the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, but it its something to be aware of if you have the same problem.

Update: Novatel did send us a replacement device and this didn't suffer from the same recharging problem as the first — so we'll write this off as a random glitch that seems to have affected a handful of units.

The Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is available unlocked from Expansys for £210, but Carphone Warehouse also offers various susidised deals from mobile operators — the device is free with T-Mobile for £20/month on an 18-month contract, for example.