Vodafone USB Modem Stick Pro - reviews

Vodafone USB Modem Stick Pro (review by TheGadgetStylist on 02/09/2008)

Ease of Use

Style and Design

Battery Life

Camera

Music Player

Mobile Internet

Reliability and Quality

Overall

The Vodafone Mobile Broadband modem is the 5th Mobile Broadband modem I've reviewed in the last few months and I write this with an acute sense for what we should expect; from a modem, from the laptop software and from the 3G Mobile Broadband service itself.

Vodafone's current USB modem looks and feels great.  It's built to a high quality, feeling solid in your hand and the white plastic finish looks as good as white plastic possibly can, with a lovely smooth Apple Macbook-like finish.  The removable cap the protects that the USB connector is connected to the rest of the modem by a little cord so, unlike the O2 modem, you won't lose the cap in 5 minutes.

Setting up the modem on my Mac wasn't too difficult, however the software is a bit clunky.  I've had similar issues with other Huawei manufactured 3G modems although this may be limited to Mac-philes like myself!  You have to:

  • plug in the modem
  • open the Vodafone Mobile Broadband application
  • 'connect' the modem by clicking an on screen button
  • close the Vodafone application
  • click the connect button in your mac's Network preferences manager

O2's modem just quietly connects you to the internet if you do anything that request internet access, such as open a web browser.  No need to click any buttons.  Why can't the Vodafone modem do this?

Orange and 3 also have much nicer connection management software too. 

If the software is the downside, then the performance more than balances this out.  In my tests I found that wherever I had some kind of coverage I always had a fast, consistent connection to the internet.  In fact, I had to resort to the Vodafone modem with my desktop iMac for four hours one afternoon after my fixed broadband connection died and it was so fast and reliable that I forgot I was using it!  This is in an area of Richmond that the Vodafone store told me is apparently a 3G black spot. I was streaming live radio feeds, sending and receiving emails and using the web very heavily, including the odd video stream, with excellent performance.  The modem didn't disconnect once.

The only disappointing test was a quick test in the middle of Terminal 5's departure lounge where I was expecting to experience Vodafone's warp factor 10 7.2Mb download speeds.  I tested the speed and found I was only getting around 0.5Mb.  Perhaps we can blame BA...?

Overall you can't go too wrong with Vodafone's Mobile Broadband service if you're after a consistent and fast performer - although Mac owners will have to be the patient type of person!

 

 

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