By the time Palm announced the Pixi Plus and Pre Plus at CES earlier this month, there wasn’t a whole lot left to reveal. From the names, to the specs, all the way down to the carrier the handsets would launch on — just about everything had made it into the realm of public knowledge by way of the rumor mill.
However, there was at least one feature that Palm managed to keep hidden up their sleeve: Mobile HotSpot. With the flick of a switch, the Mobile Hotspot application turns the Pre Plus or Pixi Plus into a WiFi router for up to 5 users simultaneously, fueled by Verizon’s 3G network. We’ve spent the last few hours tinkering with a pre-release copy of Mobile HotSpot – read on for our impressions.
The Setup:
Attempting to explain how simple it is to set up Mobile HotSpot is probably more difficult than actually setting it up. You install it, flip the switch from “off” to “on”, and then choose a password. Bam! Within about 5 seconds, you’ve got a new WiFi hotspot waiting for you in your list of available networks. Remember the first time you plugged in a mouse via USB and it fired right up while you were digging around for the instructions on what to do next? It’s like that, except you’re not even plugging anything in.
Operation:
Like the setup process, keeping it all running couldn’t be much simpler. Want to change the name of the network? Tap the name, punch in a new one. Want to change the password? Same deal. If you forget your password or need to share it with a friend without shouting it to the entire room, they’ve got a “Show Passphrase” button right at the top – tap it once and your password is revealed, tap it again and it’s obfuscated. Palm has made this as absolutely, drop-dead simple as they possibly could have, and it’s a really great experience.
Oddly, there’s no way to manage connected users. While you’re alerted the instant someone connects and there’s a running list of everyone who is currently connected, there isn’t any means of disconnecting users without changing the password. This probably won’t be an issue as long as you play it smart with your security info, but it’s still something we expected to see.
Also strange: there’s no data usage meter. Considering that Verizon’s charging $40 bucks (on top of the normal voice/data plan fees) for 5 gigs of 3G Hotspot access with an overage fee of 5 cents per megabyte (or roughly 51 bucks per gigabyte), I’d imagine that people are going to want to keep a close eye on just how much data they’re gobbling up. Sure, you can find these numbers in your Verizon account pages – but why can’t the application pull that same information down, or at least provide the data for the current session for the sake of keeping tabs on things?
Battery:
This is not something you’re going to want to run all the time, unless you’re near an outlet. As we probably could have expected out of any application that is simultaneously pulling and pushing a ton of data, Mobile Hotspot hammers the battery. Even when no clients are connected, we were noticing the battery drain about 50% faster than it otherwise would.
The more people you’ve got connected simultaneously, the faster it’ll drain the battery; with 2-3 people pulling down a fair share of data, you can probably expect to drain this thing dead in about 3 hours.
Speed:
Ah, speed. Once you’re all setup, it’s the most important factor.
Unfortunately, our tests in this department were.. inconclusive, to say the least. Verizon seemed to be having some issues in my little corner of Central California today; while the network seemed stable enough at first glance, the speeds I was seeing were considerably slower than normal.
I ran speed tests across the Pre Plus, Pixi Plus, and Verizon Mifi, all of which were averaging about 85 kilobytes per second for both upload and download. I generally see download speeds that are very, very much faster than that. With that said, I’ve seen no evidence that suggests the Mobile HotSpot app pushes data out at speeds any slower than a MiFi or a dedicated Verizon mobile broadband dongle; as far as I can tell, it’s matching them kilobyte-for-kilobyte. Up until we sat down to do the formal testing, Verizon’s network — and the Mobile HotSpot app — were awesomely fast.
Your mileage will obviously vary from region to region, but I wouldn’t expect Mobile Hotspot to be the bottleneck. I’ll run a few more tests in other locales over the next few days and update accordingly.
Conclusions:
Simple to set up? Check! Simple to use? Save for a few trivial nitpicks, check! Nice and speedy? Well, as much as my local Verizon towers will allow at the moment.
While AT&T continues to promise that tethering on the iPhone is just around the corner, Verizon and Palm have launched what is quite possibly the slickest tethering solution to ever grace a mobile handset. The $40 monthly price tag seems a bit steep considering the 5 gigabyte cap, but that same 5 gigabyte plan would set you back $60 if you instead opted for a MiFi.
At this price, it’s certainly not for everyone – but if you’ve got a need for multi-person mobile broadband and were already looking to pick up a Pre Plus or Pixi Plus, it’s your best bet.
great I like that
Both new Verizon handsets will arrive on the market on January 25th; however neither Palm nor the carrier have announced pricing or not. They’ve also not revealed what extra fees there might be for tethering functionality. More of the specs and details about these palm pre plus duo: http://bit.ly/palm-pre-plus-pixi-plus-details
There’s also an app that does tethering in homebrew
Seriously? They’re charging for this?
Not that I advocate buying a Windows Mobile phone, but there’s an app that does this for free: WMWifiRouter.
No usage caps. Same functionality (maybe even > 5 users at a time).
Again, it’s one of the few good things about WinMo, but it just seems sorta backwards the way they’re doing it. But who knows, apparently carriers are “bleeding” money left and right with their $99 monthly plans (?).
WMWifiRouter isn’t free. I see what you mean, though.
Any time a handset manufacturer gets a US carrier involved with tethering, or any time they want to be able to officially offer it on a carrier subsidized handset, there’s gonna be a price tag. There are exceptions to this, but they’re increasingly few and far between. Carriers realized there’s money to be had in tethering for the time being, and they’ll extract as much cash out of that fact as they can.
Homebrew solutions can be as free as air, and the carriers can’t really say a thing.
Greg – did you know Verizon only charges $15 a month extra for wired tethering with Blackberry devices? I assumed the fee for mobile hotspot would be the same and was planning on ditching my 8330 Curve for a Palm Pre Plus but now not so sure if there’s going to be a $25 premium for mobile hotspot.
i was hoping it’d be a lot less than MiFi plan…though i guess they’re smart to throttle it so they (hopefully) don;’t end up with AT&T network reputation probs
Test
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Thanks, this is pretty sweet.
More articles like this please.
Whats the big deal with this. You have to write bout it. That has been available on the Palm Pre as app for at least 6 months now.
Nice. Been using a similar system to this on Android for about a year. Smoking-fast on 3G (T-Mo). Actually was faster for my friend and I to use the Android as our hotspot than the overloaded wi-fi @ Starbucks (both provided by T-Mo).
Interestingly enough, I’ve not been pegged yet by T-mo for using this ‘not-quite-authorized’ app and with unlimited data, I guess it could be abused.
That said, I am very surprised that Palm’s version doesn’t allow MAC-control / user-connection controls nor does it have a data-usage monitor. The Android app has those features and it has proven quite useful.
Good on ya Palm!
What’s the app called so I can download it?
The Palm Pre has been doing the same thing since it came out, see here:
http://palmpre-hacks.com/palm-pre-hacks/how-to-hacktether-palm-pre-into-a-wifi-router/
I believe it’s pretty much the same app but now included as one of the basic functions of the Pre Plus. Good stuff.
Btw, the wifi tethering speed on the Palm Pre is same as my Sprint broadband. I think it should be the same on Verizon too.
My friend from Mozilla Foundation was in town a couple of weeks ago and he showed me MyTether (http://www.mytether.net/) for Palm Pre. I went and donated $15 for it and have been using it as my hotspot ever since. In short, I don’t have to pay any additional costs since I’m on the all-you-can-eat data plan with Sprint.
I can’t imagine Sprint would like knowing about this, and obviously it’s not part of the app catalog. You need to pull down MyTether to a local machine, USB connect your Palm Pre, then enter the Palm Pre Developer Mode. This thing works very well and encourages my thinking that eventually we’ll all be mobile hotspots in the near future.
- Lief
http://lieflarson.businesscard2.com
This is nice.
I start thinking getting one of these Pres next time my IPhone contract would renew.
This new technology sounds great. But, I have AT&T and really want to have the same capability on my iPhone since my brothers have iPods. So does anyone know about any tethering apps for the iPhone?