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2022 Best 5g phone/tablet to use as mobile hotspot

Sundry

Hi, long time account here, never really commented much so go easy.

 

I have been using a Samsung Tab S4 4g as my home internet solution for a while (it's also been slaved into our home theatre setup- but that hack is another story) We move around too much to make any kind of fixed line effective. It does a fine job except when we have guests and then too many connections make the whole network slow down even if they aren't using the net. Now our mobile service has upgraded to 5g so figure it's time for an upgrade in the hotspot source.

 

Looking at budget friendly 5g tablets and phones to fill the role as my work will buy a new one up to 500 Canadian equivalent $$s (and they won't go in for a hotspot). In need of the LTT community help on finding a good one as most reviews don't rank how good a phone/tablet is as a hotspot.

 

Thanks in advance 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Linus mentioned on the WAN show that no one really does signal testing since it's pretty complicated to set up and do. So I'm not really sure anyone will have a great answer for you regarding this. It's such a niche question.

 

Welcome to the forum tho.

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In my experience all phones suck as hotspots, they are far far slower than a proper mobile router.

Router:  Intel N100 (pfSense) WiFi6: Zyxel NWA210AX (1.7Gbit peak at 160Mhz)
WiFi5: Ubiquiti NanoHD OpenWRT (~500Mbit at 80Mhz) Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, MS510TXPP, GS110EMX
ISPs: Zen Full Fibre 900 (~930Mbit down, 115Mbit up) + Three 5G (~800Mbit down, 115Mbit up)
Upgrading Laptop/Desktop CNVIo WiFi 5 cards to PCIe WiFi6e/7

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On 9/29/2022 at 11:30 PM, Alex Atkin UK said:

In my experience all phones suck as hotspots, they are far far slower than a proper mobile router.

I wish this was true. I borrowed a Huawei B818 4g cat 19 modem router. Shifting SIM into it instead of tablet and hotspot speed dropped. Tried multiple locations, hunted best signal running around with giant extension cable and couldn't get near the same speeds.

 

Not a bad chance my provider is limiting this as an option. But either way speeds end up too slow to be usable by my family.

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3 hours ago, Sundry said:

Not a bad chance my provider is limiting this as an option. But either way speeds end up too slow to be usable by my family.

That's true, I don't think they are allowed to do this in the UK any more which would explain why I can see such a huge difference.

The problem with WiFi hotspot on phones is it can differ between phones.  Often it limits the link rate, WiFi version and channel width.  So on a high-speed 4G/5G connection you are bottle-necking heavily on the WiFi.

For example my Galaxy S10 supports WiFi 6 in client mode, but only WiFi 5 in Hotspot mode.

Router:  Intel N100 (pfSense) WiFi6: Zyxel NWA210AX (1.7Gbit peak at 160Mhz)
WiFi5: Ubiquiti NanoHD OpenWRT (~500Mbit at 80Mhz) Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, MS510TXPP, GS110EMX
ISPs: Zen Full Fibre 900 (~930Mbit down, 115Mbit up) + Three 5G (~800Mbit down, 115Mbit up)
Upgrading Laptop/Desktop CNVIo WiFi 5 cards to PCIe WiFi6e/7

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