Kingston MobileLite G2 Review

atomiku · January 2, 2015

I received a Kingston MobileLite G2 for Christmas as a gift from someone who knows me all too well. As a relatively happy Galaxy S4 user for over a year, I know all too well the pains that come along with an overly burdensome OS that takes up all but a sliver of your internal storage.

Sure, a nice 32GB Class 10 MicroSD card helps, but as the only app I use that at least reasonably makes use of that card is Google Play Music (I’m an All Access subscriber and save music for offline playback to the card) I’m stuck with no place to store my *ahem* totally legally obtained movies/TV episodes, which I don’t need often, but come in handy on say, a long road trip.

In steps the Kingston MobileLite G2, a powerful contender in a few different fights, all of which I’ll touch on below.

Ergonomics/Size/Materials:

Measuring in at 129x79x19mm, the MobileLite G2 is about the size of your average portable harddrive from the likes of Seagate or Western Digital. It’s thick enough I wouldn’t recommend sticking in your pants pocket next to your smartphone (people might wonder just how happy you are to see them with a bulge like that) but it fits comfortably in a coat/jacket pocket with my S4 beside it.

It’s made out of a very sturdy feeling plastic. I have no doubt that this device will survive a few bumps, scrapes, and/or drops and come out kicking. The black plastic on top is matte, yet still oddly enough shows off greasy fingerprints like the shiniest brushed aluminum. The white plastic trim that surrounds the device looks great out of the box, but I have a feeling that it will begin to show dirt and grime if it travels with you the way Kingston intends. Not that it will affect the function, mind you, just how swanky I’ll feel pulling it out in front of friends.

Tour of the Device:

The top of the MobileLite is adorned only with a circular white piece containing the Kingston logo, understated and classy, the way I like it.

The bottom features four (surprisingly poky) protrusions from the plastic body that act as feet, as well as a sticker with all the pertinent information, like the serial number, model number, FCC Certifications and the like.

The white ring around the device is where the real action begins, with what I would call the “front” featuring 3 LEDs (one to indicate battery status, two to indicate network status), a power button, a recessed Reset Switch, and a (Linus’ favorite) Micro-USB charging port. The right hand side is bare, with the left housing the SD slot and USB Port. The back is bare save for an Ethernet port.

Included in the box is the instruction manual, a short USB Charging cable, and a MicroSD to SD card adapter.

Functions:

Oh, where to begin? As I stated earlier, this device takes part in more than one fight, and seems to perform well in all of them.

To begin, it’s most basic function, a recharable battery for your mobile devices, so long as they charge from USB. Tucked into the MobileLite is a 4640 mAh battery, which can charge your mobile device as many times as it’s battery size divides into 4640 give or take some. It also can power the MobileLite by itself for up to 13 hours. As a recharable battery hoarder (I have 2 2600 mAh batteries, a 4200 mAh battery, and a 4600 mAh battery) this is just another to add to my collection, and it’s nice to see that it charges my S4 relatively quickly.

It’s next functionality is as an Access Point. If you are as unfortunate as I, you may have come across a hotel or two (or three, or twenty) that offer “High Speed Broadband” only to find out there is no Wifi, just an Ethernet cable at the desk. By plugging an Ethernet cable into the back of the MobileLite and powering it up, it is able to share that internet connection with up to 8 devices, so no more arguing over who gets to use the only laptop that has internet! Plus, with the number of laptops on the market today that forgo ethernet ports altogether, the MobileLite G2 could come in handy more often than I thought! As an owner of a TP Link Nano Router that has saved my rear end on numerous occasions, I’ll be happy to retire it and replace it with the MobileLite, for no other reason than the shear number of extra features it includes.

The next feature I’ll cover is by far the most important, and likely will be the reason anyone actually buys this device. As it broadcasts it’s own Wifi signal (At up to 802.11n speeds) you can use an app (available on the Play Store and the App Store), Window's built in network folder support, or even a web interface for Windows Phone users to access files stored on the SD card inserted into the device. The SD card sits flush with the exterior, so no need to worry about it breaking off, and with SD cards available in up to 512GB, this could mean an awful lot of storage on the go. What’s more is that it supports USB storage devices (like Flash Drives and Portable Harddrives using formats FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT) meaning that you could add even more storage, should you need to from an old external Hard drive, like I did.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to go in depth on the app that’s available for download. It’s fairly plain looking, with a super easy to navigate UI. You load up the app after connecting to the MobileLite, and you are presented with buttons for any storage devices you may have plugged into the device, and your phone’s local storage. Once the devices have loaded, it’s quick to navigate through folders, and content (like 1080p movies) play back smoothly on my S4.

One important thing to note that took me a while to figure out (Manuals are for squares, man) is that you can only access the device settings once you’ve clicked on the MobileLite from the original menu. Once you do that, an “options” button will appear at the top allowing you to access the settings menu, where you can configure all the important stuff like SSID, and network encryption.

It also allows you to configure a connection to another network, from which it can draw internet connectivity, allowing you to access content on the MobileLite while maintaining the internet connection we all so dearly love and need.

All that said, however, if you are (again) anything like me, you cherish every last byte of your phones internal storage, so once you’ve set up the network how you please, I’d recommend ditching the app and using a much more versatile file explorer like ES File Explorer to access the MobileLite. It’s faster to load, and also allows connections to other network drives, like my Shared Folders from my desktop. This unfortunately applies only to Android devices, because as far as I know there are no file explorers available for non-Jailbroken iOS devices, so Apple fans will have to stick with the app.

Other functionality includes using a 3G USB dongle to share the connection it makes to cell towers with your connected devices (something I have not tested, as I do not own nor do I plan to own a 3G USB dongle). It also can act as an SD card reader for your computer, by plugging in the MicroUSB Cable to your computer and accessing the SD card through the My Computer folder, much like every other card reader in existence.

Wrap Up:

Overall, I’m very pleased with the Kingston MobileLite G2. Despite receiving it as a gift, I would have gladly paid the $54 USD it costs on Amazon right now (Link will be below). I loaded it up with Season 1 of Archer and a couple movies and brought it along with me on a few car rides, and every video played without a hitch (I use MX Player, in case you were curious).

A couple things I might change would be forgoing the app altogether. Every router I’ve ever owned has used a web interface to configure its settings, and I see no reason that wouldn’t have worked here. I could have used that, and then used ES File Explorer to access the network drives, and never had to install the app. The rational part of my brain that says “not everyone is a techie who wants to type in an IP address to access a web interface, a lot of people just want an app that works” is probably correct, but perhaps the solution is to include both options. I want every single spare byte I can squeeze out of my internal storage for useful apps like Trivia Crack.

I guess it would also be asking too much if they offered a version with say, 64GB of storage built in, expandable via the SD card slot and USB port? Perhaps I’m too greedy.

The MobileLite G2 is my new travelling companion, where I go, it will go, in case I need to juice up my phone or tablet, or just feel like I can squeeze in a quick episode of Archer. I look forward to many happy road trips with it in tow.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or need more specifics, or have any corrections to make, I am human after all! Also, this is my first review for this Forum, so I hope it's well received, advice and critiques are very welcome!

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-MobileLite-Wireless-Smartphones-MLWG2/dp/B00KU2E9IW/