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3G dongles

J

jparnold

Lurker
Firstly please excuse my ignorance.
I am "in the market" to purchase my first tablet and noticed some manufacturers have model with and without 3G and usually the ones with 3G are around $100 more than equivalent model without 3G.
I have also noticed that you can purchase USB 3G dongles which allow insertion of a simm.
Do I assume correctly that you can use a 3G dongle (at around $30) and relevant simm card to connect to the internet via 3G?
Is there a disadvantage in using a 3G dongle apart from having to plug in and out of the tablet?
 
I'm not sure but I think the tablet has to have the ability to use the 3g in order for it to work.
 
Not sure about 3g dongles but I've just bought a mifi unit off eBay which works the same way. It's small enough to fit in your palm and takes a sim card for data. We only have wifi tablets in our house and we can connect to it no problem (you can connect up to 5 devices at any one time) and it uses 3g or 3g+ so I'm sure a dongle would work the same way, it's just that you would need to plug it in. If you're interested, my unit is the Huawei E586 and is completely wireless.
 
Thanks. I 'Googled' Huawei E586 and note that it is a WiFi hotspot and allows 5 devices to connect to it but still wonder about a 3G dongle.
Did the Huawei E586 connect to your tablet via USB?
Huawei also manufacture 3G dongles so maybe I should contact their support department.
 
No, this mifi device connects wirelessly but you can connect via usb also for better signal. I have used 3g dongle on a previous tablet but the thing I found was that you have to search around to find the right dongle for your tablet, some won't work, some will. If you contact your tablet manufacturer they should be able to tell you which models will work with your tablet. You don't have that issue with the mifi device as it acts as a wireless hotspot. I will say though that Huawei are very difficult to get hold of and never respond to emails!
 
In general, most 3G dongles would not work via USB. Its not about the USB dongle but whether or not the tablet will support it. All in all you're better of with a MyFi device to which you can connect to wirelessly.
 
I think I have confused you all. What I mean by a 3G usb dongle is a dongle which plugs into a usb port and which has a slot for a simm card and then you can connect to the internet via a 3G subscription.
I have found some for sale which appear to be for desktop Windows PCs but I am wondering if they will work on an Android tablet.
If not I guess I will have to decide whether to purchase a tablet which has 3G built in or just not bother using 3G and only use WiFi when near a WiFi 'hotspot' such a hotel room, restaurant etc.
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I am not confused at all. Those 3G dongles you will plug in to PCs won't work for Android tablets simply because they are not supported at the hardware level. There are no drivers for Android to handle that kind of accessory. Some devices do have such hardware support, but they are very limited. And the only one I know that has had support is an outdated 2 year old model that's not even being sold anymore.

Get a MyFi device. Its almost the same thing anyway, plus you can have both your tablet and PC, as well as your phone connected at the same time with that.
 
Thanks for advice. Once I read "no drivers" and "do not have such hardware support" I fully understood (I am very familiar plug and play etc having built 3 or 4 PCs in the past from the motherboard up).
A quick check of Ebay reveals quite a few devices which are listed as being mifi devices eg a Huawei E586.
I will check them out.
Thanks again
 
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