5G HOTSPOTS
Get 5G on every device, from tablets to laptops to your Nintendo Switch, with these routers
VODAFONE GIGACUBE
From £50 a month and £50 up front, vodafone.co.uk
Vodafone will happily sell you a 5G broadband package that includes a device called a GigaCube – essentially a rebranded Huawei hotspot device that works with both 5G and 4G networks. Place it in the centre of your home, and if your house is within solid pinging distance of a 5G- enabled cell tower, you can get those super-fast connection speeds sweeping all around your house, as well as those superlow latency times for getting online. Up to 64 different devices can be connected to the GigaCube at once, so it’s a realistic alternative to having a conventional broadband router installed – 18-month and 30- day contract plans are available, with data allowances going all the way up to unlimited.
NETGEAR NIGHTHAWK 5G HOTSPOT £TBC, netgear.com
You can’t actually go out and buy it at the moment, but once the Netgear Nighthawk 5G Hotspot does go on sale, it’s sure to appeal to anyone wanting to get 5G connectivity on the go – it features the latest Qualcomm X55 modem to work with 5G standards around the world, and maxes out at speeds of 4Gbps (it’ll fall back to 4G if 5G isn’t available). Not only that, it has an Ethernet port for a direct connection to the web, and it also supports the latest and greatest Wi-Fi 6 protocol, so you’re guaranteed to be able to get online at the fastest possible speeds no matter how you want to go about doing it.
£TBC, linksys.com HTC 5G HUB
From £50 a month and £100 up front, htc.com
Enjoy all the benefits of a glorious 5G connection anywhere (in a 5G zone) with this large-but-still-portable mobile router. You can connect up to 20 devices at once to this beast of a hotspot, and it’ll run from a battery (that promises to last “all day”) or the mains. Under the hood is a processor as good as the ones in some of the best smartphones at the moment to manage the flow of data, while the Hub’s bright display gives you all kinds of stats about upload and download speeds, and the devices you’ve currently got connected to it.
LINKSYS 5G HOTSPOT
One of the 5G hotspots that’s “coming soon” as the market matures (Linksys hasn’t shared a launch date or pricing yet), the Linksys 5G Hotspot supports Wi-Fi 6 as well as 5G, so you’re using the very latest technology whether you’re connecting over Wi-Fi or over cellular networks. Apart from that crucial functionality, the hotspot isn’t much to write home about as far as features go, using a rather plain grey design and some basic LED indicators on the top so you know you’re connected. It does at least appear to be compact and pocket-friendly, which is always welcome when you’re on the go, though a lot of the details and specs for this are yet to be revealed.