I finally used a high-end portable hotspot on holiday – and I get the hype, but still not the price
Netgear sorted me, but is it worth it?
When you write about tech for a living, you come across plenty of product categories that aren't really aimed at your pay bracket, and that's exactly how I'd describe portable hotspots. While some of these can be wallet-friendly, there are a whole heap of them aimed at corporate travellers who spend almost their whole lives on the go.
At least, that's what I assume the target market looks like, since many of these hotspots cost well north of £500 or $500 before you even turn to data plans. It was telling that when Netgear unveiled the Nighthawk M7 5G at CES earlier this year, it was positioned as a more affordable option than the other portable Nighthawks, despite still costing £529.99.
Still, if you spend your whole life on the road, then getting one of these routers can make your life tangible easier, with a consistent Wi-Fi presence instead of flaky phone-based hotspots, and Netgear's simplified things with a more unified app experience, too. I took the Nighthawk M7 5G to the northern reaches of Tenerife last week to see how it might change the face of a holiday with very low signal.
The short version is that it did what it said on the tin, giving my girlfriend and me a reliable network whenever even a scrap of coverage was to be found, but it wasn't a magic bullet. Our remote Airbnb had no signal at all, but some manageable 5G a few minutes' walk away, and the Nighthawk couldn't conjure up a network out of nowhere.
When it did have signal, though, the local Wi-Fi 7 network it created was robust and reliable, and made it really easy to connect more devices to the web, including the Honor MagicPad 4 I'd brought as our media vehicle for cosy nights in once the stars came out.
It was also a boon for my girlfriend, whose UK data plan has no roaming component (thanks, Brexit) – this covered her without any expensive daily charges. That said, though, the cost of a 30-day eSIM with 20GB of capacity sits at £35, and that makes it costlier than a simple eSIM for just your phone through something like Holafly or a comparable provider.
You have to really know that you're going to get extra value from the fact that you're getting a Wi-Fi network with that data access, not just one device, basically, for it to be worth it.
Even then, with the upfront cost of the hotspot taken into account, this is one of those travel devices that really only makes sense for those with lofty budgets. On that count, I really would like to see Netgear add eSIM plans that give you an unlimited data package, to really take all of the worry out of the equation. For anyone who works with images or video files, after all, those gigabytes can be swallowed up pretty quickly.
Would I buy a Nighthawk M7 5G for myself, then? Probably not – but if you've read the above and think it sounds like it could solve some issues you routinely run into while travelling, then you've probably already pre-filtered out some of my budgetary objections. I'm going to keep testing the M7 5G over some forthcoming trips, though, so keep your eyes peeled to see if my experience develops over time.
