Wingles
 

A Wingle falls somewhere between a 3G dongle and a mifi. It looks like a dongle, but doesn't have to be plugged into a computer, it just needs 5V usb power, for example from a wall socket.

The Wingle acts as a wifi hub, for five or ten different devices.

It is also known as an in-car mifi and comes with an adaptor which lets it plug into a cigar lighter socket.

Mine is an E8231, with wifi for ten devices.

The wifi password was difficult to find, it is hidden in 192.168.8.1, way down the WLAN settings page.

I have the Wingle plugged straight into the wall adaptor, no wires, and creating a local wifi hotspot. Perfect!

This 'ere Wingle you are talking about presumably has a SIM card ?

I use my Chromebook connected via my phone working as a wifi hotspot...

SCHEDULING - Yes it has a sim card. Wingle came from a well-known supermarket dot com, twenty five quid, delivered in-store within 24 hours. It is 'unlocked' so will accept any sim. I am using 3G payg, 3 gigs for fifteen quid, just to try it out. Could change to contract sim at any time, but I prefer freedom from forward commitments. On-line top-up is really easy.

Yes, tethering would work fine but this oldie doesn't have a smartphone.

After a couple of months using the Wingle I am very happy with its performance. Browsing is as good as I need, and there have been very few times when it has slowed down enough to be noticeable.

I am using a contract sim, monthly rolling credit, no forward commitment, can cancel at any time. The data budget of 10GB per month is acceptable, 330MB a day is plenty of surfing, though one has to be careful with downloads and videos.

I went a bit over and found the over-run very expensive. But I swapped for a payg sim, topped up on line, and saved money.

Normal cost fifteen pounds for 10GB, 1.50/GB.
Over-run one pound for each ten megs, 100.00/GB.
Payg sim ten pounds for 1GB, 10.00/GB.

So this 'Wingle' is basically a MiFi without a battery?

Good grief, that's one heck of an excess use charge. Is that normal in your part of the world? Can you set a data limit in the unit itself?

BEagle - Yes, same size as a dongle and can be plugged into any powered usb socket including wall warts.

BushFiva - No way to stop it over-running. You can check your session usage approximately using the wingle number and accurately but up to a day late by logging into the isp. I keep both as quick links on the bookmark bar.