Three WiFi / 3G Router: Crap

I parted company with £69.99 today to purchase Three’s 3G / WiFi router, the Huawei D100.  I wish I hadn’t.

I’ve used it for an hour and decided it’s going back to the shop.  I may just throw it through the door and hurl abuse, but I hope to have calmed down enough to go in to collect a refund.

On paper it’s an appealing device – you insert your USB broadband dongle and it creates a WiFi access point…  Ideal for the MIR crew when we’re out and about.  Every operator will offer one – we saw T-Mobile’s effort recently.  So what’s wrong?

It doesn’t have a battery! It was advertised both in the marketing materials and on Three’s site as having a battery (UK Gadgeteer has the story)…. many sites wrote this up. It doesn’t.  It needs a power supply.  Three have changed their site without any comment and it’s confused customers. £70 for something that’s tied to a power supply? Bah!

It’s slow. Oh my god it’s slow. Speed tests are notoriously hard to do, but I never managed to get the router to operate faster than 25% of the speed achieved by using the dongle directly.  Pages crawl down.  T-Mobile’s unit didn’t feel this bad.

I love Three – the Skypephone, X-series and cheap broadband, but this really is a massive disappointment

If the lack of the promised battery doesn’t bother you, I’d still recommend waiting for reviews of a few other models to come in – I couldn’t live with it.

O2 say sorry, but you still (probably) can’t have an iPhone 3G

Just had a text from O2 with a link to information on iPhone 3G availability and an apology (at the bottom) over the launch shambles (of sorts)…. Here’s the key bits that confirm some of the other reports we’ve seen about stock:

• O2 and Carphone Warehouse (CPW) stores will have limited numbers of iPhone 3G this Friday 11 July.

• On average, we will only have a few dozen iPhone 3Gs per store (some stores more, some stores less, dependant upon store size so we expect to sell out quickly). Sales of iPhone 3G will be limited to one per customer and two for business customers.

• Some O2 stores will open at 8.02am on Friday, others a bit later.

• If you do go into an O2 store you will need 2 forms of identification, a valid credit or debit card and proof of address. If you are new to O2 you will also need to pass a credit check if you sign up for an iPhone 3G contract. The average sales transaction processing time will be 20 minutes.

• Apple will be selling iPhone 3Gs in their stores, but please note that existing O2 customers can only upgrade in an O2 or CPW store.

• We are working closely with Apple to get additional iPhone 3Gs. These will be coming in on a weekly basis. We’ll keep you posted on specific details by updating this web page regularly.

• We are currently out of stock of iPhone 3Gs via our on-line store, we’ll update through www.o2.co.uk when more information becomes available.

• If you have an existing iPhone you can still enjoy many of the new features by upgrading your software to version 2.0 from 11 July through iTunes.

• We are sorry that we can’t meet all demand as quickly as we’d like but we’re sure that when you get your new iPhone 3G you’ll agree it’s been worth the wait.

Interestingly, the text came through on my Three handset – the number I provided as the contact number on my problematic upgrade attempt… I wonder if that means my order was captured? As it says on the O2 page if I haven’t heard by 6pm tonight I’ll know.