The EE 5G WiFi (previously known as the 5GEE WiFi) from EE is a mobile broadband device, meaning that it’s designed to get your gadgets online while you’re on the move. You can use it at home, but you’d be better off with a dedicated 5G home broadband device for that.
For mobile broadband though the EE 5G WiFi has a lot going for it, including the ability to get up to 64 devices online at once, and support for Wi-Fi 6.
In fact, on paper it’s a lot better than most mobile broadband devices – both 5G and 4G ones, but does it hold up in practice? Read on to find out.
Like most mobile broadband devices the EE 5G WiFi isn’t much to look at. It’s basically just a white rectangle with some purple EE branding on the front, a few indicator lights, and a few ports.
This is totally fine though – nobody needs a flashy router, and the EE 5G WiFi certainly doesn’t look bad, it’s just very plain.
At 128 x 100 x 17.9mm and 195g it’s also fairly small and light, which is something that’s important for a mobile broadband device. After all, this is something you’re going to want to carry around with you.
It’s a similar size to the Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot and a lot smaller and lighter than the HTC 5G Hub, which was one of its main rivals at launch, but then that’s also a far more versatile device and includes a screen – that’s not to say HTC’s option is better though, if all you want is the mobile broadband feature then it’s arguably worse, but we’ll get to that below.
The EE 5G WiFi is – like all mobile broadband devices – very easy to set up. Just make sure it’s charged and has a SIM card in it, switch it on, and it’s basically ready to start broadcasting a network.
It comes with a quick start guide, but quick really is the operative word – this isn’t the sort of tech that you’ll have to spend ages configuring. That’s great, because it means it can just seamlessly fade into the background, getting your gadgets online when needed.
EE hasn’t revealed the maximum download speeds offered by the EE 5G WiFi, but it claims average speeds (on 5G) of 150Mbps, which is broadly in line with the average you can expect on a 5G phone.
According to a September 2022 report from Opensignal, EE’s average 5G download speed on phones is 130.5Mbps, while a report from RootMetrics covering the second half of 2022 put its median 5G download speed at 141.6Mbps.
That’s higher than the average you’d get with fibre broadband – though some way short of the maximum of 1Gbps+. Of course it goes without saying that the EE 5G WiFi is also much faster than a 4G mobile broadband device – those are likely to average speeds of under 50Mbps.
Top speeds on the EE 5G WiFi may well be a whole lot faster than 150Mbps too, and as EE’s 5G network improves speeds could as well. Of course, EE’s 5G network is essential to all of this – if you’re only somewhere with 4G coverage, then the extra capabilities here won’t help much, but fortunately EE has 5G in more places than rivals at the time of writing, and is rapidly expanding its coverage.
The most notable feature of the EE 5G WiFi is that it supports up to 64 simultaneous connections at once. That’s a remarkably high number for a mobile broadband device – some 5G rivals top out at 20, and many 4G options top out at just 10.
64 is more the sort of number you’d expect from a home broadband device, not least because most people would be hard pushed to take advantage of that when out and about, unless you want to share your Wi-Fi with everyone in the café or train you’re in. Still, it’s a reassuringly large number.
The EE 5G WiFi has some other decent specs too, including a 30-metre Wi-Fi range, so you don’t need to stay glued to it to keep connected, and support for Wi-Fi 6, which the company claims will help improve the EE 5G WiFi’s efficiency in heavy bandwidth situations. So this is the sort of device that should never let you down.
One perhaps disappointing spec is that it only has one ethernet port, so you can only get one wired connection at a time. But for most people that probably won’t be a problem, since most connected gadgets support and are just fine on Wi-Fi.
As for the battery, that’s 6,460mAh, which is a reasonable size but nothing amazing – the Huawei 5G Pocket Hotspot Pro for example has an 8,000mAh one. Still, it should last you for a good long while if you’re only connecting it to one or two devices at a time. Make full use of those 64 simultaneous connections though and we’d expect you’ll probably need to plug in before too long.