Review: Onetouch Link Y800 on EE 4G

EE's 4G dominance comes to portable hotspots. Is the hardware and service level worth the premium outlay?

EE's still got a few more months to itself before the mass 4G rollout by other mobile telecoms providers kicks in, and another source of revenue for the company's coffers in this captive market is the mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.

EE supplied Computing with Alcatel's Onetouch Link Y800 device and a 4G LTE SIM card. We subjected it to a number of technical tests, not to mention a careful consideration of the device's actual use case in practice.

To get right down to the nitty gritty, we had surprisingly few problems with the 4G connection itself, and it lived up to its promise of being able to "connect up to 10 devices".

4G still doesn't have the greatest reputation for cut-outs and network logjams, especially in the centre of London, but in both the second floor office of our Soho premises and out in the middle of sunny, tree-lined Green Park, we received a full network signal on the device itself.

Bandwidth tests using Speedtest.net showed speeds (measured using a Google Nexus 7 as the connecting device in all cases) that were - strangely - far better inside the office than outside.

Inside the office we recorded 19.04Mbps upload speed, 18.36Mbps download speed, and a ping of 35ms.

Outside we recorded less than half that, clocking 8.4Mbps download just outside our front door, with 3.7Mbps at upload.

Two subsequent tests delivered similar results.

Still, in actual use the difference was less noticeable, and we managed to connect four devices to the network running HD YouTube content both outside and inside the office.

There were, however, long buffering times on YouTube no matter how many devices we connected, but video played unimpeded once buffering was done.

In terms of providing a steady, relatively fast connection to get day-to-day journalism tasks (multiple tab web browsing, short streaming video clips and connecting to our sometimes laggy backend CMS) done, though, the Y800 proved pretty much faultless.

The use case for the Y800 can't be for using YouTube all day, anyway; the rather expensive data contracts wouldn't cover that for a start.

3GB comes in at £15.99 whether you contract up for 24 months or just 30 days - the difference being you pay £49.99 for the device on a 30-day contract, but get it for free on a 24-month one.

A 1GB data limit only appears in the 24 month contract category, however, and costs a whopping £12.99 a month.

Review: Onetouch Link Y800 on EE 4G

EE's 4G dominance comes to portable hotspots. Is the hardware and service level worth the premium outlay?

To put it in perspective, the Computing team gnawed through 430MB of data in just a four-hour stretch of regular browser-based surfing and story uploading in Green Park. That would be half our monthly outlay gone in just half a working day. With this in mind, it's quite difficult to suggest a use case for a device like the Y800 beyond occasional, emergency use for those who hardly ever step out of the office.

Another factor for us was the battery life. The Y800 barely lasted beyond our four-hour test period, putting it on a par with the average smartphone being pummelled for its 3G or 4G data connection.

While the device (and its battery) are around the size and weight of a smartphone, we were still a little surprised that a device that boasts 10-device connectivity would find all-day use such a challenge.

But the hardware is impeccably reliable, and while the battery life could be longer, it's small, light and robust enough to be a more than worthy travel companion for light use.

However, with the theoretical top speed of 3G hitting around 7Mbps, and sometimes achieving this, there's arguably often little difference between a cost-prohibitive personal 4G device like this, and simply bridging your 3G smartphone with a laptop or tablet.

We've been in contact with EE to find out if the provider offers any financial sweeteners - either in hardware or bandwidth costs - for the IT manager choosing to buy a fleet of Y800s, but we're still waiting to hear back.

In summary, the Onetouch Link Y800 is a personal Wi-Fi device that will cost you a fair amount of money no matter how you use it.

On balance, a 24-month contract scheme for 3GB per month could be a good enough deal for light use among a small team of occasional travellers.

For light use, it's certainly not going to let you down. We just wish the battery life was slightly longer and it wasn't so expensive to take out a contract.

Rating: 3/5