The Huawei E160G USB Modem is one of four mobile broadband dongles available from operator 3. It is a pretty standard looking dongle at first glance. Available in either black or white, it is bigger than a USB stick at 75mm x 25mm x 12mm.

The Huawei E160G USB Modem is part of the amazing £15 for 15GB of data a month, which makes it one of the most eagerly waited 3G dongles on the market. We take it for a spin around town…

Like many of its competitors you may find the Huawei E160G USB Modem’s somewhat broad-in-the-beam measurements means it obscures access to an adjacent USB port on your laptop or even your desktop computer.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

• Huawei E160 Linux

If you are a keen user of ports, you can always opt for a USB extension cable to minimise this problem, and happily enough, 3 provides one.

What’s neat about this particular dongle is that is has a microSD card slot in one side. Drop a card in and the dongle doubles up as a portable storage device. It supports cards up to 4GB in size. Meanwhile the SIM fits into a slot by the USB connector.

Plug the dongle into a USB port and the software it requires automatically installs. Thereafter whenever you plug the dongle in its software maximises so you are ready to go online with a single click on a huge, green Connect button which it is impossible to miss.

When you are connected the modem lights up to show how fast your connection is. Green is for GPRS, blue is for 3G, cyan is for HSDPA. As well as getting you onto the Internet for data purposes there’s an SMS manager with its own address book to help you keep in touch.

The whole thing is hard to fault, really. It does what it does very well indeed, is easy to set up, and doubles up as a USB storage device. Super.

Verdict
The Huawei E160G USB Modem is one of the best 3G dongles we’ve had the pleasure to use. As in just a couple of minutes this dongle gets you onto the Internet faultlessly and first time. We approve.

Best features
Built in microSD card slot
Very easy to use software
Incorporates SMS utility

Not so good
A bit on the large side

Closest rivals

Huawei E156 Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband Modem
Huawei E156 Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband Modem
The 3 USB modem gives you true mobile broadband that’s easy to use and won’t cost you an arm and a leg

Vodafone K3520 USB Stick Mobile Broadband Modem
The Huawei K3520 USB Stick Modem delivers freedom from wires and hotspots and super quick access to the Internet and your email.

T-Mobile 110 Mobile Broadband Modem
The T-Mobile 110 Mobile Broadband USB stick is so easy to use – just plug it in, it self installs the connection manager and all you need to…

Three E160G USB Mobile Broadband Modem

Three E160G USB Mobile Broadband Modem overview

The 3 USB modem gives you truly mobile broadband that’s easy to use and won’t cost you an arm and a leg. It means freedom from wires and hotspots, and access to the Internet at breakneck speeds.

Three’s hottest new dongle comes in black, and has a MicroSD memory card slot suitable for cards up to 4GB in size, so it can double up as a memory stick as well.

The E160G is an even simpler plug and play dongle, as it’s preloaded with the new Birdstep dashboard, which gives you a link from their desktop straight through to My3 and a broadband dashboard which automatically updates itself to a new version when available.

Everything auto-installs so you get on the web even quicker than before. And when you’re in a Turbo Network you can get broadband internet access speeds of up to 3.6MBps. Plus with the E160g supporting speeds of up to 7.2Mbps, you’re futureproofed for a while against network developments.

To give you an idea of what each bundle could get you, we’ve put some examples below.

1GB of data lets you:
Send 650 plain text emails AND surf the web for 30 hours AND download 30 two minute videos AND download 60 music tracks.

3GB of data lets you:
Send 2000 plain text emails AND surf the web for 100 hours AND download 100 two minute videos AND download 200 music tracks.

7GB of data lets you:
Send 4500 plain text emails AND surf the web for 200 hours AND download 200 two minute videos AND download 400 music tracks.

To use your sleek Stick USB Modem you’ll need a few things. Your computer or laptop needs a minimum of 50MB hard disk space, 1 free USB port, a Windows 2000, XP, Vista or and Mac OSX operating system. And the great user-friendly Modem Manager interface not only manages your connection, it displays all the messages you receive on your mobile broadband number. You can even reply to your text messages while logged in.

ModelE160G USB Mobile Broadband Modem

Manufacturer/BrandThree

Network-

Talk Time Up To0

Standby Time Up To0

Dimensions 87.3 x 25.3 x 12 mm

ConnectivityUSB 2.0

NetworksQuad band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz / EDGE (EGRPS) with a maximum transmission rate of 236.8kbps / GPRS / WCDMA 2100 MHz (HSDPA) up to 7.2 Mbps

Weight50g

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