GlocalMe U3 4G Portable WiFi Hotspot for Travel in 200+ Countries

I bought this in spite of the ongoing legal battle that Glocalme and Skyroam appears to be embroiled in. I believe they have sidestepped whatever issue they were dealing with with the release of updated firmware and this new unit so I'm not too worried about there being any long-term issues with the injunction they had placed against them. This device mysteriously appeared on Amazon shortly after the injunction went into effect and all the older devices mysteriously disappeared. So.... there isn't a lot of information on this, but it was a concern of mine before I ended up buying the device anyway. I needed something that would work reliably as a hotspot for AT&T and/or Tmobile and this one mostly fit the bill. There is no band 71 support which really sucks for Tmobile, but you do what you can! I got a sim card from Red Pocket, put 60GBs on it and have been using it daily for about 5-6 days while camping in West Virginia (working remotely). It has been rock solid and has given me some decent speeds while my poor phone has had crap service from Tmobile (AT&T is the only cell carrier with a decent presence in West Virginia). I liked this option because I know I can use it in the future for day-trips as well as short business trips and the freedom to hop carriers in the US and outside of it is huge. Also purchasing data direct, while more expensive, will really be nice to get started in a new country when I visit. I really wish I had something like when when I visited Italy at the beginning of the year. I'll definitely be packing it along for future adventures. As far as usability is concerned, the form factor is almost exactly the same as my LG v30 with the slim case I have on it. It is pretty much just one button. Turn it on or turn it off. The initial setup was easy and I did not download the app or bind it to an account yet since I just slapped a sim card in there. All I did was name the device and setup the wifi hotspot password and it was ready to go. One thing I was really impressed with was the wifi range. I have been roaming almost as far away from this thing as I'd roam from a normal router. It has a pretty powerful wifi signal which has been super helpful as I have been working in an all-metal building a lot. I basically leave this thing on the outside of the building and then work from the inside. Excellent signal -- works almost like a cell signal booster. My only real complaints are, like others have mentioned, no real case options. I find myself babying the device since it really doesn't have much protection. It handles and feels like a cell phone so you want to protect the screen from damage. It hasn't been tough to protect it and I've been car camping so it has been in some decently harsh environments thus far. We'll see how it holds up long term. I won't be taking it camping often. Mostly it'll be coming along on business trips. Also because of the lack of a case, I found it was pretty easy to turn on while in my pack. I found a pocket which holds it well enough so it wasn't pushing buttons while I'm moving around -- but YMMV. You will want to find a place where the sides aren't pressed, otherwise it'll be constantly turning on and off in your pack or whereever you're holding it. The lack of Band 71 was also a bummer as I mentioned already. I'll probably upgrade my phone at some point and will use that when I travel too far out of the way on Tmobile's network. Since I have an AT&T sim in there right now I think I'll be ok for the time being, though. Finally, Glocalme is a Chinese company. I want to believe they have our best interests at heart, but China is in the midst of serious turmoil right now. Communication devices such as this one make for fantastic spy equipment and while I'd like to believe that isn't the case, it is something I considered when making a purchasing decision. Huawei and Oneplus, both very popular Chinese communication companies have been caught with spyware on their devices and networks. Do not think that this company is immune to the whim's of the Chinese government. So do your own research there and make an informed decision. Overall I have been very happy with it. It is very portable, very easy to use, and the battery has been lasting me from 8am until 11pm daily with about 30% charge to spare. Really cannot complain!

I've owned a couple of G3s now for a little over a year and they've been absolutely amazing on every international trip we've taken. I mentioned in my G3 review that the unit is fairly bulky and heavy, due to having such a large battery and the capability (which we never used) to serve as a portable battery for mobile devices. Even after a full 8-10 hour day of usage, we rarely saw the battery drop below 70-75% state of charge. When I saw a new iteration of the device, the G4, came out, I had to have one and I think GlocalMe have significantly improved the form factor of the device. It sports a much larger screen, is significantly thinner, and weights a lot less. The battery is smaller (3900 mAh vs. 5350 mAh), but that has not been an issue for us. Even after a full day of usage, the battery on the G4 was still around 40-50% so I think it could easily last for two days. G3: 126mm x 64mm x 17mm (thick); 235g; 5350 mAh G4: 136mm x 71mm x 12mm (thick); 187g; 3900 mAh I'm not sure of the processor/RAM specs, but the G4 boots faster and the UI feels snappier than the G3. The screen appears to be a similar resolution (perhaps slightly higher, but not noticeably higher) but I noticed colors seem more vibrant and there's a lot better contrast. I last updated my G3 software a couple of months ago, so it could be out of date, but the G4 has additional apps: Google Maps, translation app, and a currency conversion app (though this appears to be entirely in Chinese). The inclusion of maps is awesome and in general, I hope this means that in the future, we may be able to install our own Android apps on the device! I also want to share some things that I think could be improved or that might be considered downsides to the G4. We'll start with the obvious, which is that because the device is so new, there are no case options for it - hopefully that will change soon. The other major downside is that it does not appear as if a single GlocalMe account can register multiple devices. This means you'll need multiple email addresses if you have multiple devices - generally, I don't think this is an issue, but those of you upgrading from a G3 to G4 might find this a little frustrating. The other consequence of this is that the accounts (and therefore devices) cannot share purchased plans. I hope this is something they improve in the future. Lastly, I noticed the data plan store now includes unlimited plans for certain regions, which will throttle after hitting some data limit. This is a great, cheaper option for many if you don't plan to use much data, or if the speed isn't a huge concern for you. In Brazil, for example, the unlimited plan was $5/day, while the metered plans were expensive in comparison: ~$10 for 1 GB or $26 for 3 GB, though of course, there is no throttling on these plans. It's great to see GlocalMe adding new plans to fit different usage profiles! In summary, we've had GlocalMe devices on 6 international trips and they worked flawlessly. No issues registering on local networks or using the GlocalMe data plans. The hardware is solid - we've never experienced an issue that required rebooting the device. Finally, the software is usable, and there have been many improvements from the G3 to G4, which is hopefully a sign of many more improvements to come. If you travel a lot and are looking for a cost effective, reliable solution to having internet access abroad, I give the GlocalMe G4 my highest recommendation!

Horrible. Did not work. I took it on my trip to Europe and it never worked. A total waste of money.

I've used it in both the US and in Mexico and it works fine. In fact it even seems a little faster than my home-based WiFi. Changing the device name and password was really difficult, which I wanted to do because the factory password was really long. I had to go to the GlocalMe website and do a chat (with an agent, not the useless robot). But I finally got it changed. That's the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. The service is good! So far...

Excellent little device. The connection never dropped throughout our stay in Kyoto. The battery lasts through the whole day but you will want to charge it for the next day. The app UI is nice and easy to use and the packages offered are reasonable and trustworthy. Great purchase for a good price!

I recently purchased a U3. What follows is my experience over the first 48 hours of ownership. (Spoiler - I suspect that wireless carriers throttle this device) After two days and dozens of online chats with GlocalMe customer support, I was able to increase the download speed on my desktop PC using the U3 from 0.6 Mbps to 16.5 Mbps. To compare this to other methods of accessing the internet from my desktop PC: Device Used ---------------- Download Speed U3 ----------------------------16.5 Mbps Tether to Verizon phone --- 51.1 Mbps (Galaxy S8) Tether to T-Mobile phone -- 53.6 Mbps (Galaxy S8) 2.4G WiFi ------------------- 127.2 Mbps (TP Link AC 1750) 5.0G WiFi ------------------- 461.1 Mbps (TP Link AC 1750) Ethernet ------------------- 912.8 Mbps (AT&T Fiber) Note that I used the same speed test on a Chrome browser on my desktop PC to keep everything apples to apples. According to customer support, my U3 was connecting to T-Mobile. Unfortunately, the best speed I could achieve was 16.5 Mbps through the U3 vs 53.6 Mbps through a T-Mobile phone. This is why I suspect the throttling. Speaking of customer support, do not be afraid to use the chat feature as soon as you suspect as issue. As long as you are very patient, they will eventually walk you through how to troubleshoot your device, update the firmware, etc. Their website, phone app, online manual and paper manual are practically useless and say little more than "turn on the device and cross your fingers." If using a device like the U3 is the only option you have, then use it. If you have any other options available - tether to a phone, Starbucks WiFi, tinfoil hat - they are likely to be much faster and more reliable. I am currently using the U3 with their included data plan. I ordered a data only sim card from Tello (who uses T-Mobile) to see if that works better (maybe GlocalMe only pays carriers for their slowest / lowest priority service). UPDATE: I received the Tello sim card. Along with the Tello sim card, I also tried my T-Mobile sim card and my Verizon sim card from my phones. (Spoiler - sim cards are faster, but not by much) SIM Card -- Download Speed None ------ 14.6 Mbps Tello -------26.3 Mbos Verizon --- 14.4 Mbps T-Mobile -- 23.2 Mbps Kinda looks like the GlocalMe U3 is using Verizon and not T-Mobile when there is no sim card. Tello and T-Mobile are similar, which makes sense since they are on the same network. After all of this, the biggest mystery to me is why tethering to a T-Mobile or a Verizon phone is 2-3 times faster than when I take the sim cards out of the phones and put them in the GlocalMe. I would have expected the GlocalMe with a sim card to be as fast as tethering to a phone with the exact same sim card, but it's not. Maybe the carriers give some kind of priority to cell phones vs other devices. To summarize - The GlocalMe works, especially if you can find the right sim card and carrier combination and you accept that connection speeds are going to be lower than other methods of accessing the internet.

Oh my goodness, this is a game changer. I knew I had to travel several states away but also knew there was no internet where I was staying. So, I bought this on a whim, hoping it would work, probably not. Boy, was I surprised. I got to my destination, opened it up and saw right away that I had a problem. " Go to this website and enter your information". OK, how do I do that if I have no internet? There is only one button to press on this. I held it down for 10-12 seconds and suddenly it turns on. I wait a couple of minutes and suddenly see a wi-fi connection to the device. I punched in the password on the back and 2 minutes later, I have internet with 30 gig of data on my computer. I'm on the internet:) A little more playing around, I go to settings on the computer, select wi-fi and it shows me how much gigabyte of data I have used. Wow, I have internet and easily know how much data I have used. I've been here over a week, completed 3 days of critical all day work needing to be done and still have 22 gig of data remaining. So easy, so fast, so life saving for me. I didn't need to start a whole new internet contract for $100/month for a year. I couldn't be happier. Thank You!!!! This really is a game changer for travelers.

I am really impressed with this device! My GlocalMe U3 Mobile Hotspot managed to find data signal in cellphone signal barren deserts near me, where I have not been able to use my phone for years! There was 1 location where I was certain it was going to work. After restarting the GlocalMe U3 Mobile Hotspot and my cellphone, I was able to receive a connection via Wi-Fi, albeit slow.... Nevertheless, it worked; it did not let me down! Because the plastic used on the outer shell is really smooth, it is also somewhat slippery, so placing it on my dashboard to obtain less obstructed signal through the windshield was only a good idea while not moving, I would suggest mounting the unit to a windshield, the way you would a toll booth transponder, like an "E-Z-Pass", with Velcro so that it can be taken with you when out of the car. One more suggestion which I am unsure if it actually helped me or not... is when signal got really sluggish, I would hold the device up in the air while slowly spinning in a circle to "help" the device get a better lock on the signal. I am considering using a walking stick & designing a mount so I can hold the unit up a little higher. Like I said, not sure if it makes it better, but it helps me feel like I'm helping it.

The equiment is satisfactory but I found it a bit difficult to set up but now that is done I am happy with the results

Chegou hj! E veio com 10 gigas ! Fácil de instalar e conectar! Ainda não testei viajando mas deve funcionar bem. Adorei