4G Mobile Hotspot Device for Travel (UPP Blue)

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!

It’s like a scam. I had DuoTurbo from this company, but the connection was lost and useless for 80-90% of the time in Nepal. I purchased this model to use in Japan and Korea, the connection was great. But a complete data scam. I only use instagram and gmail on my phone, no Netflix or Youtube. But the device said I used 27 GB in less than three weeks. I used the device for internet to send emails for an hour at Starbucks and it told me I used 4-5GB within an hour. I reached out to customer care, they’re prompt in responding but did not have any solution for this. I would honestly purchase a wifi at the airport the moment I arrive in a foreign country. They provide a so much more stable, better wifi connection at a much more affordable, reasonable price. This? This is NOT. Unreliable, unstable, and drinks your money like a thirsty hippo. Supposed to make travel less stressful but it added stress.

I have been using GlocalMe hotspot for years for my frequent China travel (no Google, etc in China) and it does the job really well so Google, WhatsApp, etc all work. It is slim, light and discrete - hassle free. However, with the introduction of eSims, these are alternatives and cheaper as GlocalMe is a bit more expensive. I generally get an eSim via Trip.com (cheapest and work very well - Airalo has let me down too many times by comparison and I wont use them again) and leave the UPP in my hotel room as my WiFi. Works well

Just got my Glocalme G4 and from the time i opened the box to the time i actually used, I can say this is a good thing, probably the best of its kind. From outside in, I believe the manufacturers really took all efforts to build exactly what the customers like, at a decent price. The interface is very good and clean, complete but simple and efficient, and doesn't take long to learn you could operate the whole of it within half an hour. It's also very connected and can be operated through the iPhone App; you could also monitor its use and performance, including utilization of subscribed data within the App. It's not heavy unlike the previous G3 and actually feels just like another phone, you are almost tempted to use it to make a call. And very handy, too you can just bring it anywhere, put it in you pocket or in your bag, the amount of full charge can carry you the entire day and some - you can even charge other gadgets with the extra charge, at the more efficient USB 3.0 Type-C, too. Overall, it's a good buy, value for money, I believe the only one that may be able to surpass it would be a G5, if ever they will release a new one next year ... :D

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.

I love this Hotspot!!! It really gives a great internet signal. Very simple to work and pares easily with my laptop !!! I also love th we fast shipping !!! I highly recommend this seller's product !!!

I only had to use this while I left wifi from the house we were staying. Used the wifi hot spot only for Germany (Bavaria) region and didn't lose signal once. Supported two phones and had to charge after a weekend of solid use. I did turn it off when I wasn't planning on using my phone for anything. So I would say speed was decent (uploading photos to Instagram and social media), battery life is dependent on use (but I got around 12-16hrs). It's tricky to check the battery life, you have to check via the app right after you connect to the wifi on your phone and it shows up when you select the device, next to a status symbol on the connectivity strength. Was easy to set up once the app was downloaded (I have an iPhone), you have to buy a data plan before you leave (selecting either region (country specific) regional (like EU) or global. Country specific is cheapest. I paid $22 for 3gb 15-day Germany package and had 384mg left to convert into credit (which I can use to buy another package later on. The app doesn't say anything about credits expiring, but I'll update again if I find that isn't true). This is all in reference to the wifi Hotspot usage, I didn't use the GlocalMe app for a digital Sim card (since my iPhone is too old to support e-sim).