MiFi v2: The Good, The Something and the Not So Ugly

So my second trial of the MiFi has come to an end (boo!)

The new version was launched by Three last month, and had a few improvements based on feedback on the original model. Because of my previous blog post, Michelle at ThreeMobileBuzz offered me a trial of the new one so I could compare them.

I took my MiFi out quite a bit this time. It came to Boston Tea Party a few times (if you’ve never been to BTP, you MUST! They do such yummy cakes, and have a massive selection of tea. Also their Park Street branch (my favourite) has a gorgeous little “secret garden” which is lovely to sit in during the summer. You might even see the shabby robin!) where it was a lifesaver – BTP offers free wifi with The Cloud, but I’ve never been able to get it working, and none of the staff there seem to know how it works either!

It came on the bus with me (after moving house, I now have a 40 minute bus journey to and from work everyday. This is me trying to use the time efficiently!)

It even came to work with me everyday, where I spent my lunches reading Google Reader applying for jobs and updating the blog.

The new version was a lot nicer to use as well. You pressed one button to turn it on, and then waited a little bit. Instead of having to decode the icons and colours (what does a green M mean again?), the new screen would tell you what it was doing. It was nice as well to see how many devices were connected to it at one time – obviously would be more useful if more than one person was using it so you could work out what was using it! Appearance wise – I much preferred the matt black and silver combination to the previous white plastic look.

The control panel (if thats the right word?) was much more useful to me as well – I only use Macs outside of work, and the old versions Windows only application was pretty useless to me! The new MiFi now has a web based control panel which not only gave the same information at the actual screen (useful if you’ve put the MiFi over on the windowsill for example) but also information about data usage, any text messages that you’ve recieved (and could send them as well – useful I’m sure for some people) and even what websites you visited most (interesting!)

I liked the old MiFi, but this one is even better. Its so easy to use, I’d be quite happy to recommend this to anyone – even my dad! I’m seriously considering this for myself as well, although that would be dependant on the signal strength in Somerset.

The v2 MiFi is available on both pay as you go contracts and pay monthly ones. You can choose whether to pay for the… well, its not a dongle is it. Device?… or have it on an 18 month contract and pay a little extra each month.