GlocalMe Numen Air 5G Mobile Hotspot, Portable WiFi Hotspot for Travel in 200+ Countries, Ultra High Speed Hotspot Device with Global 1.1GB Data, No SIM Card Required, 16 Connected DevicesCarbonfree Certified

The GlocalMe Numen 5G Air is a remarkable device. Until now, when I lost cable Internet access because my service provider was down, my smartphone became a temporary WiFi hotspot. The smartphone hotspot provides slow internet speed and a lot of browsing timeouts while wirelessly connected to my desktop PC. I was desperate for an emergency backup solution for Internet access that was faster than my smartphone. The price of the Numen was an "ouch" but after I received it, activated it and tested it for a few days, I concluded it was definitely worth the price. The Numen is high quality, high performance and easy to set up. I tested it for a few days on my tablet, notebook computer and desktop PCs. We have 5G phone service where I live. The Numen connected to the local 5G phone network quickly and easily. With the Numen WiFi connection, both the download and upload speeds were faster than the same internet speed test using my cable internet service WiFi or even my fiberoptic Internet service WiFi. The Numen has capabilities I may never use because I don't travel outside of the USA. It can connect seamlessly to the phone systems in many other countries. It can operate on the 5G or 4G networks. The LED touchscreen on the Numen is clear and easy to read. The GlocalMe phone app is not all that visually appealing, but it gets the job done for maintaining my account and interfacing with the Numen when required. I like the way GlocalMe's service model works. It's a one-time payment for the hotspot device. The app is free and all you have to do is purchase data packages from GlocalMe to make everything work perfectly. The Numen uses virtual SIMS to connect but is also capable of using a real SIM from another provider. I haven't tested the Numen with a 3rd party SIM, and probably won't. I purchased the Numen for emergency backup and short travel trips in the USA. I don't anticipate needing a lot of monthly data bandwidth for it. But it's nice to know I have the SIM option because there are other data providers that sell data plans competitive with GlocalMe's data packages. Prior to purchasing the Numen, I checked out several videos about it on YouTube and the few that I found were very positive. It was the YouTube video reviews that convinced me to take the Numen plunge. I'm glad I did. I can rest a lot easier now just knowing I have reliable, fast emergency Internet access as long as the cellular networks are still functioning.

I'm always hesitant about these types of hotspots. I've had three 4g hotspots but my signal has always been just below good enough to use for work. My job requires a couple VPN jumps and the 2-5mbps of 4g LTE in my area on my network Google-Fi (t-mobile) just didn't make them useful.-This is the first hotspot with 5G that I've seen fall into the "affordable" range. $300 is a bit pricey still, so it's on the higher end of that scale for me.... But it's WAY better than the $500-$900 price of other 5G hotspots.The trade-off being they want to put you on the "easy" but more predatory path of buying their esim data packages.-SO because of that I was skeptical of how well the physical sim option would work.I didn't like that I had to install their app.Thankfully I didn't have to build an account, I just used my google sign in which is strong and multi-auth'd for security.---- Free tip: the more user/login accounts you create, the more susceptible you are to being breached. Unless unlike most people you don't use the same password for everything lol. (use a password manager people!)---Once I opened the app and dropped into it, I was able to scan the QR on the device and "sync" or "bind" it to my account. I suppose they do that for security since they would hold your payment information IF you bought their electronic SIM.WHICH I DID NOT---For those unaware, you can get a free data-only sim card from Google-Fi. It uses your plan data and I have the unlimited premium plan which offers full speed 5G performance on hotpot devices for 50gb a month (so much for unlimited lol)But that's plenty for me as I'd use this as a backup mostly to my own home internet or for when going out of town or out of the house.---After inserting the Sim Card, I just had to approve it in the sim manager, mine is unlocked and all that so it was easy as pie to set up. You may have to talk to your provider if you do want to get one those hoops are not an issue with this device. In the device screen you just "switch" to the Sim Card option and enable the 5g slider. that's it.---The device itself is sleek enough, almost as tall as my S24 Ultra, and skinnier by about 3/4 of an inch. I guess it would've been cool to get a little carrying pouch for it? but meh I don't mind not having one. the plastic housing of the device has a nice velvet matte type finish and it's USB-C YESSSS great not having to carry around a separate mini or micro usb cable. Because it's USB-C it charges quickly too. The battery seems to hold a charge well.I would suggest keeping it between that 30-80% sweet spot as that's best for batteries of this generation.---Boot up time is pretty quick too. About 7-10 seconds and then maybe another 3-5 for the signal to start transmitting/emitting.---***SPEED/PERFORMANCE***I compared my phones performance on 5G to this device getting and transmitting 5G. They matched nearly identically.So I know the product can perform as well as a normal cell phone. That's all I needed to see.But I did hook my work laptop into it and worked from inside my home and outside my home.I was getting about 25-40Mbps inside my house and 80-110Mbps outside on my deck.Very usable for my work needs (think slack, email, browser work over vpn)****Super happy with the results and exactly in line with what I was hoping for!!!*****Additional notes:There are so many factors to take into account with speed/performance. Your location: i.e. inside or outside, material of the building you're in if you're inside, distance from a 5G tower, even weather can impact it a bit (not as bad as satellite though). Then there's time of day, city population, population using your carrier. If you're in a megacity and your towers are over-saturated, and everyone uses the same carrier, the performance of your phone or this device will OBVIOUSLY be impacted. Those are not factors to fault this device over.Granted the strength of the antennae of the device does share some accountability, but these are "cheap", consumer level devices. It doesn't have a ton of huge antennas, it's got a small footprint and it's not some business class office level product. It's for a handful of devices at a time. (Think friends camping or at a cabin etc) or someone working from the road that needs their own secure and reliable device to get internet. It's not going to be the best for a central hub of a network to use 24/7 across an entire family's set of devices. (think ps5, 3 cable boxes, 4 laptops, 5 phones, media PC's etc) this isn't meant for things like that.----**Conclusion**Super happy with the device, would highly recommend for anyone who is looking for on the go data usage for work or play where you need that 5G speed!

The box does everything you need it to do and the least expensive options will be buying your own SIM. However, it was not trivial to activate as you actually have to enter in APN information using the box - you can't connect to a local admin website like a normal router. The data plans that the box offers are expensive and not that flexible for some countries. The plans they advertise on Amazon buying the hardware do not exist. If you are lucky, there is a $10 one month plan for some country offered every so often but not standard. Speeds are good, coverage is good. Setup could be better for bring your own SIM. Their data plan will be the most efficient for someone traveling to 2 continents over a year.

Does not work at all just spent a week on vacation trying to get this to work to make sure that we could use our phones GPS to get us from one location to the next and a good chunk of the time it had no signal and on the few occasions where it did have signal it was never strong enough to do anything with her phones that we needed to do. Not worth the money sensitive ice did not function for what we needed at all for an entire week. The only time the device had signal was if our cell phones had signal. Device seemed super easy to set up but did not work even when instructions were followed completely. The few times the device did have signal the speed was awful and we had better signal just using our normal phone cell service.

Pro: Good speed, good signal, durable battery, easy to set upCon: Expensive (especially for use in North America), and data plans are not so flexible. There's almost only either 1-day plan or more expensive 30-day plan available, with only very few 7-day plans that I need