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Emobile to Release Pocket Wifi S – Wireless Tethering for Everyone.

Dec 15, ’10 2:56 AM
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Following up on the runaway success of the Pocket Wifi D25HW mobile router, EMobile has just announced a new device,the Pocket Wifi S.

Dubbed “S” for Simple and Smart, the new Pocket Wifi is not just a portable wireless router, but is also a fully functional smartphone running Android 2.2.

The Pocket Wifi S, or S31HW, seems to be a pretty pedestrian Android device with a 2.9 inch touchscreen, 512MB memory with a microSD memory slot.

What makes it interesting is that it will be able to share its HSPA 7.2Mbps down/5.8Mbps up connection wirelessly with up to five devices.  While docomo introduced this function about a year ago, the tethering speed was limited to paltry PHS speeds and data was only provided on a pricey PC plan.  EMobile is offering unlimited data on the phone, plus anything tethered to it for the low monthly cost of 4,280 yen.  To top it off, the Pocket Wifi S will retail for 19, 800! That’s about half of the cost of the last generation D25HW Pocket Wifi.

The Pocket wifi will be available in Japan in January of 2011 in three colors .

Press release (Japanese)

  • Tsubasa Kato

    The fact that Pocket Wifi S is 105 grams is notable. In fact, it seems it will be the lightest Android smartphone in Japan.

  • rurtlejp

    Any idea as to who the OEM is on this device? Would love to see the specs of the phone portion.

  • shonangreg

    I checked at the Yokohama Station Yodobashi trying to find this out, and they didn’t know. It is Huawei. It does have GPS. Accelerometers were not mentioned on the data sheet they had, but presumably it has the full set.

    For me, this means if I were going to get a phone now, I’d go for this phone (with the caveat that any Huawei device may be leaking data back to China . . .) and a tablet. The phone is capable enough for general use — including geotagging photos while out mountainbiking and almost everything else you can do with any higher spec’ed android phone outdoors. Indoors, for video presentations, video chat, etc., I’d use the tablet.

  • shonangreg

    PS Oops. They didn’t know the model number. Obviously we all know Huawei is the maker.

  • evildave

    Its the Huawei U8150. Its also sold by bmobile.

    Its almost identical in form factor to the Samsung Galaxy 5 (non-OTA-updated to froyo) that I keep my Philippines roaming sim in while in Japan.

  • rahatkhan

    Actually b-mobile is also offering the same handset as the Ideos for 26,800yen. Couple that with a one year prepaid data sim for 29,800yen you have a unlimited internet for a year. The years after that you only have to get the prepaid sim card which will cost only 2500yen/month.