T-Mobile Quanta 5G Hotspot for T Mobile, D53 5G Broadband Hotspot (Renewed)

This is my first time having a separate hotspot device. I got in mainly because Tmobile had some plans that had better rates than doing smartphone plans with hotspot service included that increased the the monthly price significantly.This is a fairly heavy device. It's about 2/3s the size of my Samsung S21 and about 1/3 thicker but weighs a bit more. That's just in case people are expecting a smaller device that is lightweight. The hotspot uses a USB C connector to charge and even with a quality charger it does take a while to charge so if you are a frequent user or traveler I do recommend charging it overnight if it gets below 30% of you might find yourself without data when you need it the most.It's been a solid performer so far. I am not a heavy use of it since I usually have access to the internet at most locations I go to but when I do need it, I need it bad and need it to be a solid connection.Keep in mind that just because the device is 5G capable does not mean it is going to give you a solid 5G connection everywhere. Just like your smartphone it will switch from 5G to 4G LTE or 3G depending on availability or signal strength.I have had pretty good results so far with it, with the occasional issue that when I am traveling and lose the 5G signal it sometimes takes a reboot of the hotspot to get connected again. I've gotten consistent download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds to 0.13Mbps. Yeah, upload speeds are quite low but honestly, most of your time you are going to be downloading data. Your speeds may vary.To get the most stable connection while traveling I do recommend going into the hotspots dashboard at http://mobile.hotspot and then going to Setup > Network Settings and change the network search mode to Manual and the Network Mode to LTE/3G. It has a idle timeout of 10 minutes which might very well be what some people have complained about frequently losing the connection. If you go to Settings : Advanced Settings > Power and Battery settings you can change the idle time up to a maximum of 30 minutes. Very rarely have I had any drops by doing it this way. Do keep in mind that increasing the idle timeout is going to increase battery usage.It only comes with the 5GHz band enabled so you will also need to activate the 2.4GHz radio if you have older WiFi devices in Settings > WiFi > Basic. Please set a WiFi password for your connections. You have no idea how often I find completely unsecured hotspots because some people think that because it is their hotspot that only they can connect to it. If you are home or traveling with your kiddos and want to prevent them from using your hotspot despite the repeated warning that it slows down your speed and eat your data you can limit the number of simultaneous connections and there is also a MAC Filtering option. Just saying :-)I know some people will just find it a PITA but if you work with this device's quirks and limitations it is a solid performer. If you want a device that "just works" then you are going to have to look into much more expensive devices or even a more expensive plan from your carrier.I have not had any issues with the hotspot getting hot even with heavy use. I understand that some of these being refurbished devices may have all been as thoroughly inspected and could be luck of the draw. I am happy with mine and think it is a great deal.

It seems to work great, and then it doesn't. It is very unreliable with full bars in the city. over the course of a couple of minutes, it will go from decent speeds to unusable.

Thia is about twice the size of the Franklin T9 that it replaced. I miss the usage meter and MAC filtering of the T9 but this is much better in most regards. Being able to turn off the Internet through the web interface is an improvement. Update: The battery is inaccessible in the unit and of all the problems it could have had, it now sometimes cycles on/off and reconnecting to the network. It does this at random times and stops at random times. If I could disconnect the battery I would, but instead it cycles randomly on/off.

No guide on how to use it.Took me a lot of time to google around.Hard to put SIM on, I had to try multiple options to get correct SIM on.We need to upgrade Firmware to see it works.Connect device to your own laptop and update firmware.The Hotspot singal of Tmobile is not good, sometimes lost signal.is it reasonable? Don't know, let try for an another week.

For the refurbished price, you can't go wrong. Mine looked great and still had protective plastic over the screen. There are no included instructions but there are quite a few youtube videos. Some reviews said the login details weren't provided, they are availble on the device screen. You can scroll through the different screens. First power the device on, then once fully booted and you see the display you can press the power button to toggle through the multiple display screens. One screen shows you the hotspot name and default password. After you connect to the hotspot using the default password, toggle through the device screens again to find the one that shows you the device URL (website) and password. Connect using the computer you've connected to the hotspot and then you can change all the hotspot settings (name, password, etc). Besides the device working really well, it can also act as a charging brick and it has a pretty big battery. If it doesn't work, it's probably you, not the device.

Couldn't get mobile to activate it

I'm trying to use this hotspot tethered via USB to a (Netgate 1100) pfSense router. I'm running the current release of the OS and I've upgraded the hotspot to the latest firmware. Though the router sees the hotspot as a valid device (Mediatek mt6890 as interface ue0) and I can get it to route packets through it just fine, the hotspot has issues staying connected. It seems that it might be a power management issue, as sometimes I'll find the hotspot powered off with 0% batter, and other times I'll see a message about not charging past 70% due to it being in "CPE mode" - which would be stellar, if it would stay connected while in this mode. When it does disconnect (but the battery is still charged), disabling and enabling the interface brings it back online. FWIW, I've examined pretty much every option available on its web UI to try to get it to play nicely, but I don't see anything I haven't already tried that might change this behavior.What so disappointing is that this device is SO CLOSE to being usable! Just having a 5G-capable chipset that is recognized by pfSense is huge. But without stability, it's unusable this way. I'm giving it two stars because I suppose it's usable as a WiFi hotspot, though that's not how I'd use it.

This is a bit large for what it is. I have had other jet packs before, all of them were small. this thing is as big as a phone. I guess for 5G, the form factor is much larger than previous editions.