Tata Photon Max WiFi: Cheap, portable and stable - Financial Express ~ Electronic Gadgets

Saturday 25 January 2014

Tata Photon Max WiFi: Cheap, portable and stable - Financial Express

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Pranay Parab | New Delhi | Updated: Jan 25 2014, 11:29 IST

Tata Photon Max Wi-Fi is priced at Rs 1,999 and plans range from Rs 650 per month (up to 3 GB) to Rs 1,500 per month (up to 15 GB) excluding taxes.

SummaryIf you need stable, portable Wi-Fi connection, then Tata Photon Max Wi-Fi will be excellent purchase.

Do you panic when your internet connection drops? When the deadline looms, I do. Many of us rely on the Internet to earn a living so whether it is power cuts, poor network coverage or unscheduled downtime, the cost of such outages is huge.

During one such deadline-hour power cut, I realised that my phone had run out of charge. I had to borrow a neighbour�s phone and use it as a Wi-Fi hotspot to send my story. To put it mildly, the editor was not happy.

When I first used Tata Photon Max Wi-Fi last week, a USB dongle that lets you access the internet on up to five devices, I wished I�d had it a year ago. The amount of hardware and software configuration needed for a broadband connection make it unviable for many. If you had a USB stick that you could use to quickly connect five devices to the internet, things would be a lot more convenient than a broadband connection. That is just what the Photon Max Wi-Fi offers.

SETTING IT UP

The review unit we got was pre-configured, so all I had to do was connect it to a power socket and the device started working in half a minute. I couldn�t find the installation manual on the Tata Photon website, so I have uploaded it here: http://is.gd/mg1pr4. Going by those instructions, it looks like the installation process and changing Wi-Fi passwords is going to be difficult for most people. However, it�s a one-time hassle.

COVERAGE

As mentioned above, the device works as advertised after you configure it. It is almost identical to the Photon Max, whose coverage I�ve found to be very reliable in most big cities. The Photon Max Wi-Fi has a blue and a green light. A stable blue light means that the device has connected to the Internet, while a stable green light means that your gadgets are connected to Photon Max Wi-Fi. In over a week of testing, I faced no downtime.

M2SPEED

Tata promises up to 6.2 Mbps speed on the Photon Max. The speed we got ranged between 1.4 Mbps and 2.6 Mbps, when tested

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