O2 Reviews

First up, I'll admit this - I'm using the 3G connection in an area that doesn't have 3G natively, so my own experiences do reflect that.

The connection does have a habit of resetting itself regularly, but given that it's both Mobile Broadband, and in an area that only receives intermittent 3G spillover signal, that's to be expected. One thing I have noticed however, is that the dongle does heat up quite a bit.

Like the other review says, I have noticed that uploaded images do get very much pixellated for no apparent reason and no explanation is given to the end-user, so it's definitely not a good idea. I did also get this connecting via Vodafone GPRS, so it may be standard practice for all Mobile internet.

The software itself is simple enough and can easily be minimized to the taskbar when needed. It's a very simplistic display that shows you the network you're on, signal strength, local wifi networks you can piggy-back on, and has a few extra buttons for other stuff users might need. Your account information is brought up in a window on your default browser when the connection starts, but can be brought up via the connection manager at any time.

All in, it pretty much does the job well enough, but isn't exactly great if you're after anything more than just basic browsing. If you're gaming or streaming, you'll really suffer. So far I've not had to call tech support, so I really can't rate that. I know they'd tell me my postcode shouldn't be getting the connection I do anyway.

Things that they don't tell you that you need to know:-

- They compress graphics by injecting JS into the HTML you download, this creates a very early '90s web experience with heavily pixelated images and illegible captchas.

- They block Steam, this means that if you buy a game that uses Steam for verification, like Empire Total War for example, you can't install it.

The connection drops a lot but that's the nature of the thing, other than that it's OK.