Aldi mobile phone card review

With mobile data and phone coverage still a big issue in Australia, especially for the traveller, I was intrigued by the latest offering from Aldi into the world of mobiles. The most interesting part of there offering to me was there partnership with Telstra, and there 3G network. So with this in mind and the fact that I needed a cheap sim to test my new pocket wifi I thought it might be helpful to post my findings.

As with all of these pay as you go deals it is best to read there information for yourselves before committing.

The initial setup is as follows.

The starter pack costs $5 this gives you a SIM card of your choice, with $5 worth of credit which is valid for 365 days. The system work on a voucher system which at a minimum is $15 for $15 credit over 365 days, once this has been added you can purchase a data add on voucher $15 for 2 gig of data to use in a 30 days. This is very interesting as Telstra is very expensive for data rates for prepaid, there option is about twice the price. There are other voucher options which can be purchased either online or in store, so checkout there website for full details.

Once you get a starter pack you need to register it, I did mine online at there website aldimobile.com.au they required the usual personal information but added drivers licence and Medicare card, also they don't register to postboxes, there is no need to enter credit card details either. They also seem to limit a person to 5 cards. After submitting my information they said that the sim should be active within 4 hours, I received an email within 30 minutes saying I was ready to go.

This was all straight forward but a couple of points to note, they don't offer overseas roaming so not good if you are planning an overseas trip, and they are looking like only Australian citizens can activate an account so if you are holidaying in Australia from overseas this card seems unavailable to you unless you have Aussie friends to activate it for you.

So now with the card activated and installed in my pocket wifi I was ready for some speed testing, would I really have the power and coverage of the Telstra 3G network. To conduct my speed test I was using the speed test app on my iPhone connected over wifi to the pocket wifi.

My initial test results were very good. Ping 99ms / Download 5.11 Mbs / Upload 1.56 Mbs, as a comparison the results from a speed test from my iPhone over the virgin 3G network (Optus carrier) was Ping 68ms / Download 3.40Mbs / Upload 0.82 Mbs

All in all this seems on the face of it to be a great way to get a cheap pay as you go phone card with reasonable cheap data costs, and all on Telstra who have best coverage in Australia, so if you are in the market for a new phone card, this could be perfect for you.

Posted with Blogsy

Hotsion Hot-V9

Hotsion Hot-V9 Portable 3G wireless

In perpetration for my upcoming holiday, I decided that I needed to find a way to try and beat the hotels and there ripoff rates for wifi. So I am going to get a 3G data card and use that instead. For this to be effective I needed a way to share it via wifi between my devices, as well as being able to copy my photos and video to a backup hard drive. After doing some research this little device looks like it will fit the bill and mine arrived today.

The Hotsions interesting features are.

1. Wifi specs are b,g,n

2. Has a USB port for 3G dongle

3. Has a second USB port which acts as a external power for a phone

4. Has a micro sd card slot for up to 32 gig of on board space

5. Can be used as a wifi extender

After adding a micro sd card and powering up the device I found it is pretty easy to connect to the device. The micro SD card can be accessed through the browser on your device, I connected from my laptop and iPhone.

I have FileBrowser installed on my iPhone and found that this connected easily with the Hotsion, playing music and video from the micro sd card was easy. File transfer was pretty quick as well, I transferred the camera roll from my iPhone, 179 photos to the micro sd card in the Hotsion in just over 7 minutes.

An interesting find is that if you plug a USB hard drive into the 3G USB port while the micro sd card is installed the hard drive does not register, but remove the micro sd card and the hard drive is fully accessible, my 500 gig hard drive worked perfectly.

The cost is good as well, mine was only $45, from dx.com the delivery is free and mine took almost 30 days to arrive.

If you have a need for in the field storage / backup, say for photos or carrying movies or music that you want to share this device seems very good for the price.

My 3G modem hopefully will arrive soon and i am very interested to see how it handle a speed test, as I use it more I will post my finds.

 

Posted with Blogsy

BMW remote battery

After getting my 1999 E46 BMW remote working again, it started to become erratic in its workings after only 3 weeks of working perfectly, sometimes only unlocking the car but not locking, then not working at all only to start working again for no reason, the little red light not lighting up when a button was pressed.

The remote is the kind with the CR2016 battery so I measured the battery and found that it was 3.0 volts, since the battery is a 3 volt battery I thought this was fine. I decided though to change the battery to see if I could get the remote to work again. The new battery measured 3.45 volts and got the remote working again straight away, the question I now have to resolve is how long the battery will last.

 

Posted with Blogsy