https://moneyat30.com/skyroam-review/ Are you in need of a Wifi hotspot for your international travel? Let’s take a look at the Skyroam Solis and Skyroam’s data plans.
Review: https://moneyat30.com/skyroam-review/
Skyroam Solis (Discount code: MONEYAT30): https://moneyat30.com/skyroam-review/
Jackery powerbank: https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Charger-Jackery-Bolt-6000/dp/B01A6L85CC
My Experience Traveling with the Skyroam Solis
Recently, I had the good fortune of visiting Hong Kong. While this was my first time getting to try out T-Mobile’s free international capabilities, I was also excited to activate the Solis I purchased shortly after CES. As luck would have it, the perfect opportunity to test the device arose while my wife and I were at Hong Kong Disneyland.
Connection speed on mobile
During my visit to the park, I needed to upload a video I had shot of the new Ant-Man and the Wasp ride. Unfortunately, even with my T-Mobile One Plus plan, my regular mobile data speed wasn’t cutting it. So that’s when I knew it was time to bust out my Solis, cash in the Unlimited Global WiFi day pass that was included in my device purchase, and see how Skyroam performed. Thankfully, the WiFi the Skyroam provided helped my upload move along at a much faster clip and was completely uploaded within a few minutes.
Battery life
Although that task was my main concern, with my day pass activated, I figured I’d leave the Solis on to see how the battery would hold up to a day at the park. To my (somewhat) surprise, it managed to last through the whole thing and still had plenty of charge when we arrived back at our hotel room. Specifically, it went from 96% to 30% over the course of 10 hours under consistent use.
Device temperature
Speaking of “constant use,” I was also impressed by how literally cool the Solis stayed. I’ve heard complaints about hotspots getting too, well, hot — but I kept my device in my bag the entire day and could barely notice a temperature difference when I touched it. Granted, my bag was fairly roomy and airy so it may have been a bit of a different story had it been in my pocket but, nevertheless, it was nice to know I didn’t have to worry about it overheating.
Power bank usage
Something that Skyroam boasts about the Solis is that, in addition to being a mobile hotspot, it can also be used as a power bank. Therefore, when my phone needed a bit of charge, I once again turned to the Solis for testing. At first, I thought I might actually be out of luck as I had forgotten to pack the USB-C to USB adapter that comes with the device, but I actually had an Apple dongle in my bag that did the trick. Still, I have to admit that my experience left something to be desired.
First of all, while I neglected to time my before and after battery level, it seemed that my iPhone charged fairly slowly while connected to the Solis. Conversely, the battery level of the Solis dropped considerably faster while I was charging my phone than when it was only doing single duty as a hotspot. For those reasons, while it’s nice to know the Solis has power bank possibilities if you need them in a pinch, if your main concern is WiFi, I’d pack a dedicated charger instead.
Connection speed on desktop
When I returned to my hotel room, despite having WiFi, I decided to try out the Solis’s connection on my laptop. While it didn’t feel as speedy as on my phone (probably because I’m more used to waiting for things to load on mobile), it was capable of streaming YouTube without issue. Additionally, this connection test on my laptop came as we also had both of our mobile phones still connected to the network. Admittedly, I didn’t run too many other speed tests as I was exhausted from my day walking around a theme park, but I can report my speed sampling provided satisfactory results.
In addition to their $9 per day Unlimited Global WiFi option, Skyroam also offers a $99 per month option. Similar to how your day pass is good for 24 hours from when you activate, a month pass is not a calendar month but, instead, allows you to use your hotspot as much as you want during a 30-day timeframe. Doing some quick math, if you plan on using your hotspot for more than 11 days in a month’s time, this plan will save you a bit of money compared to the per day price.
Another option is Skyroam’s GoData plans. For $9 a month, you can utilize 1 GB of data on your hotspot. While GoData plans will renew automatically, you can cancel at any time.
For context on how much 1 GB of data is, I used just under a gigabyte during my day in the park — but that’s mostly because I uploaded a 545 MB video.
For more travel related product reviews make sure to visit https://moneyat30.com/category/travel-tips/ and for all my travel tip videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFfM5Lf816al1hmN62iKjippUmiQbySGe