Have you been itching to try 5G but you’re not up for a smartphone upgrade yet? Smart Communications, Inc. is offering the next best thing — the Smart Bro 5G Rocket WiFi.

As the name suggests, it’s essentially a mobile WiFi that’s capable of tapping into 5G networks. If you haven’t been keeping up with the times, 5G is the next generation of mobile connectivity. Over the past two years, various telecom companies have been integrating it into their services.

The Philippines is no different. Smart Communications, Inc. has done their part establishing 5G networks in various areas of the country from Metro Manila, North Luzon, South Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

You can find a full list of the covered areas here. Just have to scroll down and towards the Frequently Asked Questions section and look for “What areas are Smart 5G covered right now?” You can also open Waze and track down Smart 5G areas there.

How to set up the Smart Bro 5G Rocket WiFi

I want to say it’s pretty straightforward but I had more trouble with taking the protective cover off than I’m willing to admit. That said, it is pretty easy. You only need to lift the cover to insert the Smart 5G-ready SIM card.

You can charge the device through its USB-C port. What’s surprising is that the device also has an ethernet port. So, if you’re lucky enough to live near a 5G area, this can function as your primary Internet connection directly connected to your home router.

You can load the SIM via scratch card or PayMaya. Either way, you’ll still need to download the GigaLife app. Here, you can load the SIM card and activate Smart’s various data plans. For the purposes of this article, we used GigaPro199 which gives users 27GB of data valid for 7 days.

With the Smart Bro 5G Rocket WiFi loaded and GigaPro199 activated, we took it for a spin.

Out and about

The Pandemic is still in full swing so we only really used this a couple of times while out recording videos for various projects. The results are naturally mixed.

As you may have guessed, 5G connectivity relies heavily on the area of coverage. If you’re not at a spot with 5G coverage, you just simply aren’t gonna get 5G speeds. But is it still serviceable? Yes.

What you’re gonna get are still the steady 4G/LTE speeds you typically get from Smart. For our part, this means an average of 45Mbps download and 15Mbps upload speeds. That’s still pretty darn decent.

But at 5G coverage areas, we were consistently getting at least 80Mbps download and around 20Mbps upload speeds.

Those are the speed tests. But what about actual usage? Happy to report that the speed tests perform as advertised. There were zero frustrating moments when I am unable to send a chat or download files throughout around six (6) hours of a work day.

Work from Home

This writer is lucky enough to live in an area with 5G coverage. Which is surprising since the 4G connection is pretty hard to come by. That aside, we used the Smart Bro 5G Rocket WiFi for the rest of the week and it was steady… for the most part.

In terms of speed tests, we were consistently getting anywhere between 160Mbps to 220Mbps download and 30Mbps-40Mbps upload speeds. This was true all throughout the rest of the week we used it at home.

On actual usage, it performed just as well as our PLDT Home DSL connection. Perhaps, a little too much like it. You see, every week, our DSL connection suffers from random Internet outages. Nothing too drastic though. Sometimes the speed would dip. Other times, it’s completely gone. This happens anywhere between 30 minute to two hour stretches. Frustrating. But we’ve grown used to it.

This is exactly how the Smart Bro 5G Rocket WiFi behaved. It’s not exactly a flawless experience, but It’s not bad either. In fact, we’d go out on a limb to say it’s pretty darn good for mobile WiFi.

You’ll just have to watch your hours of usage. Unplugged, it’ll last typically around five to six hours. Any more and either the juice will run out or it’ll be too hot to function properly.

Should you get the Smart Bro 5G Rocket WiFi? 

If your job requires you to be constantly out and about and in need of fast mobile connection, the Smart Bro 5G Rocket WiFi is a nice contraption to have. This is especially true if you still don’t own a 5G-capable smartphone.

It’s available with Signature Data Plan S for PhP 1,324 per month for 36 months, with a one-time cashout of PhP 5,300. It would have been a more compelling gadget to recommend had we not just seen borderline budget 5G phones released recently. We expect Smart Communications to slash the price a little bit or offer this in some kind of promo to be more competitive against the Redmi Note 10 5G and realme 8 5G smartphones.

If you do decide to get it, it would be prudent to map out the 5G spots in the areas you frequent so you know where to set up shop.