New HSDPA products from Huawei

Like HTC a few years back, Huawei is one of those companies that users may not have heard of even if they use its products on a daily basis. Last we checked, all three mobile phone operators in Singapore offered the China-based company's HSDPA USB modems to their mobile broadband customers. According to Huawei, its mobile broadband devices have been used by 235 operators in 115 countries. Today at CommunicAsia, the company announced five more products, some of which you may see being offered by your operator in the near future.

Models and Huawei's executives showing off the company's new products.

First up is the E180 HSPA USB stick. This tiny modem supports up to 7.2Mbps downloads and 5.76Mbps uploads. These speeds are not supported by most service providers at the moment, but as of now, some of these operators have already announced upgrades to their equipment which will boost speeds. The E180 has a tiny USB connector and a swivel body for easy storage. Another interesting feature is a built-in microSD media slot which supports up to 8GB cards, reducing one more thing that users will need to carry around when out and about.

Three mobile phones have also been announced at the same time. These come in various form factors including one bar-type and two sliders. The U7310 slider has a slim profile of 13.9mm and supports HSDPA connectivity up to 3.6Mbps. All three phones announced can work as USB modems through USB and, like the E180 USB stick, will work with both Windows and OS X PC computers and notebooks.

As Huawei does not sell its consumer products directly to end-users, you'll have to wait and see if your operator will offer them. As such, prices are also determined by operators. So don't hold your breath for now. We will see them available in the market come Q3. Click on over to the next page for more details of the devices.