How good is tethering with a Samsung Galaxy S4?

o531 · 12 Jul 2013 at 22:47

Hi there, I just have a quick question to ask.

Very soon, I'll be moving home and I'm looking to completely ditch my current internet connection (lots of reasons why, with the main one being that I don't really ever use the internet at home extensively enough). I have been looking at 3's 'The One Plan' and it's perfect for me, since there are no limits to it's monthly download allowance.

I am undecided between getting an iPhone 5 or an Samsung Galaxy S4, but am much more heavily leaning towards getting an S4 since I love it's screen. My question is... how good is the Samsung Galaxy S4's tethering abilities? Does it act very well as a router, and does it maintain a consistent connection, or does it occasionally drop signals? Is an iPhone 5 better at acting as a router?

I'm mostly looking to hook up a laptop and PS3 with it for the Wi-Fi. I'm not bothered about having lightning fast internet speeds, but am more concerned with consistency and reliability.

Thanks for any help!

andy_mk3 · 12 Jul 2013 at 22:58

It'll be fine for use on laptop. Don't expect great results gaming on a PS3 though, pings will get a bit high and you'll have frequent disconnections.

I've used my SGS4 a few times for tethering and get over 20mb/s usually. It's great for internet use, it's faster than most non-fibre broadband connections

o531 · 12 Jul 2013 at 23:56

Ahh, that's good to hear

I'm quite surprised that you get around 20 mb/s with your phone! My current connection with Sky only ever hits 500 kb/s, max!

I'm not so concerned about using using my PS3 online for gaming as I very rarely do multiplayer (I wanted a good connection as I frequently buy stuff from PSN and would like to continue to be able download full games) but just out of interest, have other people gamed online while tethering and achieved satisfactory results?

Tee Hee Johnson · 13 Jul 2013 at 00:12

I did try it, purely to see what it would be like. It worked, but ping was high causing a sensation of being 'behind' everyone else in the game. This was despite a good fast connection in other regards, 7mb or something if i recall correctly.

I quickly went back to a proper connection.

mattyfez · 13 Jul 2013 at 11:48

Well I only have an s3 (on 3 one plan)

On a recent train trip to London from Leeds the train wifi was pretty bad, so my mate tethered his laptop, and I gave my key to a cute girl sitting opposite as she was having bother also.

Worked fine with two laptops connected, we were playing flash games and general internetting, no idea what she was doing, probably facebook lol! I think there was the odd drop, but that was more to do with the mobile network from a fast moving intercity type train, and it vastly out performed the trains Wi-Fi which was barley useable really.

As others have said, probably not ideal for serious gaming though...

In a stationary environment, it really comes down to how good your signal is. It will certainly be fine as a temporary ISP till you get proper broadband put in. Then again if you just do web browsing, you could probably quite easily use it as a permanent solution. You'd probably want to get a recharging dock for it though if you do that.

I've never noticed any drop in the teatherning side of things with an s3, seems solid as a rock, assuming the phone itself has good signal/data signal, I imagine you can also teather via usb cable rather than wifi too, for ultimate stability, as you can do this with the s3.