Quick review
The good
The not-so-good
If you need to share a mobile connection among devices, rather than turn your phone into a hotspot, you may want to consider an easy $99 model in the D-Link DWR-933M.
It’s the year 2025, and broadband is commonplace. Whether you log on using your a fixed broadband connection or something a little more mobile, you have options for getting online. Your phone has an option, and if you have several phones, chances are you have several SIMs.
But what if you didn’t?
If you don’t have multiple SIM cards to slot into multiple phones, you can opt for a device they all share: a mobile hotspot. These aren’t all that new, but normally they come with plans and are focused on high-speed internet.
What is the D-Link DWR-933M?
D-Link’s DWR-933M isn’t, or rather, it’s not necessarily going to be as fast as other mobile hotspots, and that’s kind of the point.
Less a pricey Netgear Nighthawk and more an economical mobile internet solution for the family, the DWR-933M makes a mobile account shareable without really any effort.
It’s a $99 portable internet gadget for when you need to share.
What does it do?
Simply put, this little gadget is a portable wireless hotspot, allowing you to bring a mobile connection to devices by way of WiFi 6, also known as 802.11ax.
There isn’t a heap of bandwidth in this small hotspot, offering an AX600 connection and splitting it in half over 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Each will get a max of 286Mbps (286+286), which isn’t much to share for a power user, but may suit small families.
If you’re planning a trip with the family any time soon, and you don’t want to give every device a SIM, D-Link’s DWR-933M is a handy alternative. Instead, stick one nanoSIM in the portable wireless router, and then share it between the kids. No extra SIMs needed, just the one to share.
You can even log into the dashboard (with the password details found under the battery) and send text messages from the SIM, if it supports it.
Does it do the job?
The downside of the DWR-933M is speed — both for the hotspot and the WiFi it uses.
On the 4G side of things, it maxes out at Cat 6’s 300Mbps, which these days isn’t staggering. Just about any 5G phone can deliver more speed, providing anywhere between 300 and 2000Mbps depending on the technology in your phone, and when working as a hotspot, your phone is definitely faster.
But 300Mbps is also fairly fine to share between, especially when it concerns family members you don’t want to pay for an extra SIM in. Phones for the kids being used as entertainment gadgets, or even a Steam Deck used on the go may be worthwhile here, even with the mobile speed limit.
The lack of speed from the WiFi is a more serious issue, because it hampers just how many devices you’ll want connected. This isn’t like the usual advice of slow devices on 2.4GHz and faster needs on the 5GHz (or kids on 2.4 and parents on 5), because both bands are evenly matched. They’re both a meh 286Mbps shared between devices.
Technically, D-Link supports as many as 64 connections, but even when you do the maths, you see that stretched to its limit, the DWR-933M is going to provide a measly megabyte per second if pushed. We’d probably suggest a better maximum of ten devices, but still keep things tighter than that.
Your family drive will be easier with just two or three devices connected, that’s for sure, provided your mobile connection is great all the way through. The battery should even keep going, supporting as much as 10 to 12 hours from its 3000mAh battery, but easily charging from a USB-C cable if it does begin to run down.
What does it need?
As good of a gadget as it is, D-Link missed a real opportunity with what appears a clever designed slightly hampered by a lack of ingenuity.
While the portable modem router has a handy form-factor thanks to a slot that makes it easily mounted to a backpack strap, there’s a real missed opportunity from D-Link to make this into a proper interactive tag of sorts.
The design is there: you can feed a bag strap through the DWR-933M case and keep it affixed to your luggage. But it could have easily had a message at the front working as an actual luggage tag. An address or phone number, which is a real missed opportunity that it doesn’t.
As it is, the only useful information you’ll see on that tiny 1.77 inch screen is the speed, and the network IDs you need to connect to.
D-Link could have made the default screen anything else, like a luggage tag. It still technically could with an update. Someone nudge D-Link.
Is it worth your money?
The thing is even without some ingenuity, the price is hard to pass up if you need something like this.
At $99 in Australia, the D-Link DWR-933M is a clever addition to the family car for a trip where you have to keep the kids entertained, and you know that books and singing won’t do it.
By comparison, the Netgear Nighthawk M2 from 2019 supported Category 20 4G, boasting speeds as high as 2000Mbps if you can get them, and it still costs between $299 and $499 depending on where you look.
It’s worth keeping in mind a spare phone will also do the same thing, but may not keep the battery going as long, either. For $99, it’s an easy addition to the family mobile toolkit.
Yay or nay?
There are definite things D-Link could have done to make the 933M better: a faster modem — because Cat 6 isn’t new — and a little more bandwidth to share. Oh, and that luggage tag thing we mentioned, because convergence is cool.
But for $99, it’s hard to argue too much.
If you’re looking for a way to split the internet between gadgets to go, D-Link’s DWR-933M is worth a look.
