D-Link DWR-933M Wi-Fi 6 Mobile Hotspot Review - Cheap, But Not Fast

Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up

At one time, there were plenty of choices in the mobile hotspot router space, but with the advent of hotspots from basically any smartphone, the need for consumers to bother with a separate device just for sharing mobile data has decreased substantially.

That's left the mobile hotspot field with just two spaces to occupy: the high-end, mostly business-centric, high-cost mobile router with lots of features and plenty of speed, and budget models that just provide the very basic sides of mobile data sharing. The D-Link DWR-933M very much fits into the latter category, which you totally should expect given its $99 AUD price tag.

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Obviously if you're happy sharing from your phone as and when needed, then the D-Link DWR-933M is absolutely surplus to your needs, but at that price, hundreds of dollars cheaper than competing models like Netgear's very nice but very pricey Nighthawk mobile routers there's a space for this kind of device, especially if you want to avoid longer-term stresses to your smartphone's battery.

Specifications & Close Up

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Alex's Test Devices

• Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold
• Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max
• HP Omnibook Ultra Flip (Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD variant)
• Apple MacBook Pro M4 (Apple M4, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD variant)
• Apple MacBook Air M2 (Apple M2, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD variant)
• Nintendo Switch OLED
• Google Pixel Tablet

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Design & Software

Design

Packaging for the DWR-933M is simple and easy to open, with the router, battery, and a single small USB-C charging cable included - so you'll need to bring your own power supply to keep its battery going over time.

The D-Link DWR-933M is a moderately small portable router, measuring in at 108 x 63 x 16 mm. D-Link doesn't specify weight, but my trusty scales reckon it to come in at around 114g all up.

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It certainly doesn't look premium with a small 1.77 low-resolution LCD display giving you essential information, but not a whole lot else. It's not a touch panel, just an information panel to show current Wi-Fi network names, throughput, and basic battery status.

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Controls at the side remain simple, with power and WPS setup buttons sitting above the reset pin hole. Again, the feel is on the cheaper side, which is expected at this price.

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One nice feature that does speak to the DWR-933M's focus on portability is the small loop at the top, making it suitable to attach via a lanyard strap to just about anything mobile at all. I'm not suggesting that I'm going to go abseiling with the DWR-933M looped to my backpack - but in theory you could.

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Pop the back of the DWR-933M off and you'll find a 3000mAh removable lithium-ion battery that D-Link claims is capable of "all day usage". More on that later.

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The battery sits in front of the single socket for a Nano-SIM, and the whole effort really does have that classic flavour of mobile feature phones if you're familiar with those.

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That's not a criticism per se; the advantage here is that as long as you can get a Nano SIM inserted the right way around (spoiler: Contacts down, logo up), there's very little that can go wrong.

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While you're dropping a Nano SIM into the DWR-933M, it would also be a good idea to take a quick photo (or otherwise jot down) the default Wi-Fi and admin passwords for configuration purposes.

Software

While most of the pre-configuration of the DWR-933M is done for you, if you do want to tinker, you've got two ways to do so. Old school networking heads will gravitate towards using a web interface via its default IP address - which is why noting down the default admin password above was a smart step - while those who work more in a mobile sense may wish to use D-Link's Mobile Connect app instead.

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In Wi-Fi terms, you can set default network names and limit the number of connected devices; all up the DWR-933M will support 32 devices on 2.4GHz and the same on 5GHz, though practical bandwidth limits mean that it wouldn't be a smart choice to actually do that.

Mobile settings are largely going to be set by your SIM provider, though it's arguably worth setting network mode in Australia to 4G only, given that 3G networks are completely defunct here, unless you regularly plan to travel internationally with the DWR-933M.

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This is also where you can (if so desired and if supported by your provider) send text messages via the web interface. Bear in mind that most data-only SIMs won't support texting, but if you're throwing in a regular mobile phone plan SIM, it's certainly something you could do.

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You've also got the option to disable WPS setup if you don't want that kind of quicker configuration in play, though why you would want this remains a mystery to me.

This is also where you check your mobile data usage and set any traffic limits, which could be useful if you're working from a data-limited SIM, or if your plan still includes some level of excess data charge.

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The LAN settings page allows you to set your default IP address and DHCP range, and... that's all. Configuration here is at a minimum. The same is true of the clients page, which simply provides you with relevant MAC and IP addresses as they're assigned across the 2.4GHz and 5GHz ranges.

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There's also a Wizard setup that guides you through these simple steps, as well as warning you not to place the DWR-933M near microwaves, cordless ovens, or baby monitors. That's not a health risk issue, but a performance one, as it's not as though this is a router bristling with high-performance antennae.

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This does not leave you with a whole host of router features for issues like QoS or firewall protection, but then this is built as a very simple, fire-and-forget type consumer-level mobile hotspot, and nothing more besides.

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If you want to get more granular with your mobile hotspotting, it will cost you a fair bit more - and to be fair, it's not like too many smartphone hotspot systems offer advanced routing features either.

Performance

The primary way most mobile hotspot users are going to want to use a mobile hotspot is in a mobile way, which is to say that they're best suited for use on the go, or where, for practical reasons, it's not viable to get a fixed-line broadband connection into play.

The challenge here for testing is that the DWR-933M isn't 5G capable, only 4G Cat 6, which gives it a maximum theoretical speed of 300Mbps downstream at best. That's compounded by the fact that mobile signal reception is massively variable depending on location, weather, other user patterns, and whether you have in fact left it next to the baby monitor while testing - which I didn't, just to be clear.

Networks also have their role to play here; my own testing has been with a Telstra mobile SIM in the Sydney area, but other networks and even MVNOs who may either choose to limit connections or have limitations placed onto them by their network providers - especially true for those MVNOs who use "parts of" the Telstra wholesale network - could change up your own observed speeds markedly.

I've actually had the DWR-933M for some months of testing on and off, and in that time, I've not hit 300Mbps via 4G, or anywhere close to it, though this isn't entirely surprising. My typical connection speeds have ranged anywhere from 5Mbps down to a maximum of around 100Mbps over that time, but rarely much more than that.

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For very simple mobile connection sharing between 2-5 devices, that's maybe enough, but nobody is ever going to claim that it's fast in any way. That's absolutely more a limitation of mobile networks than it is the DWR-330M itself, and a bit of a reminder that you do get what you pay for. If you want faster by way of 5G, you're going to have to pay more for it.

It also highlights a limitation of this kind of device, because while you technically might be able to share a total of 64 devices from the DWR-330M, if you're only getting at best 100Mbps down and often less, everyone's going to have a lot of trouble doing anything online with that connection beyond swearing at each other that somebody else is hogging all the bandwidth.

It's a similar slow story on the LAN front, where the Wi-Fi 6 connection between devices maxes out at a theoretical 286Mbps between devices; once you start sharing that out, any kind of local file transfer is going to be quite sluggish. On the plus side, localized testing between just two devices with only two others on the network saw average figures of 238Mbps between them for a single large file transfer, which is a pleasing 83% of the theoretical range. It's still not fast by any measure, however.

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D-Link's claims around battery life call for around 12 hours of usage, but like most vendors, there's a little bit of rubbery logic going on here; based on my own experiences with the DWR-933M that might be feasible if you were only pairing out a single device and not using it all that much, but then what would be the point? It's certainly capable of between 4-6 hours of usage with 2-3 connected devices on moderate usage, but as always, that may vary depending on your network conditions and precise usage patterns.

Final Thoughts

If all you need is incredibly intermittent hotspot functionality, then you really don't need something like the DWR-933M; any Android phone will do a passable enough job of sharing out a mobile data connection.

However, as a backup device, and especially one that should maintain a mobile connection over a number of hours - many smartphone hotspot functions tend to time out automatically or just plain crash in my experience - if your speed needs are modest and you're sticking to just a couple of connected devices, the DWR-933M offers fair value for what it is.

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At just $99 AUD, you're getting a dedicated hotspot if you need one that's easy enough to configure, even if it's not terribly complex in terms of any additional filtering or routing functions. Not a bad option for road trips, holiday homes where you might not want the cost of a permanent fixed line connection (or where the NBN's stuck you with a sub-par option), or other mobile services where your need to keep your wallet under control is more important than your need for raw broadband speed.