Qualcomm’s recent announcement of the Snapdragon X2 Elite shows that the company continues to strengthen its push to gain a foothold in Windows PCs., particularly as Nvidia pumps investment into a reeling Intel.
The X2 Elite outperforms Qualcomm’s previous PC offerings in all the important key metrics. But there’s one feature from the company’s early days that hasn’t made a return: the integrated cellular connectivity that came standard before the company switched to its current Oryon CPU cores.
That’s not surprising. Cellular connectivity has never been a popular option in consumer PCs often used in Wi-Fi environments like homes and schools.
For Apple, for example, 5G has been one of those few remaining lines in the sand between the Mac, which has never supported integrated cellular, and the iPad – aided by its iPhone bloodline – has offered a cellular option since the first model. And with iPadOS 26’s support for windows and a menu bar, the iPad experience is closer to the Mac’s than ever.
Options for getting PCs on these networks extend back to the early 1990s and heated up when 3G became fast enough for email and the web (barely). At a time when carriers, seeing their networks straining from the unprecedented load of smartphones, refused to support tethering or smartphone hotspots, the MiFi device from Novatel Wireless (now Inseego) allowed multiple computers to access the wireless internet via an ad hoc Wi-Fi network.
It soon gained favor over options that connected over only USB or Bluetooth, although all of these products became less popular as cellular companies eased up on restrictions that allowed smartphone users to provide laptop connectivity directly or via a Wi-Fi hotspot. Today, Apple and Google streamline connections tethering between the laptops and phones that use their OSes.
Still, there are reasons why one might want to use a dedicated device versus one’s smartphone as a hotspot. These include not taxing the smartphone’s battery, hitting data caps on a smartphone plan, or wanting to use a different carrier for your laptop’s internet access, say, if your smartphone’s carrier has poor coverage someplace you need to use your laptop,
Business users transferring sensitive data often want such options when the alternative is public Wi-Fi. Fortunately, dedicated hotspots never went away and they now support modern network standards.
One of the most advanced portable Wi-Fi hotspots is Netgear’s Nighthawk line. Its M6 Pro, which supports mmWave technology for the fastest cellular connections, includes an Ethernet port for network fallback and options for an extra battery and external antenna. The M7, which includes support for Wi-Fi 7, is exclusive to AT&T in the U.S.
Lately, we’ve also seen a bit of a comeback for directly connected cellular adapters. TCL’s Linkport is a small USB-C dongle that’s noteworthy in that it’s the first such product to use 5G RedCap (for REDused CAPacity), the fastest among a handful of choices for lower-power, lower-speed applications such as IoT sensors.
T-Mobile is the first and for now the only carrier to offer the LinkPort, which offers speeds that are comparable to LTE. But that’s about what most 5G users were experiencing at the network’s launch anyway. Indeed, LinkPort provides comfortable access to the web and HD streaming video.
The most impressive thing about it is its painless setup. Appearing to the device as an Ethernet adapter, it will work with just about anything that’s designed to connect to the internet and has a data-enabled USB connector, including Chromebooks, iPads, e-readers, and phones locked to other carriers.
On the other hand of the performance spectrum for USB modems is Verizon’s 5G USB Modem designed by HTC. The enterprise product blends HTC’s cellular legacy with its headset present, using Verizon’s C-Band spectrum to create low-latency cellular connections for extended reality applications. Having the device use a USB connection helps keep the device small and light, an advantage for a wearable product.
Like smartphones, both USB and Wi-Fi-based hotspots can be locked to carriers so ensure that the device you choose is either locked to the carrier you want or is unlocked. But once they connect to 5G, they can take nearly any connected devices along for the ride.
