Stranger in a strange land...

[-FlyingDucks-]

My lady has an iPhone5 and is loving it. But I am clueless about all-things Apple.

Need a tablet to run some specific apps. Someone said get a WiFi only iPad Mini or an Android.....

Anyone here knows if it can:

1) Can it talk to the internet through my existing WiFi enabled smart phone, meaning can the iPad Mini talk to smartphones on WiFi, with it's communication going WiFi to the phone but then out the otherside of the phone onto the internet by way of the phone's Verizon cellphone service?

2) Does the smartphone have to be an iPhone or are iPad Mini's able to WiFi themselves with any WiFi smartphone?

3) If the above works, are you guys seeing acceptable data transfer rates, or is it painfully slow?

 

[kch50428]

Any device with wifi can connect to a cellphone and use the phone's cellular network connection to access the internet at whatever speeds the carrier's network supports and the phone is capable of - 3G/4G or LTE... as long as the subscriber has "personal hot spot" features included with their plan... or, they chose to somehow "game the system" via rooting/jailbreaking... and the phone is capable of establishing the 'personal hot spot'... so an iPad, regardless of size, can connect to an Android phone with personal hotspot... or an iPhone with a personal hot spot... or even a data-only personal hotspot devices like "jet packs"...

 

[Donnee]

It'll do all of the above fine I have a blackberry phone and one of the main reasons I went for the wifi over the cellular is that I have unlimited tethering included on my contract. Speeds will vary by carrier but here in the uk on Three I usually see 1.5-2mbps depending on signal (plenty fast for browsing from my point of view), but If you're lucky enough to have a 4g phone and good signal I imagine that could be a lot higher.

 

[shanghaichica]

It'll do all of the above fine I have a blackberry phone and one of the main reasons I went for the wifi over the cellular is that I have unlimited tethering included on my contract. Speeds will vary by carrier but here in the uk on Three I usually see 1.5-2mbps depending on signal (plenty fast for browsing from my point of view), but If you're lucky enough to have a 4g phone and good signal I imagine that could be a lot higher.

Yea I do the sake thing with my android phone and it works pretty well. I'm on O2.