Looking for an easy way to share files such as pictures and music between the stable of Android devices I have. I guess I could hook up a cable each time to my laptop and transfer them there then hook up the other device and transfer them again. Started with a Sandisk Media Drive and it’s probably great for streaming videos to devices and maybe music with some limitations. Wasn’t what I was looking for. Then I came across the Ravpower WD002 which will let you connect to it using an Android file manager such as ES File Explorer or Solid Explorer and maybe others too. You can also access it using a web browser.

How does it do all this you ask? Well it has it’s own wifi network that you connect to with your device. This is good except now you can’t do much else as you can’t access the internet. The WD02 will also act as a bridge per say and also connect to your home wifi. Now you can still use the internet and also have access to the files on the WD02. This works as stated but my issue with it is that without it my Nexus 9 will consistently get 38 mbs using SpeedTest to test it. When going through the WD02 FileHub the throughput drops to 2 mbs give or take. The odd thing to me is that both sides of the wifi in the WD02 have to be on the same wifi channel. A true bride should be able to use different channels.

I contacted RavPower about this issue and they tried to explain it away that the WD02 was sharing the bandwidth hence the speed drop. That’s true bandwidth is a shared resource so each device gets a portion of it. So if I had to share the 38 mbs with the WD02 then I should be somewhere are 19 mbs not 2 mbs. After 3 email back enforth RavPower suggested that I try the WD03 which has better networking per their claim. These emails took maybe an hour total and I got the 1st reply probably withing 20 minutes and this was at 9 pm in the evening. Did this solve my problem I won’t know until it arrive Aug. 8, 2015.

This little device is pretty cool features.
6000 mah battery than not only powers the unit and can also be used to charge your tablet or phone.

Can plug it into a router using a cat5 cable and create a wifi router, great for place that don’t have wifi but does have internet access.

Plug it directly into the cable modem and have wifi (wifi only)

Micro sd card slot that supports 128 gb cards.

You can also plug a thumb drive in and access it to.

Stream video to up to 5 device, though I didn’t try this to see if it worked as advertised.

Cons
As mentioned above internet speed when connecting through the WD02

When I charged it I left it plugged in the unit got real hot and at this point I no longer had access to the sd card or the thumb drive. Freaked me out at first but they were still okay when plugged into the PC or at least the thumb drive was didn’t check the micro sd card just assumed it was okay too.

I might have been able to live with the slow internet but only connecting to it when I needed to transfer something but when you can’t leave it plugged in come on now this thing should have circuitry to shut off the charging when the battery is charged. My phone and tablets don’t get this hot if I leave them on the charger. It doesn’t come with a charging brick so you have to use a PC or existing brick. Maybe a 500 mah charger would work better. I was using a 1a which was what was recommended.