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TCL Communication on Saturday announced two new additions to the Alcatel LINKZONE series of hotspots, having debuted its fastest 4G LTE offerings yet. The company’s latest products are the LINKZONE CAT7 and LINKZONE CAT12 priced at €99.99 ($123) and €179.99 ($221), respectively. No firm release dates have yet been provided for either gadget, with the Chinese technology giant only saying both will become available for purchase in select markets around the world later this year, without specifically confirming U.S. availability. Most of the previous LINKZONE-branded offerings eventually started retailing stateside.
The new Alcatel LINKZONE duo boasts a compact physical footprint and has been specifically designed to be suitable for a wide variety of use cases, TCL says. Much like its price tag implies, the Alcatel LINKZONE CAT12 is the more premium offering of the two, promising peak download speeds of 600Mbps and maximum upload speeds of up to 100Mbps. Support for three-channel carrier aggregation is also part of the package, allowing the hotspot to benefit from some of the latest advancements in the wireless industry and consistently deliver high data rates. The Alcatel LINKZONE CAT12 is powered by a 4,300mAh battery rated for up to 15 hours of use on a single charge or 300 hours (12.5 days) of standby time with the dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac functionality turned on. TCL claims a battery of this size is unprecedented in the context of such a small hotspot and touts the product as the ultimate connectivity tool catering to a wide variety of customers. The gadget can also act as a power bank if needed, with its battery being large enough to fully recharge any contemporary handset while still having enough power left in the tank to offer wireless connectivity for hours.
The Alcatel LINKZONE CAT7 is equally compact, being just 13.3mm thick and weighing approximately 85g. The device offers maximum download rates of 300Mbps and peak upload speeds of 100Mbps, in addition to supporting two-channel carrier aggregation and having a battery that can deliver up to eight hours of connectivity on a single charge. Both products will be showcased at this year’s Mobile World Congress which is officially starting on Monday in Barcelona, Spain.