Renting 4G Wi-Fi Device in Korea
 

Has anyone every rented one of these while in Korea? Are they necessary and are they expensive?

Necessary? 100%. They have wi-fi available in the city but you need to be 'registered'. The only place you'll get free wi-fi are at coffee shops which can be very inconvenient. Just rent a hotspot from Widemobile for like 4000-4500 KRW a day and you'll get a 50-100 mbps device you can take around with you. Totally necessary. They also have special discounts vs other ones. Remember YOU MUST reserve one online. If you don't you'll have to wait almost an hour and if they are out of stock on unreserved units you'll have to visit their branch in the city which will take another hour or so to visit.

I'm not sure I agree. I did NOT have one, and had no problem finding sufficient wifi for my needs by selecting hotels or other accommodations that offered free wifi. It depends on your purpose for wifi and frequency with which you want it.

Not really necessary. We spent three weeks in Korea and never felt the need. Wifi was readily available in all hotels, Guesthouses etc. As always bear in mind that public wifi is not secure so always use a VPN when transmitting any private data that you wouldn't want to get into the wrong hands- banking, any cc payments etc.

I guess you just did not require wifi. All my friends would disagree. One of them who did not rent one had to find local coffee shops and buy a cup of coffee for 4000 won just to use their wifi for a few minutes so she can message me through messenger while we were trying to meet up. Also she was constantly looking up addresses on google maps to make sure she was at the right address. Having a small device that gives you reliable internet everywhere for a small price is definitely something you want. Even when visiting japan renting wifi i find it absolutely necessary.

"I guess you just did not require wifi" Well, you guess wrong. I use wifi all the time and found it readily availability everywhere - trains, stations even in the street in many places. A local SIM card is probably of more use, certainly cheaper and can be still be use as a mobile hotspot for other devices.

Googlemaps can be used offline if you download the relevant area of the map.

"I guess you just did not require wifi"

Like crellston, and as noted above, I did want access to wifi -- but I didn't need it every single minute.

And I must admit that I don't feel that I NEED wifi, ever. Like many others, I managed to survive for quite a long time before there was such a thing. IME, there are actually some advantages to being wifi-free. JMO.

Guys, I'm in Korea right now and ended up renting a wifi device at the airport (widemobile one). It's actually pretty nice! Internet is super fast for the price. As you guys said, there were many places that have public wifi, but a lot of them required passwords and the free ones seemed rather slow.

Thanks for letting us know!