Hey, we have the wireless devices already. The thing that many of us struggle with is locating a decent Wi-Fi hotspot. Sure, one could stumble along with their laptop in tow, but that is annoying and makes you look like a weirdo.

The best option is generally to have a nice Wi-Fi hotspot detector. Lucky for us, I found a great round up of the best devices on the market! HandTops.com did a great job at pointing us in the right direction so we can review the tool that will best suit our needs.

Finding a handtop or PDA with WiFi isn’t such a hard task these days. The wireless networking standard has enjoyed explosive growth in the last few years. Finding a WiFi connection on the other hand, can be an aggravating adventure. If you’re not using a WiFi enabled PDA, you either have to turn on your handtop or laptop, or wake it from standby just to check if there’s a network in the area. While a WiFi Finder / Seeker won’t make a connection out of thin air, it will conveniently tell you whether there is a WiFi network in the area. In this roundup, we look at five reasonably priced hardware WiFi finders.

At least one of these tools should be suitable to your needs and wallet. There is a larger size comparison photo and full specification comparison chart at the bottom of this review.

It should be noted that some PDA’s do come equipped with great WiFi finders that even show proximity, but this is a roundup of hardware devices whose sole function it is to detect whether a WiFi network exists in the immediate area. All tested devices are available for under $50USD.