(Oleg Kutkov)
For the first time, SpaceX has revealed some official images of the Starlink Mini dish, which is slated to start arriving in a few months, according to company CEO Elon Musk.
This past weekend, the company released an update to the Starlink app, which reportedly includes a page for the upcoming product. Oleg Kutkov, an engineer in Ukraine, said he was able to decompile the update to discover the official images of the Starlink Mini dish.
The images confirm the Mini model will be a smaller, more portable version of the current V4 standard Starlink dish. Both devices feature a kickstand. However, the Mini Dish is supposed to be about the size of an Apple MacBook, according to FCC documents.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also commented on the images, posting in a tweet that he’s already been using the device. “I just set it up right now and am writing this post through space,” he wrote. “Took less than 5 mins. Easily carried in a backpack. This product will change the world.”
In another tweet, he also revealed that the Starlink Mini dish will cost “about half the price of the standard dish,” suggesting a $250 to $300 price tag. In the US, the company is currently selling the larger V4 standard dish for $499, following a $100 price cut last week.
The other question is performance. Musk gave a glimpse of this by posting a speed test score showing his Starlink Mini dish offering him a 100Mbps download rate and an 11.5Mbps upload rate while maintaining a relatively low 23 milliseconds in latency. This suggests the Mini dish will offer slower download speeds compared to a regular Starlink dish, but enough to power everyday internet needs, including 4K streaming.
SpaceX is preparing to roll out the Mini dish “to select areas in a few months,” Musk added. “Mini can be a great low-cost option for a good backup internet connection if your landline goes out,” he wrote.
Indeed, the upcoming product could appeal to SpaceX's existing customer base for Starlink, which last month reached 3 million users. Still, Musk didn’t reveal everything about the dish. A key remaining question is how SpaceX will price the monthly internet fee for the product, especially if it’s used more as a temporary solution. Currently, many US users on the Starlink residential plan pay $120 per month.