T-Mobile 4G Hotspot: Svelte and Speedy

18.05.2011
The T-Mobile 4G Mobile Hotspot ($80 with a two-year contract) joins a that fit in your pocket and allow several Wi-Fi enabled devices to connect to the Internet via a single mobile broadband connection. (For background on this growing category, read our feature on .)

The 4G Mobile Hotspot is about the size and shape of a small flip cell phone (folded shut), and it weighs 2.6 ounces. In my tests, the device didn't always live up to T-Mobile's speed claims, but connections were fairly reliable and battery life was pretty good, making the product a great choice for people whose travels tend to occur within T-Mobile's area of 4G coverage (as indicated on the carrier's ).

Manufactured by China's ZTE Corporation, the 4G Mobile Hotspot also has a few extra features that some competing devices lack. You can use the unit to send and receive text messages via its browser-based interface. You can use it as a USB modem by tethering it to a PC with the included Micro-USB cable. And while that cable is connected, you can load files onto the MicroSD card slotted in the ZTE hotspot, though you'll have to bring your own card because ZTE doesn't provide one. Ultimately, this feature seems a bit pointless, since you can access the files on the card only while the hotspot is tethered to the PC.

Encased in shiny black with a few lime-green accents, the 4G Mobile Hotspot sports a small white-on-black LCD display that provides brightly lit status information, including mobile broadband network type (4G, 3G, or EDGE), strength of network connection (the usual "5 bars" icon), battery level (4 bars), Wi-Fi status (on/off), number of devices connected via Wi-Fi (represented by a small number), and newly arrived text messages (a number also tells you how many there are).