Samsung SCH-LC11 4G Mobile Hotspot (Verizon Wireless)

Samsung 4G Hotspot - Excellent design & super-fast June 17, 2011
Reviewer:  R. Grossman "Fixing the world..."  (USA) -

Samsung SCH-LC11 4G Mobile Hotspot (Verizon Wireless)

This hotspot is really fast - I've gotten 17 down and 14 up driving in my car! 


I bought both Verizon 4G hotspots - Samsung and Novatel - and I also had the the previous Novatel 2200 mi-fi. 


The Samsung is the true successor to the Novatel 3G mi-fi, carrying on the tradition of the Novatel's form factor, while Novatel has incredibly veered off course with their 4G hotspot which is nothing like their previous model. 


The Samsung form factor is way better than the Novatel 4G hotspot, which is dreadful. The new Novatel is not at all like the previous Novatel mi-fi. It's bigger than the Samsung, has a cheesy chrome bezel, and little feet - showing that they designed it as a very small table-top router. The Samsung has a nice soft-touch matte plastic case, and is smaller than a deck of playing cards - it's like a stack of credit cards in size. 


The Samsung is much more similar to the previous 3G Novatel mifi in size and form. The Samsung works great in a pocket or in the sunglasses pocket on the inside roof of your car or under the visors. Also, it has LED's for on/off/low-battery, 4G, 3G, and network activity. The Novatel eInk paper display sounds good in reviews but it is very dull, hard to see, and ugly. 


You can set the Samsung to sleep after not being used for a period of time (like 30 minutes) to save battery, or you can set it to never sleep. 


You can safely ignore the negative reviews, which are entirely attributable a combo of the first firmware version, customers who have never used a mobile hotspot, battery-save 30-minute shutdown (which can be turned off), and also Verizon 4G is still in its early implementation phase and is occasionally off-line or slow, although those problems are slowly becoming much less frequent. 


Early online mag reviewers made a big deal over the Novatel having a battery indicator, but it only has 3 bars, is almost invisible, and the Samsung does warn you on low battery when the green on-button turns red. 

The Samsung charger is small and portable, the Novatel charger is the typical big clunker. The Samsung USB-A to USB-micro-B cable plugs into your computer OR into the wall plug, and will charge from either. The Novatel will NOT function as a wireless hotspot while plugged into a computer. 


The Samsung has one flaw - the browser interface does not contain an option to save the router's configuration as a file to your pc, whereas the Novatel has it. 


PS: I'm finishing up a small and completely free iPhone app that checks the Samsung charger status - it should be in the app store early July 2011, so if you have an iPhone search for "HotSpot Sam".