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Home > Wireless Data Device Reviews > Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot
Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot SCH-LC11
What's hot: Excellent download speeds, solid connection, small and light.
What's not: Doesn’t automatically wake up from standby, no LCD for status info like signal strength.
Reviewed May 1, 2011 by Tong Zhang, Editor
in Chief
Verizon Wireless is rolling out its 4G LTE network at a good pace in the U.S., and the company plans to cover more than 175 markets with its 4G services by the end of 2011. The Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot SCH-LC11 is currently one of two mobile hotspots on Verizon available that supports 4G LTE with EVDO 3G fallback. The Samsung Mobile Hotspot works with up to 5 devices and managed top data transfer speeds in our tests. It carries the same price as the Mobile Hotspot MiFi 4510L 4G LTE by Novatel with a new contract. Verizon Wireless currently offers two data plans for their 4G LTE Mobile Hotspots: a 5GB per month plan for $50 and a 10GB per month plan for $80.
Design
The Samsung SCH-LC11 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot measures 2.32 x 3.54 x 0.45 inches. The Mobile Hotspot has 3 LED lights on the front indicating activity, 3G and 4G connections. The power button also lives on the front face for easy access. The Samsung has a microUSB charging and data port on the side, and you can charge it with the included AC adapter and USB cable as well as update its firmware via the micro USB port. The Mobile Hotspot comes with a rechargeable battery that’s also user replaceable. The 4G LTE SIM card goes underneath the battery. Verizon will activate the SIM card when you purchase the Samsung. Remember, the SIM card is for LTE on Verizon only, and it doesn’t handle GSM roaming.
Connectivity
The Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot uses the Qualcomm MDM9600 chipset, and it supports Verizon’s 4G LTE 700MHz band as well as CDMA 3G EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. 0 on the 800/1900MHz bands. When you are in areas without 4G LTE coverage, the Mobile Hotspot will fall back to 3G EV-DO. The Samsung SCH-LC11 Mobile Hotspot works with devices and computers with WiFi 802.11b/g/n and it can support up to 5 devices at a time.
The iPhone 4 and Samsung Mobile 4G Hotspot.
The Samsung Mobile Hotspot from Verizon should work immediately after you put in its WiFi access point password (the last 7 digits of the IMEI marked under the device’s cover and on the box). We tested the Hotspot with mobile devices as well as computers. It works with a Mac out of the box, but it didn’t work out of the box on a PC. If you’re using a Windows laptop and are having trouble getting the Mobile Hotspot to work, make sure you update the software which can be downloaded from a link on this page.
Speed
The Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot gets very high download speed and so-so upload speeds, on both PC and Mac. Using Safari on the Mac, and IE and Chrome on the PC, we got 12-15 Mbps download and around 1 Mbps for upload speeds. Playing Hulu video using the Mobile Hotspot is smooth and audio is in sync with video.
Building penetration is excellent thanks to the low 700MHz spectrum that Verizon runs their 4G LTE on, and the Mobile Hotspot keeps connection inside of large buildings and big houses.
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