My Sprint 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot is Pretty Crappy

So, I was going to either get the Verizon MiFi or this Sprint 4G Mobile Hotspot thing… I needed a fast mobile connection that I could use on the road instead of depending on coffee shops or hotel rooms. I could not decide which one to get, and in the end, I opted for the Sprint one because I thought the 3G would be equal to the MiFi but the 4G would be better where I had coverage. What I’ve learned (briefly):

• The 4G is better if the area has 4G.  Austin does, so that is nice.
• I’ve since traveled to Plano, Dallas, and Orlando, none of which could pick up a 4G signal
• So, instead it connects at 3G – it is glacially slow!
  • It says “3G”, but I think it is lying… because it seems 10x slower than my iPhone alone
  • I have run it on Speedtest.net many times.  Half the time, it is to slow to even load the site, much less measure it!  When it does run, it shows about 0.09 mb/s.  I might as well be on Prodigy
  • Don’t believe anything can be that slow?  See this Speed Screenshot from Speedtest.net!
  • Before, I had used Cali Lewis’ MiFi and it was very fast – must faster than this Sprint black hole of bandwidth
• It gets very hot.  Very very hot.
• The battery only lasts about 2 hours.  That is pretty lame, really.  Even when you have it plugged in via USB, it appears to drain faster than it charges.
• When I use it for a few hours, the Internet stops working…  It requires a reboot of the device.  This has happened to me 4 times now.

Photo-Posting While Travelling Tip As you know, I put up a new photo every day here on the blog. This is hard both from a processing standpoint, since these can take anywhere from 20 mins to several hours to produce. It’s also hard logistically because I’ve got to get everything uploaded and into its place before posting! So, I’ve taken to uploading 10-20 photos to SmugMug (see my SmugMug Review) at a time before a trip. I go in an “Hide” the photos. That way, I can just go online and “Unhide” them when I get ready to make the daily post. This seems to be a good solution.

Daily Photo – Approaching Grand Central Station in the Rain

Rainy nights in cities pose a tough problem. Really, in many ways, you have to fight against every natural human instinct to go out into the rain on purpose. It’s so easy just to want to stay inside, make a hot cocoa (or, a think Aztec Drinking Chocolate in my case), watch a movie, be all cozy, etc etc. But the little photographer inside of you also knows how interesting things are out there!

So, I tend to compromise, and force myself to go outside half the time and stay inside half the time. This occasion in New York City was obviously one of the times I went out in the rain.

You can see I am approaching Grand Central Station — and that is the famous Chrysler Building in the background. This was shot with the Nikon 14-24 Lens (See my Nikon 14-24 Review). It’s an expensive lens, so if you are looking for something cheaper that also takes great wide-angle shots, check out the Sigma 10-20mm (Review coming some day when I mysteriously get more time).