Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro review: An excellent hot spot that's also a juice pack

T-Mobile's new, versatile Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro (model SM-V100T) is designed to provide two things that many need when out and about: fast Internet and extra battery life. And it delivers.

8.5

Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro

The Good

The uniquely designed <b>Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro</b> offers fast cellular Internet, and can work as a charger or a juice pack for other mobile devices. The device also has a very long battery life and is easy to use.

The Bad

The router's LCD screen is not touch-sensitive and there are no options to change its settings without using the Web interface. The price is a little high and T-Mobile's national LTE footprint is still somewhat modest.

The Bottom Line

The Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro's superfast 4G LTE speed and exceptionally long battery life make it a great buy on its own, but its juice pack feature sweetens the deal that much more.

This is the first mobile cellular router I've seen that can also work as a juice pack. And despite the sizable 3,100mAh battery on the inside, the device remains very compact, smaller than a few other hotspots I've reviewed.

In my testing it offered very fast T-Mobile 4G LTE Internet access to up to 10 Wi-Fi clients at a time; charged any mobile device that uses standard USB charging; and, when used as a juice pack, could provide enough juice to fill up an iPhone 5 from empty while still working as a mobile router at the same time.

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My only complaint is the lack of a touch screen, which makes it inconvenient to change the mobile router's settings. All things considered, though, even at the current rather hefty one-time cost of $170 (or $50 down payment plus $5/month for 24 months), the Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro is still one of the best deals for mobile users, and if you're also looking for a juice pack, there's no other option better than the Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro for now.

Compact all-in-one design
The Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro is unlike any other cellular mobile router I've seen. At a glance, it sure looks like one, being about the same shape and size as the Verizon's Jetpack 4G 890L, slightly thinner, in fact. It also comes in black with a red stripe running along its sides and is a fingerprint magnet.

On the inside, however, the Samsung comes with a much more powerful 3,100mAh battery. And there's more: the red stripe conceals a red USB cable that helps makes the little router so unique.

You can easily peel this red cable completely off the device's side and use it to charge it using a USB port (the router also comes with a separate power adapter and another standard USB cable). Or you can just pull out its Micro-USB B-male end to charge another device while you're charging the the HotSpot Pro via its regular USB female port using another USB cable. This is because the other end of the red cable actually goes into the little router's A-female port (similar to one found on your computer), which no other mobile hot spot has. And with this port, when you're out and about, you can use the HotSpot Pro as a portable juice pack to provide your smartphone or tablet with much-needed extra battery life when need be. And when you're done, you can easily put the red cable back onto the side of the little router.

When connected to a computer, apart from charging its internal battery, the HotSpot Pro can also work as either a microSD card reader or a tethered modem. By default, the former is enabled but you can change this option via the router's Web interface. In my trial, however, the tethering option is currently disabled; perhaps because T-Mobile doesn't want it to work as a tethered modem.

And finally, as its main purpose, the HotSpot Pro is a mobile cellular router that connects to the Internet using a 4G LTE (or 3G when you're outside of 4G coverage) connection and shares that with up to 10 other Wi-Fi-enabled devices.

A straightforward, non-touch mobile hot spot
On top, the HotSpot Pro has a 2.2-inch QVGA screen that displays the signal strength, connected clients, battery level, data meter, and any awaiting text messages. This screen is completely static, meaning you can't change anything about it since it's not touchable (like the case of the AT&T MiFi Liberate) and there's no navigation button.

The only buttons that the hot spot has are the power button (which you need to press and hold for few seconds to turn the device on or off) and the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button, which starts the two-minute window when other WPS-enabled Wi-Fi clients can enter its Wi-Fi network. And these are actually all you need to get started. Out of the box, you just need to turn the mobile router on and you're good to go. If you have devices that don't support WPS, the default Wi-Fi network information, including the network's name and password, is printed on the router's underside by the battery bay.

You can reach the battery bay easily by opening the router's bottom cover. The battery is user-replaceable and underneath it is a Micro-SIM slot. In my trial, the router is locked to T-Mobile but it seems like it can be unlocked and used with other carriers. You will need to contact T-Mobile or Samsung to ask how to do this, however.

To change any router settings, including the name and password for its Wi-Fi network, you'll need to use its Web interface. You can get there by pointing the browser from a connected device (including a mobile device) to the router's default IP address, which is 192.168.43.1, and log in with the default password, which is admin. The Web interface is self-explanatory but was rather sluggish in my trial. This is not a big deal, though, since the router generally doesn't provide a lot of customization, which is quite normal for a device of its type. The Samsung is the first dual-band mobile cellular router I've seen. However, it can only work on either the 2.4GHz frequency band or the 5GHz frequency band at one time.

Excellent performance, great battery life, no unlimited data plan
Like most mobile routers I've reviewed, the Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro doesn't come with an unlimited data plan. Instead you can choose from six plans that cost $20, $30, $40, $50, $60, and $70 that come with 500MB, 2.5GB, 4.5GB, 6.5GB, 8.5GB, and 10.5GB monthly data caps, respectively. If you go over your cap, you won't be charged extra, but the data speed will be throttled down to equivalent to that of a 2G connection for the remainder of the billing cycle.

And you will feel the pain because in my testing in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro offered incredibly fast 4G LTE speed, averaging some 20Mbps for downloading and some 10Mbps for uploading. I also noticed that I could get the 4G connection almost everywhere in the area and the data speeds didn't fluctuate a great deal. Most of the time, I could easily get more than 15Mbps for downloading. Note that this was my experience in the Bay Area; nationwide, T-Mobile's 4G LTE coverage is still generally modest.

Compared with other hot-spot devices I've reviewed, these were by far the fastest I've seen. However, note that most of the devices on the chart below were tested a while ago; it might just be that at the time their respective 4G connection wasn't up to speed. Nonetheless, the Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro indeed offers a great mobile Internet experience for those living and traveling within T-Mobile's 4G coverage.

As a charger the device can be used to charge any mobile device that uses a standard USB charger, which is basically all smartphones and tablets on the market. In my trial, I was able to charge my iPhone 5 from empty to full using a full charge of the Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro, without completely depleting its battery. The interesting part was that the device was till working as a mobile router during the time it charged the iPhone, and the phone was also turned on and working during the time. (There's no option to make it work just as a juice pack though you can turn off its Wi-Fi network via the Web interface. In this case, you can press on the WPS button to turn the Wi-Fi back on.)

That said, the device -- when working solely as a mobile router -- had very impressive battery life. I could get two days of regular usage out of it with two mobile devices out of a single charge. That was about double that of the Verizon Jetpack 4G 890L.

Conclusion
The Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro is by far my most favorite mobile router thanks to its superfast cellular Internet and versatility. While the $170 price tag is quite steep, you have the option to pay that off (with no interest) over two years, making it quite attainable. Compared with other similarly priced hot spots on the market, such as the Verizon Jetpack 890L, the Samsung HotSport Pro is a much better deal just by offering almost double the battery life alone.

As with all mobile hot spots, however, the value of the device depends a lot on whether or not you can receive cellular signal while on the go. That said, if you live and travel within T-Mobile's 4G LTE coverage, which is still relatively modest for now nationwide, the Samsung LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro is easily one of the best mobile cellular routers to date.