Verizon Wireless' stable of 4G devices is getting crowded, and that's a good thing given the LTE network's superior speeds. In the mobile hotspot category the Mobile Hotspot MiFi 4510L ($99 with two-year contract) joins the Samsung SCH-LC11 (also $99) as the second option available on Verizon. This business card-sized Wi-Fi router can share its connection with up to five Wi-Fi-enabled laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other Wi-Fi-enabled gear. So is this your best bet?
Design
The MiFi 4510L is nearly identical to the MiFi 4082 for Sprint. Made by Novatel, they both have the same curvy, chrome edges and glossy black surface. It contrasts with the more modern, minimalist aesthetic of Verizon's other 4G LTE hotspot, the Samsung SCH-LC11. At 3.2 ounces and 3.7 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches, the MiFi 4510L is both longer and heavier than the SCH-LC11, but just barely; the Samsung SCH-LC11 is 3 ounces and 3.5 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches.
The 4510L's top face has a mirror-like surface, but its bottom and sides are covered in a grippy soft-touch material. Along with logos for Verizon, MiFi, and Verizon's 4G LTE network, the top face of the 4510L also has a circular chrome power button and a handy vertical E Ink display that shows battery life, connection strength, and the number of connected devices. Because the Samsung LC11 has no display, users must check the same stats in the router's control panel, so the 4510L has a big edge here.
The back lip of the 4510L has a connector for an external antenna and a microUSB port for charging via a notebook's USB slot or the included adapter. On the front is a multicolor LED light to indicate connection type (3G or 4G) and battery charging status. A Verizon SIM card slot hides beneath the battery. Unlike Sprint's MiFi 4082, there's no microSD card slot for storing and sharing files.
We should mention here that although the Sprint MiFi 4082 includes a GPS radio, Verizon chose to deactivate the GPS chip inside the 4510L.
Setup and Control Panel
You'll be up and running on the 4510L in no time. Hold down the power button, wait about 15 seconds for the wireless radios to activate, watch for the LED light to flash either purple for 3G connectivity or green for a 4G signal, and connect your device by entering the pre-set password. Our first attempt took about a minute to complete. Once our test notebook recognized the 4510L as a trusted Wi-Fi source, connections took 20 to 30 seconds.Unfortunately, you can't charge the 4510L over a USB connection to a notebook and broadcast a Wi-Fi signal at the same time like you can with the Samsung SCH-LC11 and the Sprint MiFi 4082 (which even supports sharing an Internet connection directly over USB, which offers faster speeds). When connected to a PC, the device shuts down the wireless radios and charges the 4510L's battery. In order to use the 4510L while charging, you'll need to plug in the AC adapter.
Like with most routers, you can access the 4510L's settings via its URL. There you can change the password, see other connected devices, set the hotspot to power down if it idles, and adjust the security settings. The control panel also shows you the device's battery life, connection strength, and type of data network access available (3G or 4G).
Typically, mobile hotspots built by Novatel (such as the Sprint MiFi 4082) include the manufacturer's proprietary MiFi OS, a mini operating system that users can access in the router's control panel to take advantage of location-based services such as local business search and weather updates. However, the MiFi 4510L doesn't include this software because the GPS chip inside the device comes deactivated.
Speed Results (Speedtest.net)
The MiFi 4510L's 4G LTE performance was fast. When we connected it via Wi-Fi to a Toshiba Tecra R840, the average download speed was 16.6 Mbps, but we noticed download connections as fast as 20.1 Mbps using the Speedtest.net service in our Brooklyn apartment. The slowest speed we encountered was 10.82 Mbps. However, when we tested the Samsung LG SCH-LC11 hotspot in the same location a few weeks ago, it notched an even faster speed of 19.4 Mbps. The Sprint MiFi 4082 pulled in average download speeds of 3 Mbps when we tested it previously in Brooklyn, which is much slower.Verizon's LTE network offers blazing uploads as well. Testing in the same location, we noticed an average upload rate of 5.7 Mbps with the MiFi 4510L. That's 0.5 Mbps faster than the Samsung SCH-LC11's upload average of 5.2 Mbps. The MiFi 4082 for Sprint averaged uploads of just 0.97 Mbps.
File Download Tests and Web Page Load Tests
To test the 4510L's real-world download and upload speeds, we performed three tests: downloading a 151MB OpenOffice install file from a FTP server to a notebook, uploading a 6.5MB file to the same FTP server, and averaging the load times of three websites.The 4510L downloaded the 151MB install file in 2 minutes and 12 seconds, a transfer rate of about 9.2 Mbps, which is faster than the Samsung 4G hotspot LTE device. The SCH-LC11 moved the same file at a slower 5.3 Mbps (3:49) during earlier testing. In Brooklyn, the Sprint MiFi 4082 suffered from a strained connection speed and the file saved in a painfully long 21 minutes and 52 seconds (a very sluggish 0.92 Mbps). The MiFi 4082 pulled down a faster download rate of 3 minutes and 10 seconds (a speedy 6.4 Mbps) in our midtown Manhattan office.
The 4510L uploaded a 6.5MB file in 10 seconds, a transfer rate of 5.2 Mbps. The Samsung LC11 accomplished the task in a slightly faster 9 seconds (5.8 Mbps). The Sprint MiFi 4082, capped by WiMAX's 1-Mbps upload ceiling, transferred the file in 55 seconds (0.95 Mbps).
On our web browsing tests, the MiFi 4510L loaded The New York Times website, CNN.com, and ESPN.com in a quick average of 5, 4, and 4 seconds respectively. That's a hair faster than the Samsung LC11, which pulled down each of the same pages in an average of 5 seconds. The Sprint MiFi 4082 loaded the same pages in longer average times--9, 8, and 7 seconds, respectively.
Performance with Multiple Devices
The MiFi 4510L can share LTE with as many as five devices. We connected three notebooks (a Toshiba Portege R700, Tecra R840, and a Lenovo ThinkPad X220) and a smartphone (Sprint HTC Evo 4G) to the MiFi 4510L. The hotspot's performance was impressive. With Hulu video playing on the X220, a Green Lantern trailer running in YouTube on the Portege, and Pandora streaming on the Tecra, the HTC Evo 4G downloaded the 2.73MB Abduction! World Attack game in 9 seconds and notched a download rate of 6.2 Mbps in the Speedtest.net app. With streaming services running on all four products, the Portege R700 pulled down 18.2 Mbps on Speedtest.net. What's more, we didn't notice a single buffer delay in tunes streamed over Pandora or any of the video services.Reliability
Speaking of strong connections, the MiFi 4510L's link with our notebook over Wi-Fi remained steady throughout our testing. The Samsung LC11, on the other hand, was a different story. On several occasions our laptop's connection to that device disappeared suddenly, requiring us to restart the device. At one point, we couldn't connect to the 4G network at all, even though our high-speed connection was solid just minutes before. We encountered problems like this several times while testing in Chicago and New York.Battery Life
When connected to a Toshiba Tecra R840 notebook, the MiFi 4510L lasted 3 hours and 9 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test, which tests web surfing over Wi-Fi. The Samsung SCH-LC11 lasted nearly 20 minutes longer, 3:27. That delta isn't very significant, but it's worth noting that the Sprint MiFi 4082 clocked in at 4:11, just over an hour longer than Verizon's version of the same device.Coverage and Value
Verizon's LTE network is available in 40 cities and 64 airports right now with 105 more markets planned for the end of the year. For a full list, click here . Sprint's 4G WiMax network is available in 71 markets.The MiFi 4510L costs $99 with a $50 online discount and a two-year contract. Verizon offers two 4G mobile broadband plans: a monthly allowance of 5GB for $50 a month or a 10GB option at $80 a month. Over the course of a two year plan, the MiFi 4510L can run you $2,019 or $1,299 for capped data plans, excluding overage costs ($10 per extra GB).
