Review of the Samsung SCH-LC11 Mobile Hotspot for Verizon 4G LTE
Back in 2009, Verizon was the wireless industry pioneer in being the first national mobile provider to offer the new consumer friendly “all-in-one” mobile hotspot, the MiFi 2200 Mobile Hotspot from Novatel Wireless. This tiny, high-tech device allowed up to five people or devices to share one broadband 3G connection, enabling laptops, smartphones, e-readers, game systems, or any Wi-Fi enabled device to get online wherever they were.
In early 2011, Verizon has stepped up to the plate again by offering a new category defining 4G mobile hotspot, the Samsung SCH-LC11, which operates on the Verizon 4G LTE high speed wireless network. It has become widely recognized that 4G LTE is up to 15 times faster than 3G, but is this new 4G mobile hotspot worth the upfront purchase, and more importantly, the longer term investment in a two year data plan, or are other solutions or competitive 4G mobile hotspots a better overall choice ?
Measuring in at 3.5 x 2.3 x 0.5 inches, the SCH-LC11 is basically the same shape and size as the classic MiFi 2200 3G mobile hotspot, but it weighs in at a just under 3 ounces, which is a bit heavier than the MiFi 2200’s 2.3 ounces. The extra weight is likely justified by the fact that the SCH-LC11 has both EV-DO (3G) and LTE (4G) cellular radios built in.
Physical Design and Engineering
The top-front of the SCH-LC11 is layered with velvety rubberized coating, and emblazoned with the Samsung, Verizon and 4G LTE logos. The external user interface consists of just one LED-backlit power button and three multi colorable LED lights, one for indicating the Wi-Fi signal is ready to use, and one LED each to indicate if the hotspot in currently locked onto a 3G or 4G signal. The back panel is very securely attached on the to the four side edges of the device.
Removing the back panel reveals a Samsung branded 3.7 volt Li-ion battery rated at 1500 mAh. Under the back panel, the device’s default SSID and network password are imprinted on a label from the factory. Lifting the battery uncovers the Verizon SIM chip. The SCH-LC11 has a micro-USB port on the bottom edge of the device. The micro-USB port has a small sliding door that closes off the USB port from dust and debris. This can be especially handy if the device will be carried in your pocket or backpack where dust and lint may make it’s way into an otherwise open USB recepticle.
Unlike the MiFi 2200 and some other new 4G mobile hotspots, the SCH-LC11 does not have an integrated micro-SD card slot. The Micro-SD memeory card slot would be used to share files over the Wi-Fi network. Additionally, there is no ability to communicate over Wi-Fi to other devices that are connected to the hotspot, as there exists with the MiFi hotspot, so the absence of the micro-SD based memory is moot.
The LC11 also does not have an external antenna jack that would otherwise be able to support hooking up a high-gain external antenna or other signal boosting amplifier. We really found nothing to indicate that an add-on antenna would be needed (read rest of this article)
Samsung SCH-LC11 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot: Initial Set Up and Control Panel
Setting up the SCH-LC11 hotspot was a no-brainer. The Verizon 4G LTE data service account came activated and pre-authorized. All that was needed was to insert the SIM card, place the battery and snap on the back cover. After pressing the power button, there was an approximately 3 second delay for the hotspot to start “booting up”.
The Wi-Fi network was named “SCH-LC11 xxxx” (xxxx= four random letters) out of the box. It was interesting to see that Samsung/Verizon seems to be using distinct SSID names for each hotspot (or perhaps batches of hotspots) manufactured, as to avoid connection confusion when in public with other people who might have their LC11 hotspot fired up. The default password was an eight digit number supplied from the factory.
We were able to see the network with out laptop within about 8 to 10 seconds of powering the hotspot on. Although our laptop was connected to the hotspot with Wi-Fi, it usually took about 20 to 35 seconds for the hotspot to establish a connection to the 3G or 4G cell tower.
We noticed it seemed the LC11 would take about 30 to 35 total seconds maximum if 4G was present, and about 20 to 25 total seconds (maximum) if only 3G was available. On some occasions, 3G was as fast as 13 seconds, and 4G as fast as 19 seconds. It was a kind of puzzling to see the LC11's 4G radio consistently take about several seconds longer than it’s 3G radio to establish communications with the Verizon network, which was generally opposite of AT&T and Sprint 4G mobile hotspots we tested.
Unlike the majority of other 3G and 4G hotspots, The LC11 does not support USB tethering. What this mean is that the USB port cannot be used in lieu of the Wi-Fi radio. We generally consider USB tethering a “must-have” on mobile hotspots, as the USB data transfer speeds will usually offer superior performance versus data transfer over Wi-Fi communications. In testing the SCH-LC11, it was the first time we have ever waived our “must-have USB tethering” edict, simply because the speed over Wi-Fi in Wireless N and G modes were so incredible, we doubted their would be any edge to given to USB versus Wi-Fi. Whether or not a USB connection would have offered faster overall upload and download speeds remains to be seen, but again, we’re not too worried about it. The USB connection on the SCH-LC11 hotspot is really only used for charging the hotspot and installing firmware updates. The LC11 does not need any software installed or configuration tools that get loaded via USB, so the USB port as it is works well for us – nice and simple.
Using the Samsung SCH-LC11 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot
Just like virtually all other mobile hotspots and Wi-Fi routers, the configuration, device and security settings, as well as the passwords can all be managed via a web browser simply by navigating to the device's IP address for the configuration manager, in this case, http://192.168.1.1
The first thing we did was to change the default network and control panel passwords and set the idle time power-down to more conservatively utilize the battery. One small peeve we had was the fact that the battery life could only been reported by viewing the settings in the device’s web control panel, and that the battery meter is represented in a rather primitive type of gauge. It would have been nice to see the extact charge remaining as a percentage, not just the percent meter.
The LC11 reports battery life to the user on the hotspot itself by lighting the LED "inside" the power button. The power button lights up yellow when the battery reaches a 20% charge, and red when it gets to 5%.. The first warning you get is when the charge hits 20%, but nothing before that, which can be a little frustrating, especially the first few days you are getting used to the LC11. A 5% charge means its time to get to a charger – pronto - or finish up your work, because there’s only about 8 to 10 minutes of juice left in the hotspot. After using the LC11 for a week or so, we came to get a "gut feel" of the battery life, and could pretty accurately estimate where the charge percentage was before even looking the charge as reported by the configuration manager.
The Samsung SCH-LC11 automatically manages the connectivity to 4G and 3G networks. The device will always seek to acquire a 4G signal first, elsewise it with revert to 3G when a 4G signal is unavailable or not strong enough. While traveling on a railroad from Long Island to Manhattan, the LC11 seamlessly moved from 4G into 3G about four times. During the entire duration of the 42 minute trip, the hotspot spent about 5 minutes total in 3G mode (during those 5 minutes, the train was in motion the 100% of the time)
The LC11 does not have any provisions for manually forcing the device into 3G or 4G mode. This would have been a handy feature in cases where the battery charge is low and top speeds are not needed. This is due to the fact that 3G mode consumes less battery than 4G mode. The switchover between 3G and 4G seemed to always take less then 10 seconds or so, and we could never discern any interruption in service – including streaming video and downloading an 80 MB file that was occurring when the 4G-to-3G (and vice-versa) changeovers took place.
Wi-Fi Signal Radius and Strength
As for the Wi-Fi radius of the SCH-LC11, we tested the hotspot in Wireless N mode, with a single laptop connected. The maximum distance we were able to achieve (outdoors) was anincredible 169 feet before the signal was undetectable. We were able to get to 98 feet with the signal at about 50%, which is still higher then the maximum distance of just about every competing mobile hotspot. In a somewhat subjective indoor test, we moved the LC11 about 40 feet indoors from the test base laptop. The signal, penetrating about 8 residential interior walls, yielded about 80% signal strength, and a speedtest.net data transfer speed test yielded 9.02 Mbps download/4.44 upload/99 ms latency ping. We feel this indoor test represented a very realistic scenario on a typical residential user, and were quite pleased with the Wi-Fi performance in an outdoor setting as well as a typical real-world, interior test.
Continue to next page for Speed test results…
