Verizon data service was very unreliable during our winter RT travels this past winter. From Texas to Florida, when we had service it was dirt slow on both the MiFi, and iPhone and Samsung Fascinate operating in wireless tethering mode. When we made this same trip a couple of years ago service was great. Fellow RV travelers with AT&T service had a much better experience. Verizon phone service was OK with the exception of wester Texas. Its just data thats the issue. As both my wife and I are constantly on line, poor data service is a big problem.
So, prior to our next trip I intend on acquiring a non Verizon smart phone with the capability of providing a mobile hotspot for at least 5 devices. This device will be my phone so it must meet my needs as I live on my phone.
To this end I selected the HTC Inspire and Motorola Atrix from AT&T as potential candidates. Both are 4g phones, which will be nice when AT&T decides to role out their 4g system.
In comparing the two phones I discovered:
1. The 5 megapixal camera on the Atrix produced better pictures then the 8 megapixal camera in the Inspire.
2. The Atrix produced better movies then Inspire. The Inspire movie had a purple hue where the Atrix more closely reproduced the action color.
3. The Atrix phone audio is loud and clear where the Inspire was a little distorted.
4. The Inspire had a much bigger screen. However, it had a lower resolution.
5. The Inspire had HTC Sense which is far superior to the Atrix Motoblure.
6. Both devices produced very good WiFi Hotspots.
7. AT&T loaded ton’s of blot-ware on both devices and locked each down where you can only install application from the Google app store.
Tomorrow I am returning both phones to AT&T. Of the two I thought the Motorola Atrix was the best. However, AT&T and Motorola have chosen to screw up both phones with unnecessary lockdowns and meaningless blot-ware.
I previously tried out the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S 4g phone. It’s WiFi Hotspot services in Phoenix with 4g service was super fast. Actually connected 3 computers running downloaded video with no problem. The phones audio was an issue. It took 14 tries to get an almost acceptable voice mail message recorded in a quite room.
Looks like the only real option is to get a AT&T iPhone.
Ramblings of an old computer engineer/developer 