So I moved back to Wake Forest, NC (The Research Triangle as AJ would call it) last week from a work reassignment that had me in Athens, GA... as many know, I stumbled upon 1 of the first unblocked Sprint LTE signals in the U.S., see http://s4gru.com/ind...dpost__p__17219 for more on that, anyways... back to my review....
As many people in the area know, Sprint absolutely suck here in the Raleigh/Durham area... theres no sugar coating that.. I am a strong Sprint supporter, and have seen with my own eyes what will be done, but in the mean time, the area here gets a check mark next to "needs improvement". Regardless, the area will be much improved over the next year, and I look forward to the achievements that the LTE deployment team make.
So...my new job assignment puts me on the 2nd floor of a building where we are maybe 1/4th of a mile from a WiMAX tower, now... I love to play internet radio at my desk all day, and use facebook, and the various other things to keep me in communication with my wife and outside world, also youtube clips, and maybe some large email attachments here and there, I do not ever recommend doing these things with an office internet connection, I am an IT supervisor for a living, and we regularly monitor bandwidth trends and usage at end users desk... Reports get compiled, and forwarded on to managers, long story short, big brother is watching, don't jeopardize your job, its a big deal I guess for me as I work with the federal government, and DOD, little companies may not be so stringent, but someone, somewhere down the line might ask you why you are eating up so much bandwidth, its something I would just rather avoid.
This brings me to my bandaid fix... Now, being that our Sprint service is less than desirable at the moment, my wife and I have decided on Verizon for our phone carrier, we have a youngin at home, and communication for us is vital, I wont go on about Sprint & dropped calls cause I don't want to turn this into a rant, its not... This topic is meant to be about making it by with what you have, and being that Verizon are amazing at deploying LTE all over the united states, and we have amazing coverage in our area, the fact that we are capped at a certain data limit is very unattractive. So being the tech guru guy I am, I needed an unlimited solution for my desk at work.... I looked at clear's website and decided on the Clear Spot Voyager.
Size:
The clear spot voyager is small, when I say small, I mean SMALL. I put a quarter next to the device for comparison purposes, as you can see, its the size of about 4 quarters, and is very thin as well... This is a device you can stuff in your wallet pocket and take with you!
Battery:
It has a micro USB port in the back, and will charge connected to a computer, or of course by an A/C connection. I have found that the battery last about 5 hours of heavy usage without a charge. The battery is non-serviceable, meaning when it dies, the device dies with it, unless you use the USB cord. I don't think this will be a problem as by the time these batteries die, clear will be pawning people off to an LTE solution, which makes this a great in between device.
Speed:
I put this thru the paces at my work, and discovered this is good for 6-10mbps down, and 1-1.3mbps up, I will continue to monitor over the next few weeks, and if anyones interested, I'd be more than glad to provide more results after a few more weeks of heavy usage.
Service:
I get a touch of service, meaning 1 bar or less of service depending on what room I am in, in my home. So for me this is a work only device, ironically enough I work only 3 miles from my home, I was really hoping to get good service where I live, this just wont be the case, my TWC wideband at home more than makes up for that anyways. Service at work is great, like I mentioned earlier in the post, my office is only 1/4th of a mile away from the tower, so at work I get "all the bars" which is a loaded expression, but for the purposes of this review, signal strength numbers really do not apply.
Finally, my last impression for this device is, if you live in an "excellent" WiMAX coverage area, and won't have Sprint LTE for awhile, this device may appeal to you. There are no contracts, I paid $53 with tax for this at best buy, and activated it at home as a customer owned device. This means you can cancel at any time. The plans are very flexible as well, you can buy as low as 2 hours of service, to a day of service, a week of service, and finally a month of service. If you buy a month of service you agree to be billed every calendar month after the day you signed up, but as I said before, there are no commitments, cancel guilt free when Sprint LTE comes to your town. Those are my 2 cents.
I give this device/service a 6/10.
