Well it runs on the verizon CDMA network so it could be slower than sprints 3G depending on where you live.
here when you get any sort of sprint signal even during the day you get at minumum 1.4Mbps down while verizons 3G during the day crawls at 500kbps.
i got it for $19.99 as a refurb unit off the straight talk website
http://www.straighttalk.com/wps/portal/home/shop/otherdevices/hotspot
for an $80 dollar hotspot "new" Straight talk must be out of their minds. the front literally is just LED lights under clear plastic. the battery meter does turn from gree to yellow to red to indicate life but this thing is super basic.
I was able to get 4 hours of use out of it with my phone connected to it though i used less than ~100MB of data. so the battery is also sort of meh.
i also noticed that this thing gets pretty darn worm for a hotspot. just having a phone connected to it, you could replace your chemical hand warmers in the winter time.
As for the Verizon 3G connectivity. well most of the time it seems slower than sprint 3G so its almost useless even as a hotspot. the most you could ever do is check email.
Overall a "meh" device even for its refurb cost. go with a sprint pre pay hotspot with LTE.