SprintOverdrive
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Best Buy offering free mobile hotspots with iPad purchase
Planning to pay Verizon an extra $130 for an iPad + MiFi 2200 bundle? Hold on a sec, because Best Buy's planning to give away hotspots free of charge when you purchase Apple's tablet. This advertisement, obtained by 9to5 Mac, does mention that you'll need to shackle yourself to a carrier for two years to qualify -- unlike Verizon's original arrangement -- but in exchange you get a free Verizon FiveSpot, AT&T MiFi, or perhaps most excitingly, a WiMax-capable Sprint Overdrive. Fine print in the lower-right hand corner suggests that the promo will begin immediately and run through January 2nd. What better way to spend your leftover Hanukkah gelt than on gigabytes of wireless data?
Sprint CEO thanks iPad for uptick in Overdrive demand
Well, wouldn't you know it? Seems that tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign may actually be working. Way back in April of this year, Sprint decided it would begin offering its own iPad case, despite the fact that even today the iPad isn't sold in Sprint stores. The reason? It's the perfect opportunity to push the Overdrive, a 4G mobile hotspot that's able to take the iPad (and any other WiFi-enabled device) to 4G speeds where available. In a recent interview with GigaOM, the carrier's CEO (Dan Hesse) confirmed that most iPads being sold are of the WiFi variety, and due to that, "the company has seen an uptick in demand for its Overdrive (3G/4G) wireless-hotspot device, as people use it to connect their iPads to the Internet when on the go." He failed to exaggerate on actual numbers, but it's obvious he's in favor of Apple's darling tablet selling like hotcakes -- after all, how else are you going to get an iDevice into 4G territory?
Sprint Overdrive 4G mobile hotspot unboxing and hands-on
We just grabbed a Sprint Overdrive 3G / 4G mobile hotspot and put it through some quick tests. If you're used a MiFi, you know the drill here -- you boot it up, it connects to either WiMAX or EVDO, and broadcasts a WiFi signal for up to five devices. Two things make it far more awesome than a MiFi, however: first, the LCD, which displays the numeric wireless password and data throughput; and second, the bandwidth, which peaked at around 4mbps down over WiMAX here in Vegas. (Uploads were slower at around .8mbps, though.) Yes, we're in love -- we've been testing Clear WiMAX here in Vegas and finding it pretty spotty, so the ability to seamlessly drop down to EVDO on the fly is much appreciated. We're going to throw the Overdrive right into the fire and use it as a part of our mobile CES workflow tomorrow, we'll let you know how it goes. %Gallery-82117%
