Hotspot or LTE tablet?

That's just it.

Unless your an owner operator who needs to be able to make phone calls and use the internet in areas that only have 3g. It makes no sense to have a seperate wifi or hotspot device when your phone has that capability.

However. I have a verizone note 2 and a sprint note2. Sprint WAS unlimited. But comes in handy as verizon seems to have lost some their footprint. And I know places where verizon never has worked. Both phones are used as my hotspot. With sprint costing me half what verizon charges me.

 

I use my android tablet as a hotspot, it is also my GPS/MAP book because the screen is over twice as large as my phone's screen. I have never regretted getting a data enabled tablet.

I don't understand why anyone would use a single purpose hotspot?

 

I have always found that things that only do 1 or 2 things tend to do them better than things that can do a lot of things.....the more it's doing the less things it does well
smart phones are nice and I have 2 in the truck BUT my old nokia cell phone is a better PHONE.... doesn't drop calls, better signal
my hotspot will run data faster and in some places work that my smart phone won't and there are on the same network, I have a app for work so I don't need to write things down but when I walk into a shipper I take my phone and put the hotspot in my pocket because sometimes the phone doesn't have a signal BUT the hotspot will..... the reason is the hotspot only has one thing to do, it's like my old phone it only does 1 thing but it does it very well

it's up to each person to find what works best for THEM

 

it's all in the hardware. has nothing to do with one thing working better then another.

you can buy 2 different phones on the same network. they both won't have signal in all the same places. as flood has noticed.

when i was a home boy, i had sprint for 15 years. when my 2 years was up. i bought new phones for me and wanted to add my son. his phone didn't work inside my house, mine did. i tried verizon at the time the blackberry storm came out. the first 3g phone. it didn't work inside my house where as my boy's phone did. the verizon phones were opposite of the sprint phones. and since i lived there on a permanent basis and my son didn't. i stayed with sprint.

 

Totally agree... I am trying to stay away from "unitasker" items, especially in the truck.

I wish Rand McNally would bring their GPS programs to the Apple Ecosystem because I really don't need to buy another tech toy that only does one thing. So until they do, I am using CoPilot and Truckers Path Apps on my iPhone/iPad and both save money and eliminate another unitasker in the truck.

Stay Safe,
MD

 

Ya, those old bag phones are the bees knees... ... Never drop a call as they are like 100x more powerful and had an external antennae too... and never need a recharge either... They were always plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car I think... (End Sarcasm)

But seriously, I do understand and to a point agree with you... But when I can carry a single tech item that might not be as good but replaces 5-10 other items, then it's totally worth it, to me.

I have an awesome Cannon DSLR camera at home that takes awesome pictures but the camera I have on me 100% of the time is my iPhone... Would I use it to shoot a Wedding? No... But I also don't need to carry my big bag of camera bodies and lenses with me either since the iPhone is a pretty awesome camera, and GPS, and phone, and pager, and personal mobile computer, and personal data assistant, and game platform, and newspaper, and music player, and video player, and video recorder, and and and...

So ya, it might not be better than any single device head to head but when it replaces ten unitaskers, it's an even more awesome choice, for me... YMMV

Stay Safe,
MD

 

Oh and... Should my iPad ever die or otherwise fail me, then my iPhone will replace it as I have all the same apps on it just in a smaller form factor... With a unitasker if it breaks or otherwise fails then you are just SOL until you replace it. (Unless you have a back up plan for it like using a phone/tablet for wifi, gps, etc)

But to each their own and as long as we get there and back home again, safely, it doesn't really matter what we use.

Stay Safe,
MD

 

Hot spot on the phone. (Samsung Galaxy S6.) Multi-device connectivity simultaneously - GPS, cameras, laptop, tablet. Works as an internal network and an external (internet) conduit depending on what you are doing at the time. I have a JetPack stand-alone hotspot too. But essentially the phone now does everything that the JetPack did, so backed the JetPack plan down to only 2 gigs and will likely drop it altogether soon. Almost any new model phone (Android and Apple) has a hotspot option now.