Sprint MiFi 4082 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot

Pros: Nice design, good feel, displays are decent, micro-sd slot

Cons: general connectivity issues, a little slow to connect to device when in 3G

Summary: Had difficulty connecting right out of the box. Wouldn't register as visible on 'available networks' and had been properly set up, in middle of major metro area, with great signal 'blue led' and full bars signal, or so the display said. I am fairly technology-literate, people often come to me to figure things out or set them up so it felt weird me going to a Sprint tech and feeling like an idiot. After trying for a day or two in vain on support lines with no meaningful connection at all, I took it to the beach where Sprint had a store, the rep reset everything and then and it did work ok there, albeit only on 3G as 4G was unavailable there. But once I returned to the major metro area, disturbing no settings and making no changes except shutting off and on, it was invisible again and couldn't connect. Finally it did connect for a minute or two on 3G but then, same thing again. I have another (thank goodness) Sprint hotspot device and that works fine and sits right next to it. No connection issues at all, connects with my laptop even while still booting up. I run windows 7 on a 6 month new HP laptop fully updated with no issues....except for this Mifi. I WANT it to work because it looks so promising but I think it's gonna have to go back. Setup instructions are confusing, 'use tether cord....DON"T use tether cord' ...who knows. Also can't really say how it performs with 4G since I never had it connected long enough to tell, drops after a couple minutes every time. Maybe this one is defective, but why would it work someplace and then not another, when the other Sprint device works fine. Color me Confused.