T-Mobile Rocket 4G (T-Mobile)

T-Mobile gave a upgrade in service from3g to4g. I could not get 4g with my old rocket 2.0 .This modem is fair for the price but I am not impressed. I see no enhanced service with this modem. If I had to make a choice I would keep my old rocket 2.0.I only used this modem as a test to see why I was not getting 4g on the upgrade. My next step will be to try the T-Mobile 3.0.

UPDATE 1/3/2014: I'm knocking this down to 1 star. Having to travel again to a land of medieval technology and superstition (my grandparents' house), I attempted to use this on not one, but two Windows 7 laptops. No amount of brute force, cajolery or voodoo could get it working. I figured out how to use my Smart Phone as a mobile hotspot instead.Original review, with a couple of typo fixes:This review contains my experiences with a Mac running Snow Leopard, but most of the review will also apply to a Windows system (I use both, just had the Mac on the road).First - buy the stick here, and ON THIS PAGE, FROM AMAZON ITSELF (there is a seller-created page on Amazon for the same product but without a sim card, which means the one on that page won't work out of the box; that's good for people who live in or travel to foreign countries, where you want the ability to swap out sim cards with ease, but not good for most USA consumers). Because I needed it right away, I first tried a local T-Mobile store, figuring I'd pay a slight premium. How wrong I was; when I got to the store, they had one advertised at $49.95 (after $25 mail-in rebate), but I was informed that was the price with a 12-month plan, and if I just wanted to buy the stick, it would be $174.95. That's right, more than triple the Amazon price. When I informed the sales clerk that I'd prefer to buy locally but that I could get the same item for less than $60 on Amazon, he replied "I suggest you buy it there, then".So, I bought on Amazon, paid the extra $4 to upgrade it to overnight with my Prime account, and the next day, a small box arrived by UPS.I opened it and plugged the stick (which is about the size of a large thumb drive, with a hinge at the prong end so you can have it horizontal, vertical or even rotate it, and which will help avoid breakage if you bump it) into a USB port. After a moment to think, a CD icon appeared on the desktop; I opened that and saw two folders inside, one called "Mac". Inside was the installation file, which ran as expected, and placed an icon in my dock.The instructions said I would need to buy time to access the Internet, and the way to do that was to start the program to connect, then open a web browser. I did so, and the browser redirected me to T-Mobile's site, in a section to sign up for a plan or buy minutes. So far, so good. But here's where the trouble started, and one of the reasons why this product gets three stars.Problem 1: I was able to create an account for the modem, but when I got to the page where I had to enter my credit card number to buy air time, I was able to select the card type (Visa, Mastercard, etc) but the other fields to enter my billing address, etc, would simply not display. If I clicked "submit", the fields showed up briefly before I got an error saying I needed to provide the information the fields asked for, but the empty fields would then immediately disappear. This happened with Firefox (my default browser) and also with Safari, the built-in Mac browser. Way to go, T-Mobile product testing department: add OSX support, but don't test the product all the way through account creation. That's minus one star for making account setup a headache.Fortunately, the instructions said it was possible to buy minutes online using a toll-free number, so I called that. After a trip through an excessive number of voice menus, I finally had my plan: 100MB of data for $10, good for one week (I only intended to check email and not use the web, so I thought this would be enough). Other available non-contract plans for 1GB of data for a month at $30, or 3GB of data for a month at $50.I was then able to connect and check my email (I used my POP / SMTP servers with the OSX mail client, but any such server would work, as would web mail). The speed was adequate, even though I was only showing two bars in a heavily populated area of Los Angeles County, off Interstate 10. And later, when I was helping my grandmother change her cable plan online, I was able to use the cable company's website at an acceptable speed.The next morning, I could get the modem to connect, but could not get my mail or load a web page: the mail tried to check itself endlessly, and the web browser would time out. I thought it was a poor connection problem at two bars, so I moved elsewhere and tried it with 4/5 bars. No luck. Not even the T-Mobile website would load. Finally, I found a support button or menu ( I forget what), and, amazingly enough, the T-Mobile SUPPORT website would open, but if I tried to access my account using the links on that page, I would get the time-out again. ARRRRRRRGH.I called the toll-free number again to check on my account balance, and found I had used up all 100MB. So I bought another 100 MB, going through the long, irritating voice menu tree again, and suddenly everything started working. It was THEN an error message appeared on the little login window telling me I had run out of time; apparently after I bought more air time, it was now able to receive this message. (It's possible the message was there before I bought the new time and I just didn't notice it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't, and even if it were, it was not obvious. The software should have redirected my browser to the page where I could buy more air time instead of giving me a tiny little message in the connection box, or highlighted the message in red, or had a big red exclamation point next to it, or SOMETHING to draw your attention to the critical error). Minus another star for poor interface design.Bottom line: yes, it works, yes, you can buy it on Amazon and just buy air time. It's fine for checking email and minimal web browsing, and if you are on the road frequently and need emergency backup access, I would recommend it, though you will want to be sure T-Mobile has access in your area - something that should not be a problem in any reasonably populated section of the USA. I just can't give it 5 stars, because the end-user experience SHOULD have been better: if I were the product manager at T-Mobile for this device, the problems listed above would not have made it out the door.

We unfortunately only have the option of Comcast, if we wanted a hardwired internet connection. Out of the 2 weeks that we had Comcast, it only worked for less than 2 days. They couldn't send out a tech for two weeks, so we cancelled. We then tested out three different cellular internet packages. AT&T which was ok but expensive (50 bucks for 1gig), Verizon which was surprisingly unreliable and had so many errors (we still love Verizon but not their internet) and T-mobile.Tmobile offers 5 gigs for around 50 bucks (thats the current promo) and unless you are downloading movies (like from Amazon) you should be fine, even for playing WoW.If you have your pc wired to be "wireless", this handy product will work. ANything that can go wireless, and has a usb port, this little baby will work great with. The downside, is that Tmobile service areas seem....a bit sporadic in comparison to the maps of Verizon and AT&T. But, it works and its affordable. Also, their customer service reps are very polite, sweet and helpful. They won't lie to you just to get you off their line, like a certain landline service did. ("we're sending out a tech in 30 minutes"...."a tech won't be available for two weeks")Bottom line, you get the most prepaid bang for your buck with this baby.

The T-Mobile Rocket 4G is an okay item. I've been using it for several weeks now. I'm able to get online and, for the most part, stay connected. The Rocket becomes hot to the touch when in use for any length of time (30 minutes or more) and when that happens, page loads become erratic or pages will not load at all, even though the connection still appears to be good. I assume the erratic behavior is the result of overheating because keeping it cool seems to prevent this. Now I place it on a bag of frozen vegetables when in use and do not have problems.My main complaint is not with the device but with T-Mobile. The service is certainly cheaper than other options. However, if you purchase a pre-paid plan, as I do, T-Mobile wants to be your nanny. I was trying to check some lottery numbers on my state lottery website one evening and got a message from Web Guard saying the owner of my device had restricted my access to certain pages. It freaked me out a little, as I immediately thought my account had been hijacked. But, after doing some research, I found that Web Guard is a T-Mobile "feature" that allows you to prevent kids from accessing adult content. The pre-paid accounts automatically come with Web Guard set to "young adult." The only way to reset the access to unrestricted is to give T-Mobile your full name, address, Social Security number and date of birth, supposedly so they can confirm your age. This was NOT disclosed to me when I purchased service from T-Mobile.I have a friend whose identity was stolen as the result of giving information to a mobile phone company. I had a long argument with T-Mobile customer service about the need to provide so much personal information in order to receive the service I'm paying for, but they claimed that the restricted setting is a federal requiement on pre-paid accounts. I have not been able to find information online to verify the truth of that statement and tend to believe this "federal requirement" is simply an underhanded tactic to collect personal information from people who don't have a traditional T-Mobile account. Just be aware that if you purchase pre-paid service from T-Mobile, you will have to hand over your info or put up with their restrictions.