Sprint on Tuesday began shipping its promised Novatel MiFi 4082 WiMAX router. The pocketable 4G hotspot is on its way now to direct orders and should be at retail shops on April 17. Pricing has been hiked upwards and will see the router cost $80 when attached to at least a $50 data plan.
The hotspot is the first known MiFi to ship with 4G-badged speeds and, according to Sprint, should hit about 3-6Mbps on average in real conditions. The device can share its connection to five devices on 802.11n Wi-Fi and has a fallback to 3G for areas where 4G is not available. A 1,500mAh battery pack is still said to give it about four hours of useful life.
It continues to work with Linux and Macs along with Windows PCs and has a browser interface which let’s it take advantage of Novatel’s MiFi app platform.
