I think you hit the nail on the head. Most that are complaining are confusing the plan with the device. That’s common in the U.S. where many think the hardware actually comes from the carriers.

I’m using the Virgin Mobile MiFi 2020 with an HTC HD2 that a bought in England over a year ago and that’s now running a XDA-Developers Andriod ROM. For voice I use a T-Mobile ToGo SIM. For that, I buy refills off eBay, no taxes or fees and at a significant discount, as needed. Normally, for broadband, I use WiFi at home and work. However, on those occasions when I know I’ll be out of range of free WiFi, on trips for example, I fire up the MiFi, again as needed.

My mobile bottom line is this: I have no contracts, I can choose any unlocked smartphone I want as long as it’s GSM and supports WiFi, pay no monthly bills, normally pay no taxes or fees, and get the same features a smart phone on contract from a carrier would give me, all for approximately 50% – %80 less than a carrier’s smartphone TCO.

That ladies and gentlemen is the point of MiFi, at least as it currently comes from Virgin Mobile. I hope they come out with a 4G version soon.

P.S. For all those complaining about battery life: the MiFi’s batter is user replaceable for gosh sakes! Even if it wasn’t, there’s a million solutions out there if your can’t hookup to the power grid.

This statement really doesn’t mean anything, since it really only hints that there were some recent articles written regarding the hotspot capabilities of webOS on the Pre. Truth be told, many handsets running windows mobile could already do this out of the box for two or three years prior to the arrival of the webOS.

- There is no visual display of remaining battery life. Just a green light that turns red at critical remaining level.
- Yet another charging cable to carry. And this thing requires high voltage, so most of my travel chargers DO NOT work. I’ve tried many, many slim chargers.
- Batter packs usually do not work with it.
- Charging via USB renders the hotspot crippled. I.e. it only tethers to the laptop during USB charging.
- Requires crappy software installation if you even want to charge it via USB. Won’t charge without the embedded software. While there are Mac and Win versions of the software, Linux folks are left out in the cold. Not that I want to run it anyway.

With phone tethering becoming more and more of a reality, I plan to throw this thing from the highest window I can find very soon.

But, yes, I agree that one stop access is far, far better than embedded connections on every single device we carry.