NETGEAR Nighthawk M1 4G LTE WiFi Mobile Hotspot (MR1100-100NAS) – Up to 1Gbps Speed, Works Best with AT&T and T-Mobile, Connects Up to 20 Devices, Secure Wireless Network Anywhere

I got the hotspot because my home carrier's Internet kept dropping for long periods, and I can't be without Internet connectivity for work. It's a back up.So far the hotspot has performed flawlessly. Great signal throughout the house and the speeds are good for the normal needs like email. Lots of carriers have data-only plans that are SUPER CHEAP, so having a backup data device is cost effective. I wouldn't mind buying a regular Netgear router based on this, so I could use my data plan in a backup full router that is up 24x7.

I was going to send this back but decided to give it 'one more try'. I'm happy to report it all worked out. I contacted my carrier tech support, who hit some magic button, and VIOLA! It works! And works very well. This thing is quite fast, latency is about on par with my fiber optic internet service! Yeah, it's fast. The trouble I was having was in setting up the APN section of the router. The manual doesn't give you much information, and simply guessing what info goes in that section won't help you get going. Plus, there are features that you cannot simply turn on, you need approval from your carrier.After getting it going I did a speed test, nothing spectacular, but 47MBPS (Bytes, not bits) down and 25MBPS up isn't too shabby for something not yet fine tuned. I'm no power user so that works for me just fine. I use YouTube and stream music more than I watch TV so this will be just fine. At 47MBPS I can stream 2 videos at one time if I choose, not that I would.This unit has a rather large battery as compared to the entire package, but that's a good thing. I have no idea how long it takes to charge one up, and probably never will know how long it lasts since I plan on tethering it to my laptop or desktop computers. It also works without a battery installed if you do like I'm going to do, tether it to my computers.I bought this in preparation for an Arizona snowbird trip next month. Not getting any answers from the RV parks in Arizona I decided to find my own solution. 4G is plenty fast for myself. At any rate my cell carrier limits me to 60GB per month, with the threat of throttling my speed if I surpass that. I probably will based on what I use now, about 3GB per day.For those interested I found out that Google Chrome has a feature for YouTube where you can kill the video and just listen to the audio portion of YT videos. Since a lot of my YT usage is advice type videos I can kill the video portion and enjoy the audio knowing that I'm not racking up half a gig for that 25 minute 'video'.The answers are always out there, you just need to know how to ask the questions.

We've had the Netgear Nighthawk M1 for about 4 months now and it worked well for a brief period. We begin experiencing an issue where the router would get stuck in a constant reboot loop. We had to do a reset of the router to fix it, setup the internet again before we could reconnect our devices. It seemed that if we tried to connect more than 2-3 devices at once it would overwhelm the router and start the continuous rebooting. We're pretty simple people and it's just 2 of us so it's not like we have 47 smart devices connected. Usually just 1-2 laptops, sometimes a TV and sometimes our cell phones. We learned quickly that we couldn't even use our Blink cameras because that would overwhelm the router. Netgear claims that the M1 will support up to 20 devices. Light personal use of the device determined that was a lie. For example, I work from home and am almost always connected to my laptop, if my husband would connect his laptop and either one of us was doing any sort of video streaming (YouTube or Zoom/Teams calls) the router would reboot. No TV's, no cell phone browsing, no Alexa's, no gaming, just very simple laptop usage. I had read through numerous forum posts with others of this same issue and there didn't seem to be a fix. This issue got continuously worse through the next 4 months and it went from happening maybe 1-2 times per week to 1-2 times per day. Until one day it stopped disbursing WiFi all together. I tried all the typical troubleshooting, rebooting, resettting, unplugging, removing the SIM, etc. Nothing worked. The device was on and showed LTE signal but there was no WiFi signal and also hardwiring the device to a laptop did not work. This is when I learned how much of a scam that Netgear really is. Netgear offers only 3 months of phone/email support for their devices before you must begin paying to speak to someone via phone or email. Kinda crazy that you get 3 months of support and my device crapped out after 4. I searched through their forums online and saw multiple posts where others had the exact same issue, Netgear representatives were no help other than suggesting a reset of the device and there did not seem to be any resolution to the problem. I searched through support/help articles on their website and nothing mentioned the issue I was having. My device is supposed to have a 1 year warranty but I was struggling to find a way to even contact Netgear to try and get a replacement product. Finally after scouring the deepest depths of their website, I found an option to log a support ticket to do a hardware check of your device if you were wanting a replacement product. I logged the ticket and received a number that I must call within 24 hours or my ticket would be cancelled. I called and spoke with a gentleman who asked if the backlight was on on the device which it was. He then told me that "since the device turns on that he cannot continue troubleshooting with me unless I pay for their technical support". I attempted to clarify as there could be plenty of issues with the device other than if it turns on or not. He further explained that that is the extent of their hardware check and they will not warranty the device if it turns on unless I pay for additional support. Keep in mind this support is $80 for 6 months of support. Insane. Luckily the day after this router died, I got an email that my Starlink order had shipped and was coming within a week. Not worth the hassle for me to continue to fight this as I won't have a need for this product in a few days. I did want to write a review to hopefully warn others not to waste money on this trash device. Before you purchase this or any Netgear product, please look up Netgear on the BBB website and skim through the complaints and reviews. I wish I would have before we bought this piece of trash. We ordered an Alcatel router from Amazon to get us through until our Starlink gets installed but that thing is already twice the product the Nighthawk M1 is for 1/3 the price. Please save yourself some headache and order a different device.

I use it as "failover" when power goes out at the residence.Unbeatable combination: laptop + Nighthawk M1 - keeps me online when working from home..