As I've mentioned on here a number of times (and yet I don't hear of droves of people dropping their contracts so I wonder if I'm getting the word out enough), I use a Cradlepoint PHS300 with a Clear 4G USB stick to provide my cell phone service. The PHS300 shares an interesting limitation with all the other 3G/4G WiFi "pucks" out there of a 4 hour battery life. It's almost like they are designed not to last a whole day for some reason...
In any case, I used to get around this with a Tekkeon 3750 external battery. This didn't give quite a full day of coverage, so I would make time during the day to recharge the PHS300 at my desk so I could conserve the Tekkeon, and then usually made the home stretch on a second PHS300 battery. I recently replaced the Tekkeon with an iSound 16000mAh battery. The iSound has enough juice that I can run the PHS 300 off it all day, and still have juice when I get home.
That may sound like a small difference, but in practice it is HUGE. It means I don't have to worry about being sure to turn the battery off every chance I get. It means I don't have 10-20 minutes each day where I'm unavailable because I'm switching PHS 300 batteries. And it means that I don't even have to carry the second battery. IOW, it is an experience that is much more like having a "real" cell phone than what I had before.
When you are evaluating your tech, be sure to consider your edge cases. Sometimes even a small improvement can make a big difference, and you want to make sure you aren't missing out because you don't think 5-10% is enough to fool with. That 5-10% could be the difference between useful and trying to be useful :-)
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