Verizon and Novatel Wireless introduced the MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot yesterday and our review unit just arrived this morning. The MiFi is super portable and lightweight. It lets you create a personal Wi-Fi connection that’s reliable, secure and shareable up to 5 simultaneous connections. You can share the Wi-Fi connection with others or connect any Wi-Fi enabled devices such as netbooks, cameras, gaming devices or portable media/MP3 players. Yes, if you have Skype on an iPod touch, you’ll be able to make Skype calls as well.

The MiFi 2200 measures 3.5” x 2.3” x 0.4” and weighing 2.05 ounces. Novatel managed to integrate an internal CDMA and Wi-Fi antenna as well as a battery with a large enough capacity to give you four hours of active use and 40 hours of standby time on a single charge. I would imagine that the length of time on “active use” will vary depending on signal strength as well as how many connections are actually connected to the unit – so I won’t know for sure until I can put it through some rigorous tests. For the full review, I plan on benchmarking up and downstream speeds with various number of active connections to the MiFi as well, so make sure to check back in a few days for full results.

The MiFi 2200 is available online and in Verizon Wireless stores for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. There are two price plans available:

• $39.99 monthly access for 250 MB monthly allowance and 10 cents per megabyte overage

• $59.99 monthly access for 5 GB monthly allowance and 5 cents per megabyte overage

The overage charges are steep so make sure to watch your usages. There’s a third option for those that don’t want to be locked into a contract/monthly service plan, by using Verizon’s DayPass with the MiFi for $15 for 24-hour access if you buy the unit at full retail price.

“The MiFi 2200 gives more than 86 million customers access to the nation’s largest and most reliable 3G network,” said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. “With projected growth rates of over 30 percent for Wi-Fi mobile phones, MiFi will be of great benefit to both business customers and consumers. It gives customers the flexibility to transform their Wi-Fi-enabled consumer electronics into Mobile Broadband devices and to choose how and when they need to be connected at a price point that will match most budgets.”

“The MiFi 2200 offers unprecedented possibilities for students, mobile workers and families to all stay connected while on the go,” said Peter Leparulo, chairman and chief executive officer, Novatel Wireless. “We are very pleased to work closely with Verizon Wireless to deliver the most advanced connectivity solutions possible to our combined customers.”