GL.iNet GL-AXT1800 (Slate AX) Pocket-Sized Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit Travel Router, Extender/Repeater for Hotel&Public Network Storage, VPN Client&Server, OpenWrt, Adguard Home, USB 3.0, TF Card Slot

This new version is a vast improvement over the previous GL-iNet travel router. While a tad bit larger, the performance is very good. more robust, faster and easier to connect to the often difficult captive portals of hotel or ship wifi connections. Speed is greatly improved over previous versions (my native fiber Internet speed is 500/500mbps while this delivers 100/100mbps). While you don't need to be a tech genius to configure the VPN aspect of the router (I use Nord), it does take some patience and basic knowledge of set up. But online instructions are very good and if you follow them, no matter where you are in the world (most places anyway) you should be able to connect to the VPN server in the country of your choice.

If you are considering the purchase of this device, you must take into account a couple of things:
1. You should have some basic knowledge of how networking works.
2. You must have some patience with setting up and learning the intricate details of the system.

If you have these couple of things under your belt, this will be a valuable device for you. If you don't, Google and YouTube will bring you up to speed.

This device is excellent for home and travel use. While most people prefer to use their standard devices at home, many use this device for traveling.
For example, if you are connected to an internet that only allows single-device connection, you can spoof you MAC address and use the repeater function to allow multiple devices to connect to this handy tool. This gives you internet on multiple devices as opposed to just one. It also allow you to use multiple vpn providers which give you the options to be in various places at once. There are too many features to list, but be sure to grab one and check it out. Additionally, this works with other devices to maximize efficiency (switches, routers, firewalls, etc). While it may be a learning curve for some to set up, using this device can be a game changer during travel to various places (countries, cruises, hotels, etc).

I had bought an older version of this from this manufacturer a long time ago and really liked the simple software built on top of a long time good open source routing software and had a new use case for an offline static website that I wanted to power off batteries. I tried using a raspberry pi zero but it was not performant enough for the JS heavy application so I tried to use a newq file hub but it’s web server kept crashing under rather light and seemingly random reasons. I also tried using an old android phone but that didn’t support exfat external drives so that idea was also out. I got to thinking that a router with decent software and the right ports would work perfectly. I remembered this brand from a previous purchase and saw the hardware specs and thought it would be plenty to host a simple static website off of a usb drive and sure enough it does this extremely well. Now openwrt which is the underlying software has plugins to run a full fledged web server off of it but I figured I would try to just use the http method already built in that is provided from the network storage WebDAV protocol. This worked perfectly and is far more performant than any other solution I tried. With my battery pack showing it can run it for 15 hours I think this solution will work perfectly for my intended use case.

The router is quite simple and about the footprint of my iPhone just a little larger and thicker of course.

The tf card easily supported my 1tb card in exfat and the usb 3.0 port on the back also works much the same way with an adapter.

It includes a power bring but any usb c charger should be able to supply it enough power. It’s about 20 watts or so.

There is a small fan inside but I never heard it.

The repeater function does not appear to work with eero routers after a firmware update so unsure what happened there.

Overall though easy to use and very versatile thanks to its very open source software also performance seems great for the price.

GL-iNet has really made a name for themselves at making great portable routers.
my old one finally gave up the ghost after many years (i think 5). So, I got the new one. it works great. it is faster, and has more VPN options. on the down-side, it is twice as big and takes up a lot more room in my bag. 🙁 (more ram would be nice too.) Overall a great product! I would recommend it to anyone who travels, even just vacation. I just set the wifi name and password to be the same as my home router, and the whole family can connect just like it was at home!