expiredphoinix | Staff posted Nov 20, 2025 09:04 AM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expiredphoinix | Staff posted Nov 20, 2025 09:04 AM
GL.iNet GL-MT3000 Beryl AX Pocket-Sized Wi-Fi 6 Wireless Travel Gigabit Router
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$108
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If the hotel/plane/whatever charges for wifi per-device, pay for only one device and then share it. The router connects it's "wan" to the hotel wifi via the wifi radio, but also uses the same wifi radio to create my own wifi network for all my devices. It's a wifi-to-wifi router.
If the hotel has a captive portal, and I have a lot of devices (personal laptop, work laptop, maybe kindle, maybe tablet, maybe streaming stick on TV) then I can use the travel router. I don't have to reconfigure EVERY device. They already know my private network's SSID and password. I just log into the router and select the upstream wifi network, then log into the captive portal once. That one captive portal login enables access for all of my devices. This is especially important if I have a lot of devices AND the hotel forces a relogin of every device every 24 hours, and I'm staying for a week or more.
If my device doesn't have a good way to log into captive portals, this takes care of that. For example, the original Chromecast had no UI for portals at all. Putting it behind the travel router ensured it worked.
One time I stayed at an airbnb and the Internet they gave me went down. I found the router, and was surprised to see they appeared to have two different Internet connections into two different routers. The first router showed no link. OK that's down. I tried plugging my laptop into the 2nd router and it worked great. But I didn't know the wifi name/password for that router. So, I dropped my travel router beside it, connected via Ethernet, and had my own wifi network for the rest of the trip.
Just a month ago I stayed at a hotel that offered free wifi, but they artificially limited each device to like 3 mbps. So, I connected my laptop's built in wifi as connection #1. I connected my travel router to wifi, then plugged ethernet from that into my laptop as connection #2. I put my phone on the wifi, enabled USB tethering, and connected that to my laptop via USB as connection #3. Then, I used Speedify to bond all 3 of the laptop's wifi connections. That got me 9 mbps on their 3-mbps-per-user wifi.
Note: Modern phones can generally do wifi-to-wifi routing. This has eliminated most of my need for a travel router. However, I still carry a travel router just because it's nice to have the local LAN not go down every time I leave the room with my phone. For example, if I want to leave my laptop downloading a file while I'm away doing some activity all day...
A lot of people use travel routers for VPNs too. I never do that, and instead just do a VPN right on my end device.
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I'd say the jump to the Beryl AX (the Slate Plus and non-AX Beryl are more lateral upgrades to the Opal) would be worth the extra cost if you make use of OpenVPN or Wireguard, even over the Opal.
If that won't apply to you though, the Opal's a solid upgrade over the Mango, for that sweet sweet 5Ghz band. 😊
It is decently bigger though, about twice and wide and 1.5 times as deep. So not something you can stick in a pocket like the Mango.
But yes, if I thought I was going to use the VPN in any significant amount, I definitely would not have gone with the Opal.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09N72FMH5
The one big downside is size. My new one will be more than double the size. In the pics below, I'm moving from the 1st one on top to the 3rd one down. So maybe sometimes I'll still carry the old one when space is tight.
https://forum.gl-inet.com/t/size-...ison/21756
I had the Opal, but for whatever reason the Opal did not like my Verizon home router which has DFS (dynamic frequency selection) turned on. This was a couple years ago, but the Opal would not connect to a DFS enabled router. It does not work with DFS - I think it did not connect to a hotel WiFi in Hood River for the same reason. They may have fixed that, but at the time it was a pain. I was within the return window and sent it back for the Beryl MT-3000.
I agree on size, I bought a Creta which is dual band and killed for my use case, is similar to the size of a Mango, but is discontinued. The Creta failed and now the WiFi signals randomly turn off/on - frequently so I've given up on that unit.
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ar750/
But yes, if I thought I was going to use the VPN in any significant amount, I definitely would not have gone with the Opal.
I'd say the jump to the Beryl AX (the Slate Plus and non-AX Beryl are more lateral upgrades to the Opal) would be worth the extra cost if you make use of OpenVPN or Wireguard, even over the Opal.
If that won't apply to you though, the Opal's a solid upgrade over the Mango, for that sweet sweet 5Ghz band. 😊
It is decently bigger though, about twice and wide and 1.5 times as deep. So not something you can stick in a pocket like the Mango.
12 Mbps - Opal
150 Mbps - Beryl AX
385 Mbps - Slate 7
560 Mbps - Slate AX
https://www.gl-inet.com/compare/
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12 Mbps - Opal
150 Mbps - Beryl AX
385 Mbps - Slate 7
560 Mbps - Slate AX
https://www.gl-inet.com/compare/
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