With us being very concerned with public WiFi and the lack of security we usually avoid using any hot spots and I have configured our phones and laptops with a personal VPN when using those services. The downside is that the VPN clients on these devices will drain the battery and there is cost per device using that service.

With the GL.iNet travel router with the bult in VPN service you only connect to the public WiFi and then launch the VPN on the router itself. Our phones and laptops connect to a secure local connection to the router, which then goes over the VPN which is encrypted over the public WiFi. This was easy to configure and worked well.

I didn't have a chance to test at home since the router arrived the day of travel so I quickly did a VPN configuration (WireGuard) that I would enable at the location. Once I was at our destination I plugged in the router and also connected my laptop to the SSID and key using the ones printed on the side of the router. I then created new SSID and key that I would share with the family. The next step was to connect to the WiFi since there was no ethernet at our location and I was able to scan and connect with no issues. The last piece was to put in the WireGuard VPN configuration and activate the VPN which was really easy. The VPN activated on the first try and then tested with my laptop and was able to get to all my sites and services. I then shared the SSID and Key on the family devices and they were all able to connect as well. We had a total of 8 devices running against one connection over the VPN.

There are lot more features in this router but for us it was about being secured in the public WiFi space. The router can become a NAS, can use Ethernet as the WAN connection, and also you can use a cell phone USB tethered if no other services are available.

What I really liked: Price, compact, easy to setup, USB C powered, up to date software

What I would suggest in improvements: For some reason even though the access point for WiFi was in our room the GL.iNet GL-MT3000 seemed to favor 2.4 GHz over 5 GHz. I clicked on the connection type and was able to force 5 GHz in the WAN settings. The router by default separates the 5 GHz from 2.4 GHz by using separate SSID's. I always preferred to combine both into one SSID and let my devices determine the best one to use. When I configured the local WiFi id did just that in the configuration of our new SSID.

I would recommend anyone that travels with family and needs to share and secure their internet devices to take a hard look at using the GL.iNet GL-MT3000.

UPDATE January 2026: Confirm it works at Edinburgh Airport.

UPDATE December 2025: Confirmed that it worked perfectly with the free airport WiFi at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA).

Also works perfectly at London Heathrow Terminal 5 (no need for any sign in here).

UPDATE December 2025: Our Internet provider lost WiFi to the entire area today. I tethered my phone to the Beryl and had Internet to everything in the house in a minute. Absolutely brilliant piece of kit. Yes, slower than my normal but 90mbs download still plenty fast enough. Life saver!

Great little travel router at a good price. It is very compact and easy to carry. It comes with a USB power adapter along with various connectors for US, UK plug sockets. I don't bother to carry these as it is powers up from any USB C source. I have used it plugged direct into my MacBook Air and also my Anker 5,000 portable power bank. Both have worked perfectly so I would rather carry the power bank than the power brick! Setting it up was very simple. Do it at home first though as you will need a Firmware update. I have ExpressVPN and I downloaded the necessary files and connections in a couple of minutes - the instructions are easy to follow. Along with changing the side switch to turn on the VPN. When you rename the 2.4 and 5GHz ignore the various YouTube videos - just give them both the same name, it works perfectly. It is easy to turn on AdGuard or other various encrypted DNS options etc. but be aware this may affect you trying to connect at an airport etc. Turn on the encrypted stuff after you are connected to the WiFi. Overall it seems a very well built piece of kit, with very easy software. Most impressed.

I travel and cruise often. I am an attorney and usually have to work for some portion of my travel, and having internet availability is crucial. I am also creating video content for a youtube channel and my work. When I am working I usually need to have more than one electronic device hooked up at the same time. For cruisers we all know that you pay per device so I am usually switching between devices, and that gets tiring.

I have used several different travel routers (like ravPower and TP-Link) to different levels of success. However, the common factor is that the travel router usually deminishes the signal and speed coming in (and going out) so that even if I hooked up one device the connection speed would drop by more than half. For cruising that meant deathly slow connections.

RavPower made me so frustrated on my last cruise by shutting off and on and disconnecting and reconnecting constantly. I simply couldn't use it. TP-Link works better, but its effectiveness decreases significantly (in speed) when there is a distance between the modem and where I am working, making it useless at times.

I bought the MT3000-Beryl AX because I had an upcoming cruise and had to work a lot, including having a Zoom hearing. I tested it at home and it was amazing, but the home doesn't pose the connection issues found on a cruise ship. I boarded Royal Caribbean's Oasis that uses Starlink (the same ship I used the RavPower on three weeks earlier and about pulled my hair out), hoping it would do well.

This little modem was amazing. Not only did it connect easily to the ship, the download signal was the same as if my electronic device was connected directly. Additionally, the upload speed (not sure how) was almost always better than my phone or laptop. I speed-tested it regularly and often. It was as good or better than my direct connection, and everything worked great. I lowered the resolution on my camera for my zoom hearing and had no issues. I worked in my room, but I could hook the Beryl up to a batter pack and basically be mobile anywhere on the ship. I hooked up 4 devices at once and didn't notice much of a lag for what I was doing.

The modem comes with a bunch of built-in security features.

For a family going on a cruise, this little device will allow you to provide access to all your cabinmates while they are in the cabin. It might solve the issue of needing to get everyone their own internet access (if some people only use the internet on occasion - but not for heavy scrollers).

The only gripe I had was that I wanted to wirelessly dump photos from my iPhone to a card because I have limited storage (and your iPhone doesn't want to back up to iCloud while on the ship even if you have continuous internet access). I know it can do this. I didn't figure out how to do this when I was home and tried to figure it out while on the ship, but there wasn't any real information, even the info Beryl provided (although I might have missed it). I had all the hardware. I tinkered with it but couldn't figure it out. I tried youtube videos or google searches to no avail. I'm sure there is info out there, but it wasn't easy to find.

I give this a 5 Star rating as a travel router. Fast, efficient, secure, and portable! It's a winner!

*****

UPDATE 10/26/25

This thing still works amazing. It goes on all my trips and lets me connect multiple devices. I did have a situation where one of the cruise ships gave it a little trouble connecting. However there is a way to spoof your LAN to match a laptop. I watched a YouTube video how to do it and it was simple and worked amazing. I bring it with me when I want to work outside of the cabin on the cruise and power it with a portable powerbank. A lot of the times when I am working aboard a ship, the cruise workers ask me about it because they want one.

At the very least - it provides a much more secure connection than a direct connection into a cruise or hotel internet gateway. It works great with VPN and you can even add yours into the admin panel.

If I could give it 10 stars I would.

I needed a router that let me tunnel into a home VPN as I'm not allowed to put VPN software on my work laptop. Heading thousands of miles away for a split remote work/vacation trip, I knew I needed that ability to get a US-based IP address.

This little guy fit the bill perfectly and makes it clear it was designed by people who "get" the needs of a road warrior. It comes with a power adapter that has modular plugs and all three primary prongs that are easily changeable. Personally I found setting up the VPN very easily: I downloaded the cert from my VPN server, loaded it into the VPN client software, and configured the physical button on the side of the router to automatically connect when I flipped the switch. Very easy.

Yes you can connect to the wifi on the router and then tunnel in with VPN, but remember that latency compounds and that WiFi is not truly synchronous: I bought a small USB-Ethernet adapter and plugged directly into the LAN port on the back of the travel router. Without VPN there was no measurable addition in latency to my connection to the local Access Point.

For those who are even more technically mindful, there's a full-on admin login to the backend OpenWRT-based OS, but I saw that as an opportunity only to shoot myself in the foot and left it alone. The general admin interface on the primary web gateway had everything I needed to set IP ranges, passwords, VPN, and other protections. It also performs automated OS/patching checks that you can opt into.

If you're a plug-and-play type of person this is going to be a little daunting, but the provided documentation can walk you through what you need. If you're sticking with larger commercial VPN vendors it seems to have a decent UI to make that easy (I don't use these services so I'm only speculating).

What I liked best is that once I had it set up (and I recommend you test all of that at home before you hit the road!), using my mobile hotspot as the WiFi provider to tunnel back into the house, there were no surprises once I hit the hotel thousands of miles away. I was able to get to the hotel's login page through the router, turn on the VPN, and had about an extra 100ms of latency in the connection. The router never overheated or misbehaved. It was rock solid. The one time things got nutty, the overall network connection was getting saturated from everyone around me -- nothing on the router.

I'm very impressed with this thing. It's small, reliable, and does exactly what I wanted it to. The configurability let me set up an IP range that didn't clash with my home network, and I was able to get into work resources without any issues.

Just used it on my international trips and it worked great! Sometimes all I had to do was plug it I to the hotel Ethernet and it would automatically connect and my devices would already recognize and connect to the wifi. The other outlet adaptors that came with it worked. It meant I usually didn't have to worry about passwords or SSIDs. The VPN works great too, I'm using Proton VPN WireGuard.

However it doesn't let you select a custom https or TLS DNS server with the VPN, you must use one of their pre-approved ones. I wanted to use Quad 9 but instead it let me use Cloudflare HTTPS DNS. That's the only reason I'm rating it 4 star instead of 5.

I can configure it with Tailscale to let my Nintendo Switch connect to my home Bedrock Minecraft server from remote locations. Perfect since the Switch doesn't load Tailscale directly.

It even has a physical toggle button on the side that let's you quickly turn off and on anything you configure it to, in my case the VPN.

Hotel Wi-Fi at tournament venues ranges from mediocre to completely unusable. This GL.iNet portable router solved that problem entirely—now we have reliable internet whether the venue connection is decent or absolutely terrible.

The Wi-Fi 6 speed is genuinely noticeable. Streaming game highlights, checking scores, uploading photos—everything loads without that frustrating buffering wheel. My son can video chat with grandparents after games without constant disconnections. Simple stuff that feels impossible on sketchy tournament venue networks suddenly works smoothly.

The portability actually matches what they claim. This thing fits in a backpack pocket without taking up serious space. We travel with it to every tournament, and it weighs almost nothing. Setting it up takes maybe thirty seconds—plug it in, connect devices, done. No complicated configuration. It just works.

The 2.5G capability means this router handles multiple devices simultaneously without choking. My wife's working emails while my son streams, I'm uploading photos, and everything flows smoothly instead of everyone fighting for bandwidth like we're sharing a dial-up connection from 1995.

The battery option is genuinely useful for situations where outlets aren't convenient. Plug it in at the hotel, charge the battery, then use it poolside or in the car during downtime. That flexibility keeps everyone connected without being tethered to outlets.

The pocket-sized form factor makes it perfect for travel without sacrificing actual performance. Some portable routers feel like toys. This one genuinely outperforms hotel networks we've encountered. It's not a compromise—it's actually better than what most venues provide.

Whether you're managing tournament weekend logistics or just tired of battling terrible hotel Wi-Fi, this delivers reliable connectivity that keeps your family connected and functional. Tournament season just got more manageable.

I got this for a few reasons, and so far am happy with it.

The primary reason I got this was for a router in my RV that I could connect a mini-PC to for running my astrophotography setup. This lets me setup the system and the mini-PC automatically gets a fixed IP so I can remote desktop into it from inside the trailer on my laptop. This worked great in my testing this past week. Easy to setup, good signal, and does everything I want.

The second reason I got this is as a temporary backup router for home. With the ability to tether through my phone it would be an option to provide Internet access if my cable modem goes down for any reason. That doesn't happen very often, but it is nice to have the backup. While I haven't had to use it, I have tested it out and everything worked great.

Along those lines, sometimes when we are camping better cellular coverage is available outside of the RV. I can set this out with a battery pack and my phone, providing better signal to my laptop.

Lastly, I'll likely start traveling more for work, so this will go along with me. I've configured this with both ZeroTier to connect to my home network, and also with a VPN provider, and it works great. I have the switch on the side configured to enable/disable connection to my VPN provider, so everything on the router goes through VPN. This will be great when I am in a hotel on travel. Not only will this keep my laptop and phone off the hotel network directly, it will also secure all of my connections with VPN, offering another layer of protection. While I've tested this functionality at home, I haven't yet been able to put it to use.

Great little router. I use it in my RV to pick up various wifi hotspots that I have access to, my home wifi when in my driveway, my church, various restaurant wifi's, my phone hotspot, even town open wifi's. It then rebroadcasts those on a single "named" wifi inside of my RV. Fast, stable, secure. Having the wifi in the RV allows me to work with things that want a stable wifi to work, like my BotsLab camera / doorbell.

The UI is great, easy to set up and lots of options including security filters to get rid of ads and the 'bad stuff'.

The uplink (outside wifi to this router) can use 2.4 or 5.0 ghz. I SpeedTest each hotspot I am connecting to with both frequencies, and then store that upload speed to get the fastest speed between the router and each wifi hotspot. 2.4 ghz is often the fastest for long distance connections or through walls to the hotspot, but not always. In my driveway, the 5gzh is fastest.

From my Winnebago Vista 26HE class A RV, at my church, my tablet, phone or laptop would get 1-5 mbps directly into my church's public wifi, located in an interior hallway, bottom floor of a cement block building. This Beryl router using 2.4 ghz to talk to that wifi hotspot, gets about 25 mbps on speedtest. And it gives my whole RV a little wifi hotspot so every client device in the RV gets that speed.

The router even has a usb port which can be used to set up a file share for things like ripped movie files. I have a usb expander adapter so I can have up to 10 thumb drives. One 512 gb thumb drive will store about 10 uncompressed or 20 compressed video movies.

I got it for $90 and this little thing just rocks!!!

I recently had the pleasure of using the GL.iNet GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) Small Portable Wifi 6 Router, and I must say, it exceeded all my expectations. This compact device is a powerhouse when it comes to delivering high-speed, reliable internet connectivity on the go.

First and foremost, the Wifi 6 technology is a game-changer. It offers faster speeds and greater capacity, making it perfect for streaming, gaming, and handling multiple devices simultaneously without a hitch. I noticed a significant improvement in the performance and range compared to my previous portable routers.

Setting up the GL-MT3000 was a breeze. The user-friendly interface and clear instructions made the process quick and painless. Within minutes, I had a secure and stable internet connection. The router’s compact size is another major advantage, fitting easily into my bag and making it an ideal travel companion.

What sets the Beryl AX apart is its impressive feature set. It includes robust security options, such as VPN support and advanced encryption, ensuring that my data remains safe and private no matter where I am. The ability to switch between different modes, like router, repeater, and access point, adds to its versatility.

In conclusion, the GL.iNet GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) Small Portable Wifi 6 Router is a must-have for anyone in need of a reliable, high-performance portable router. Its combination of speed, security, and ease of use makes it an excellent investment. Highly recommended!

Better than expected quality and features.

Best router I've ever seen !! Small and very smart, based on OpenWRT with proprietary management interface. Very easy to use, can do everything, even WireGuard VPN using GL.iNet DDNS service ! Setup takes 2 minutes and it just works. Very stable, rather power efficient (doesn't heat much, never heard the fan spinning). It can even share a mobile phone connection to all WiFi users, just by connecting the phone USB cable to the front port and enable tethering. Love it ! Works perfectly as router, extender, VPN tunneling, with AdGuard, etc. For geeks, it can be customized with huge list of plug-ins. I work as a computer engineer since more than 30 years and believe me, this little all-in-one router is a gem !

Bardzo pozytywnie mnie zaskoczył. Super oprogramowanie w urządzeniu. Mnie najbardziej zależało na VPN - jest elastyczne w konfiguracji.

I'm not someone who usually leaves reviews, but I felt it was worth commenting on this particular item – the wireless travel router.

I haven’t explored many of the advanced features (like VPN or file sharing), but for my needs, this device has been near perfect. I’ve been travelling between hotels and Airbnbs lately, and I use it as a bridge for the internet provided at each place. The big win for me is being able to set my WiFi name and password to match what I use at home, so all my devices connect automatically without needing to reconfigure them at every stop.

Whether it’s my laptop, iPad, or phone, everything just works the moment I arrive and plug it in. It handles hotel login portals easily, whether it’s through a username and password or a web-based login. It also works fine with cabled internet connections.

The signal range is much better than I expected for such a compact device. It’s whisper quiet, uses minimal power, and the user interface is simple and straightforward. It makes hopping from one accommodation to another much less painful from a tech setup perspective.

If I had one minor complaint, it's that I can't find an option to view the total data usage across all connected devices. You can see individual device usage, which is helpful, but I’d love to be able to reset and track total data used per location – especially when dealing with limited WiFi quotas in Airbnbs or hotels.

That aside, I’d highly recommend this device for anyone who travels regularly with multiple devices. It’s affordable, efficient, and genuinely makes life on the road a lot easier.