Do You NEED a WiFi 7 Travel Router? (GL.iNet Slate 7 GL-BE3600 Review)

Does it support EAP for enterprise education/corporate networks?

All the touch screen adds is 100 bucks retail...

Their firmware is still shit. Crashes when you try to use the samba and 5ghz

You might want to preference your big discussion about the missing 6Ghz restriction as being an issue only for those requiring more than one single 2.5GbE direct port connection to the router! With the big deal your making about that 6Ghz limit, was almost fooled into thinking that my single 2.5GbE ethernet connection to the travel router would be limited to 688Mbps, which is wrong.

Recently bought a beryl ax. This is getting to be like buying anbernic handhelds. You buy one and other models are released. 🤣

You need a wifi 9 router for travel. Most hotels where you barely get 100mbit also when you go out why you need to have internet when you are on vacation lol 😅

Slate 7 seems to have the same problem that original Slate had, and that is the lack of DFS Certification which means that getting it to properly work on 5Ghz whilst travelling would likely be a pain. GL.inet disables DFS bands in the software on devices without the certification...

It's doubly annoying as Slate AX and Beryl AX - the previous generation of these - both were properly certified and worked!

Got this on super early bird because why not- my older Slate AX1800 will be promoted to home vpn gateway/iot 2.4ghz access point duties that, in turn replaces my old AR-750 that I’ve had since 2019.

supplied link: Pre-order--Earliest delivery time: May, 2025

Sold out

I have a previous model and this thing is a beast. Idk how but they have bstter range and more throuput than my 350 dollar 60 watt access point. Honesly a bit shocking

Unless you are running an office out of your hotel room the lesser version is fine in my experience. I’m not making money selling the WiFi 7 version so I am a little less biased.

Hi. I have converted my routers over to GL.iNet. 1x Flint, 2x Beryl AX, and 1x Slate 7 (on preorder). Fantastic devices! Thanks!

This would slay if it had more LAN ports and SD Card like the AXT1800

Compare to Firewalla Purple please!

I have the other gl.inet version and love it, use it all the time when travelling. It’s even better when travelling with the family as you can share one hotel connection. I also have it set up so I can stream my Jellyfin movies while away from home as well

Needs a SIM card

Just so sad that it doesn’t have 6Ghz. That’s exactly where this would shine, in hotels there are so many AP’s mostly wifi 5 or older sometimes in that 5Ghz band and so that band is so congested… it would be amazing to have ur own 6Ghz band completely clean for yourself with a travel router. Such a massive shame 😢😖😕 I did buy it and will probably enjoy it a lot but it could have been better and could have been perfect missed opportunity qnd that makes me a little sad together with being excited to get it soon.

I would have loved to have seen a wiredguard speedtest when connected over ethernet.

Very cool. I use a Slate for my metronet 2gbps internet ($80/mo) here in Florida.

I dont need it, I want it!

I have the basic model under 40 dollars which has 2.4 and 5g. It has the same software as the higher priced models. I have not found a need for a Wi-Fi 6 or 7 in a hotel. The VPN works great on my unit as is the signal strength.

I don't get the existence of travel routers when you just can use wireguard with auto connect on multiple devices

Their Slate 2 is only wifi 6, but is an excellent choice. It's great when you load openwrt.
They seem quite attentive to user feedback. I have been impressed with their products.

My only complaint is the USB 3.0. Give us that 3.2 with enough wattage to power an NVME enclosure. That upgrade for network storage would be HUGE! I’ve been running the previous Slate for a couple years now and love it. But I’ve upgraded my laptop’s network card to the Wavlink WiFi 7 and want to make use of it while I’m on the road.

Earlier versions of the software (Beryl AX, etc) IPv6 had a big banner indicating that with VPN there would be a possible leak of information. I haven't used by older boxes for a while, so not sure if this issue has been resolved with this latest device.

Thanks for digging into the advanced side of the device in the later parts of the video.

Does it have native captive portal login? This a necessity for me. MAC spoofing is a PITA and why I got rid of one of their devices. Have a $30 TPlink travel router that offers native captive portal login so there’s no excuse for this not to have it.

Why is this important? Because less than 1% of hotels in the US have physical Ethernet in their rooms. I’m on the road for work 50 weeks a year and can’t remember the last time I could use a physical cable.

If you have it set up like a extra wireless access point the old one disables a bunch of stuff nearly everything does this one do the same thing

These router videos are all rather timely, my SOHO NAS has been 10 Gb capable for a while, but stuck on 10-year-old 1 Gb LAN hardware. I was thinking of using something like this for the router and getting a managed switch, thanks in part to your videos, that was superseded by learning about Unifi. I do hope this renascence in affordable tech unleashes new levels of efficiency and productivity for the upcoming generation. This tech today vs the early 2000s is remarkable and so much more powerful and easier than hacking a Linksys router to run DDWRT and building server hardware just so one could use computers to do actual work.

well I do now

a great travel router.. can run expressVPN as well though the router as well as adblocker which all clients then are covered by.

I'm very happy with my Beryl WiFi6 travel router that I've traveled with weekly for work for the past year. For ~$90, I would buy it again and recommend it to anyone. But the Slate WiFi7 is a bargain at $100-$120 and I might get that if I needed to replace the Beryl. You can't go wrong with any of the gl.inet travel routers. Even the cheaper older ones are useful! 😊

I have an earlier model of one of these and I love it. I use it on cruise ships to run multiple devices versus being charged for each one individually.
Question, isn’t it about time for Synology to come out with some new routers?

Great review, I've been researching this device over the last few days. I'm going to buy one for the purpose of connecting to my home NAS over the inbuilt VPN service. Great little device to tinker with!

Only two ports? 😔 4 ports should be the minimum at this point. I have been on teams that randomly collab but need a ton of power adapters because no ports were available.