December 28, 2025
Router wars on aisle 5G!
Slate AX: Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit travel router
Road Wi‑Fi hero or outdated gadget? Nomads clap back
TLDR: GL.iNet’s Slate AX is a Wi‑Fi 6 travel router with VPN and fast speeds. Commenters split: owners say it works but is outdated and tied to a vendor OpenWrt, nomads lament no SIM and prefer Starlink, and one raised backdoor fears—making this a debate about trust, simplicity, and real‑world needs.
GL.iNet’s Slate AX is pitched as a Wi‑Fi 6 travel router with retractable antennas, VPN support, and claimed speeds up to 1.8 Gbps over two bands, plus fast WireGuard and OpenVPN — but the comments turned it into a reality show. One owner cheered it for pulling “north of 400 Mbps” on WireGuard, yet immediately sighed that it runs a vendor fork of OpenWrt, making add‑ons a hassle.
Then the nomads crashed the party: “Starlink is king,” one pro traveler scoffed, noting the router lacks a SIM slot for cellular and asking why anyone would stack routers and risk “double NAT” (that’s when you’re behind two routers, which can break apps). Another blunt take: “If you want OpenWrt, you don’t want this,” and fans pointed to Mediatek‑based alternatives.
Cue the sirens: “How did this make FP???” became the meme of the thread as purists called it dated and not “current gen.” The spiciest subplot? A commenter floated a backdoor conspiracy — with zero evidence — while others joked the DFS “military channel” feature means you’re borrowing Air Force Wi‑Fi. It’s a split crowd: road warriors want a SIM and simplicity; tinkerers want upstream OpenWrt and cleaner guts. Everyone wants less hype, more honesty.
Key Points
- •Slate AX (GL-AXT1800) is a Wi‑Fi 6 travel router with dual‑band speeds up to 1800 Mbps (600 Mbps 2.4GHz + 1200 Mbps 5GHz).
- •Runs OpenWrt 21.02 (Kernel 4.4.60) and supports customization and application installation.
- •Supports VPNs with OpenVPN (DCO) up to 560 Mbps and WireGuard up to 550 Mbps in client mode.
- •Hardware includes retractable antennas, USB 3.0, three gigabit ports, and a TF card slot (up to 512GB), plus SAMBA/WebDAV for local storage/NAS.
- •Approved for DFS to access additional 5GHz channels; 5G Wi‑Fi Band 2 (5250–5350Hz) is unavailable in Japan; can add 5G via GL‑M2 with multi‑WAN failover/load balancing.