Travel savvy routers, which one would you go for, and why?
cudy TR1200 or GL-AR300M16 ?
I'm don't typically chime in for the hardware selection, but I wouldn't choose either of these.
If in a situation where I only had a choice of these two, the TR1200 at least has 2 radios (5G) supporting 802.11ac and thus would be my choice (The AR300M16 is 802.11n on a single 2.4G radio). Having 2 radios is so much better in general, but especially in a travel context (where the uplink may often be via wifi).
But both are quite old and not worth buying, IMO. There many more modern options out there... I'd recommend something current. Obviously budget could be a concern and your location/country may impact availability. If you provide some guidance about where you are and how much you're willing to spend, as well as any special things you want to do with the device (i.e. VPNs, etc.), you'll get much better and more specific guidance.
Indeed, both of these options are really old/ low-end and have various different problems, please don't buy either of those.
That aside, given the choice between only these two candidates (and again, you really shouldn't go with either), I would favour the GL-AR300M16 over the TR1200, despite it being older and 2.4-GHz-only. MT7628AN is just a 'weird' and extremely low-end SOC (mt7621 is fine, so would be modern filogic, but I really wouldn't go with the older/ lower-end SOCs, including mt7628an) and the 5 GHz radio (mt7613BEN) is bad (no DFS, many other issues).
Yes, the GL-AR300M16 is older and slower (SOC and wireless) on paper, but this is late ('peak') ath79 with pretty mature ath9k wireless, but its support is likely to be more mature than mt7628an+mt7613ben. But, again - and I know I'm repeating myself, neither of these devices should be on your shopping list in 2025 (or 2018, actually).
What about dap-x1860 or similar mt7621a based devices (maybe/ probably there are more travel oriented options, but I'm not really keeping track of this market segment)?
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I have both devices. The GL has the advantage to have a smaller case compared to the Cudy. Which has the edge of 2 radios; however, usage of its 5GHz is a bit “sensitive” because DFS is not (properly) working. Which, AFAIK, is more an issue of the MT76 driver, not the hardware itself. Thus, I need to adjust the channel usage manually, with a wifi utility. Which, in my case now, also means, just 40MHz width for uninterrupted operations. But not using high thruput, this works quite well when connected upstream via 2,4GHz. Both devices can easily run on my small power pack, like my mobile phone. On the Cudy I run a socks5 client, to connect me from abroad to Germany. I prefere the Cudy; however, I want to try the Cudy TR3000 soon.
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Thanks for the reactions. I understand both options are to be avoided.
In answer to additional specs, for travel the form factor, size, is naturally important. At a similar budget, both TR1200 and AR300M16 fall in an acceptable “travel” size.
Powering the travel router through USB ports of the laptop and preferably a powerbank is a must.
At least 2 ethernet ports, one WAN and one LAN, are needed.
It shall connect to a VPN over wifi or ethernet, but the speed of the VPN is of lesser importance. ±1MBps is plenty.
EDIT: I guess the topic evolves to cudy TR3000 or GL-MT3000. Are there any other travel size routers? How do they compare to nanopi’s?
I would favour the TR3000, but that's because I have this one (flashed with vanilla OpenWrt + TravelMate and USB tethering enabled) and it's been serving me very well as a travel router. I have had the GL-MT1300 as well (gave it away to a friend), and that also worked very well with Vanilla OpenWrt.
I'm not sure as to why the GL-MT3000 is almost double the price of a TR3000 (edit: difference in price is less now it seems), as functionality wise they seem to be similar. There's now also a TR3000 with 256mb ram, but that's only supported in Snapshot afaik.
Another option could be an OpenWrt One, but that's a bit heavier and bulkier (and also more expensive).
Another (powerfull) option might be a Banana Pi BPI-R3 mini, but I do not have experience with that one.
Sorry, to correct you. The radio is not bad, the driver may be, because it does not support DFS on this device, yet. Which are the other issues, BTW ? Asking, because I did not detect them until now.
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Have tr1200 from cudy and got it cheap, but You know, cudy firmware is as poor and don’t support any kind of tethering from modem or phone, and openwrt is as it is. I have also gl.i et mt3000 and that’s a beast, with gl.inet firmeare works awesome and all You need to configure it’s doable from very nice gui.
TR3000 runs very hot sometimes, if your environment is generally cool enough then it will be fine.
BTW I agree that MT7628AN is very low end, I own the GL-INET Mango (AR300 v1) and it hangs easily, recently pickup TP-LINK WR902AC which is similar.
That's why you need to flash it to OpenWrt to get better features.
probably why the MT3000 have active cooling (but TR3000 doesn't).
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To be honest, I haven't noticed the TR3000 running hot. Having said that, I typically do not stretch it with a lot of traffic and/or clients connected. It will be max 4 concurrent users, and typically no full bandwidth usage....
nah, i don’t need openwrt for it since i have mt3000 , i use it in other role on ofw and it works better than on openwrt 
. Also i contacted to cudy support and they promissed to take a look on this and try to add tethering functions in future realases.
Thanks to all for the comments.
I wonder if those who own a TR3000 and/or GL-MT3000 could comment on the heat of the devices under normal internet use through openvpn running on the device in summer heat conditions of 35C/95F. Normal internet use as in web, email, voip, radio, … No intense gaming, high quality video, torrents, heavy downloads, etc. That’s not the purpose of the device use case for me.
Thanks
I have a GL-MT3000 that I really like.
It runs a little warm (operating with a WG connection) -- obviously above the ambient room temps, but there is active cooling (the fan is pretty quiet) and thus it stays at a reasonable temperature without any issues. At most, it's 'warm to the touch' and never hot.
(FWIW, the rated power consumption is <8W, and it ships with a 15W (5V @ 3A) power supply.)
Mt3000 have a tiny cooler so this is his advantage against others, but it’s quiet and not heats too much when i have torrent client on it with couple of hundreds idlling torrents.
Most of the time I'm using hotel's USB power which is rated at 5V 2.1A or 2.4A which works like charm.
Yeah. It should work on most modern USB sockets you'll find around. But I always have my own USB supply with me whenever I use the device -- this allows a bit more flexibility in placement and ensures that I always have enough power (older 1A (5W) USB supplies might not work reliably).
Absolutely no issues with my MT3000 but it's not as cheap as the tr1200 to throw in my bag and not worry about it.
Advantages of the tr1200 is it's a bright colour for finding it quickly.
Why the ar300m over the mt300n-v2 which is a beautiful yellow