I was wondering about the differences between these two so I just decided to buy both and test for myself.
Here’s what I have found to be the pros of each that aren’t very commonly advertised:
MT3000:
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supports 160 MHz bandwidth on 5 GHz channels (twice as fast over WiFi if your client supports it).
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faster CPU clock speed so single core tasks (a lot of NAT tasks) will be faster.
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supports hardware acceleration for packet forwarding, which allows for 2.3ish gbps WiFi throughput and lowers CPU load.
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lower power consumption, haven’t measured exactly but it can run almost twice as long as the AXT1800 on a usb battery pack.
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stays noticeably cooler, I have the fans on both units set to trigger at 70°C and the fan on the MT3000 only turns on when the wireguard server is hitting its max throughput for more than a minute or two, while the fan on the AXT1800 is almost always on regardless of CPU load.
AXT1800:
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can log into EAP captive portals which are often part of hotel or airplane or otherwise public WiFi (although MAC cloning a device that has already passed the portal should work too).
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open source drivers supported (can enable monitor mode, useful for pentesting / hacking).
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quad core processor makes wireguard and other multi-core packages like aircrack-ng significantly faster than the dual core processor in the MT3000.
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up to 1000mW transmission power (30 dBi) vs 100mW (20dBi) on the Beryl AX, which means longer range (although it’s not technically legal to transmit at over 100mW in many parts of the world, not sure who would know though…).
MT3000 is definitely more future proof and my preference overall, though I haven’t encountered any issues with captive portals yet. Hard to say one is definitely better than the other. If the Beryl AX had support for captive portals it would be the better one to travel with hands down — it’s smaller, lighter, and can use a much wider variety of USB power supplies or backup batteries. Sure, the AXT1800 has faster wireguard speeds, but the 300ish I get from the MT3000 saturates the download speeds of basically every network I’ve encountered while traveling. However, the ability to capture WPA handshakes to crack PSKs that the AXT1800 supports (with some tweaking of course) might be more beneficial to you, especially if you’re going somewhere where open WiFi networks might not be as common but private ones are still likely to exist. Oddly enough, due to its awesome WiFi speeds and loads of built in features, I’ve made two MT3000s my primary router and AP at home and will be traveling with the AXT1800 until I fork over another $100 for a third Beryl AX.
Oh also any device that complies with the 802.11ax standard has MU-MIMO incorporated. Seems like most companies have stopped marketing this feature on newer routers since it’s a standard now.