Differences GL-MT3000 and GL-AXT1800

Technical Support for Routers
21

Is it true that Beryl AX does NOT support MU-MIMO?

22

Yes BUT it supports OFDMA(orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access)

23

So for Wifi 6 OFDMA is more important than MU-MIMO? Does it make sense to have both?

What about if the client is connected with a wifi 5 device? Then MU-MIMO is then more important? Or again it doesn’t make any difference?

Beryl AX has 2 core cpu, while Slate AX has 4. For OFDMA isn’t important to have 4 cores? In expense of heat maybe…

24

Without getting into the 20hour Wireless LAN course its how priority is assigned by the Access Point.

I believe the AXT1800 is 2x2 MU-MIMO so you could have 2 full bandwidth clients.

OFDMA is preferred unless you have alot of MU-MIMO client use

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25

It has MU-MIMO. Where did you get the info it does not support Mu-MIMO?

26

The product official website does not say that it supports MU-MIMO. Where do you get the info that it does??

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27

I am a little confused also as it is not mentioned (Well I guess Beamforming is mentioned)on the website but does have a symbol on box

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Did I goof and miss that Wifi 6 OFDMA includes MU-MIMO and DSS Coloring, previous WiFi 5 was OFDM and SU-MIMO

28

Yea wifi6 probably included all that tech

Mt3000 is based on mt7981b (mediatek filogic 820 platform)

29

the official product comparison chart on glinets website still has the beryl ax NOT having mu-MIMO. Is it a typo? (assuming if the product packaging says yes then the website is in error?)

30

Kind of disappointing that MT3000 pricing is basically akin to AXT1800. Not much savings, but you do lose the SD card slot and extra LAN ethernet port. The MT3000 is physically smaller and draws a tad less power but overall…given price parity…the AXT1800 is the winner in my estimation and the one I’ve chosen to purchase several of. Very happy with them, despite the firmware hiccups of late. I do wish they’d focus on stability and fixing things as opposed to throwing in new features and functionality.

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31

Anything that is WiFi 6 certified has MU-MIMO

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32

Thanks. Yeh I figured that might be the case. Just a little confusing the comparison chart doesn’t reflect this.

33

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:

  • supports 160 MHz bandwidth on 5 GHz channels (twice as fast over WiFi if your client supports it).

  • faster CPU clock speed so single core tasks (a lot of NAT tasks) will be faster.

  • supports hardware acceleration for packet forwarding, which allows for 2.3ish gbps WiFi throughput and lowers CPU load.

  • lower power consumption, haven’t measured exactly but it can run almost twice as long as the AXT1800 on a usb battery pack.

  • 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:

  • 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).

  • open source drivers supported (can enable monitor mode, useful for pentesting / hacking).

  • quad core processor makes wireguard and other multi-core packages like aircrack-ng significantly faster than the dual core processor in the MT3000.

  • 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.

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34

Are you able to elaborate a bit more on the differences you mentioned in handling captive portals and where the MT3000 might fall behind in this respect? Thanks.

35

Yeah sure. I should specify that I’m only talking about networks with captive portals that require you to log in with a username and password, like those that are sometimes used in hotels where the username is your room number and the password is your last name or something to that effect — this type of authentication is called EAP. If you’re trying to connect to this type of network on your AX1800 in repeater mode, you’ll automatically be asked for a username and password in the gl.inet web interface. If you try to connect to this type of network on your MT3000 in repeater mode, you won’t be able to without tweaking some things and connecting in LuCi instead of the gl.inet web interface.

Now sometimes when you connect to a network with a captive portal you’re redirected to a browser page that forces you to accept terms or sign up to get accosted by spam email for eternity or give the blood of your first born or something, but not provide a username or password. Either router should work with these type of captive portals, but if you’re having any issues make sure you set DNS server to DHCP and disable adguard home if you’re using it. Once you connect to the captive portal’d network via the web interface, you should get a browser pop up in a new tab prompting you to accept the terms or provide your bone marrow sample or whatever, just like if you connected from your phone or laptop directly, and once you do that the router should work as normal.

Sometimes you’ll come across a network that is so bastardized and commercialized that it will be some crazy combination of the two, or a multi-step paywall or something that’s device-specific, like the type of network you encounter on a cruise ship. If this is your case, you’ll probably need to log in with your phone or laptop first, jump through all their hoops there, then copy the MAC address of your connected device and change the MAC address of your router in the web interface to match the one you copied before, then connect the router to the money-grabber’s network and voila it should work like magic.

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36

Absolutely fantastic review. I was in the fence between the two and ended up getting the Beryl, the three key reasons were power consumption, heat and the fact that the slate is apparently using an older kernel with no clear sign of an update. I have been blown away by how well the Beryl performs so far.

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37

Thank you! I’ve had the same experience, very happy with the little guys. Almost disappointed I can’t get that little fan to turn on more often, makes me feel like I’m underutilizing the hardware. Good note with the more updated kernel too, it should give better package support going forward as more devices are built around OpenWRT, and I also read something about the firewall filtering capabilities being much more robust and resource efficient in 5.X kernels, though I’m not entirely sure how that works.

38

Many thanks indeed. I had not realised that the AXT1800 could automatically ask for the portal’s credentials in the gl.inet web interface itself. I have to say that I have been carrying a tiny secondary travel router (TP-Link) as a backup if I am going somewhere where trouble with getting through captive portals is to be expected. I have also tried both the AXT1800 and the MT3000 as my home routers and for some vague reason (may be due to heat generated) just settled on the none of them and have been using the Flint instead as found it to be more stable overall and with less hiccups in terms of stability.

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39

Thank so much you for taking the time to share your valuable findings. Very thorough and well written.

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40

I would love the upgrades of MT3000 on my AXT1800, if only Wireguard speeds were the same or better than the AXT1800. For a travel router, vpn performance is critical. What’s the point of improved wifi and wan ports, if they are going to be translated in 300 Mbps max? That means it’s not time to upgrade anytime soon, it seems.