I believe the Flint 4 has the potential to be one of the best consumer routers of 2026/2027. However, its audience will be much smaller if the price remains high. Removing non-essential features could be a good way to bring the cost down.
The main candidate is the touchscreen: nobody actually uses the touchscreen on a router. It sits in a fixed spot somewhere high up in the house and just collects dust. On top of that, 64 GB of internal storage feels like a significant waste. If any of us needed extra storage, we'd probably just plug in a USB drive or an external HDD/SSD.
If you want to focus on genuinely useful specs, consider bumping the RAM from 2 to 3 GB or adding a PoE port instead. That would allow the Flint 4 to compete directly with Ubiquiti devices like the UDR7, which would open up a whole new market segment.
This has already been discussed elsewhere here. Pretty much almost everyone here thought it was an unecessary feature that would most likely not be used and only bring more expense to the Flint 4 and that it wasn’t necessary. GL-inet did not agree. They did however say later that there might be a later model released without the display. But it seemed they are quite intent in implementing the display on at least the initial released model.
The ram is not a bad idea, I was against it, but I learned something about conntrack.
If you want to maintain high speed internet, you also need to increase ram for the buckets to work.
So I looked to my Flint 2 in a more idle period, and noticed I already was close to max for 40 devices.
So if people want to use much higher speeds like 5gb/s, 10gb/s this is kind of necessary to avoid unattended lockdowns due to hardware offloading.
So it is actually nice, emmc I agree totally on this and touch screen too, even with docker which is maybe 1g, and some docker containers you can easily do it with 32gb, 64gb is so overkill smh
But I don't think more than 3gb makes sense, 2gb seem good already according googles ai it will work only for conntrack against table exhaustion.
Strongly disagree with these comments about a screen not being useful. Should we remove all the LEDs also?
As someone else said already, This adds very little to the cost. RAM of course would have a significant cost and arguably be less useful for the majority of people that buy it as a router. Believe it or not the majority of people that buy routers do not frequent internet forums and use their router as a general purpose server running all kinds of additional applications.
Everyone has different uses. For me the WiFi is a totally redundant waste of money as I would disable it if I bought one as there is no wired only version. The switch and all the ports is also redundant. To others it’s the screen. Just because you can’t see a use for it doesn’t mean others don’t.
Have a request for additional features sure but don’t ask for things to be removed just because you can’t see why it’s useful, the world is bigger than just one point of view.
I’m in the same boat. I’m using a WiFi7 AP and hope a Brume 4 with more ports, SFP+ and 2 GB RAM will be announced soon. But since you don’t need the ports, why don’t you get the Brume3?
I have one, but the Brume 3 also only has 2.5Gbps ports.
5Gbps and 8Gbps synchronous broadband is common and affordable now. A device with 10Gbps Copper WAN and SFP+ LAN is the best solution for these Broadband speeds/products above 2.5Gbps. The Flint 4 is currently the only announced GL product with this capability.
Brume 4 with just these two ports and a screen would be ideal please GL, thanks in advance!
I don’t live alone, the rest of my family don’t do ISP networking as a day job and have zero patience for this stuff, sometimes I’m not here, sometimes things like the internet break.
Being able to see clear information about the status of the device is MUCH preferred over things like a single LED that has complicated colour or blinking states that non-technical users have no patience for.
Literally anyone thats ever tried to setup a cheap network printer with no screen, or done ANY remote technical support of any kind on networking devices in end-user homes should not be questioning the value of the screen, things like this have the most value at the times you don’t think of.
Different preferences I guess, I have a wireguard connection to all family networks I oversee. A screen is not a dealbreaker for me as long as I can turn it off.
Unnecessary duplication of products. If this was a $100 difference then maybe it’s worth it, but the price difference will be negligible. Especially once you have to have double of everything required to support an additional product.
Everyone needs to step back and understand everyone has different needs, so where do you draw the line? Some have screens, some have extra ethernet ports, some have 2x SFP+ ports, some have two 10G copper ports, some have PoE, some don’t? Why don’t we have 22 different variations?
It has a screen, some popped will use it, some won’t. We need to accept it and move on.
oorweeg, I also agree if I had my way I would at least offer a version without WiFi and I actually asked GL.inet about offering a version without WiFi at a lesser price…They weren’t interested in doing that…Everybody has their thing…I’m quite surprised about your interest in the screen though as very few (I think one) displayed an interest in the screen but if it’s useful to you and your family then at least someone might use it…
If you disagree with Gl.Inet’s product portfolio/strategy, then Gl.Inet might not be the product to choose for you. Luckily, there are more brands/products out there, which might fit your needs/wishes.
I live in a rural area so unfortunately have had quite a few issue with the internet over the last few years. Wife and I are hybrid workers and tend to alternate who is working from home on a given day. Being able to understand as clearly as possible the status on the device with minimal need for logging into apps or GUI from remote is preferred. I think most people underestimate this and although 99% of the time it won’t get used for much, in these events it’s worth its weight in gold.
I think we can all agree oftentimes the naming or symbols for LEDs are basically useless to someone that doesn’t know the device or technology in general. What is WAN, what is LAN, when it’s all just ‘WiFi is down’ to them.
Those devices with one LED that changes colour or blinks are even worse, who among us bothers to memorise these patterns for each status!
Number of times I have people confuse red and orange, or have some pre-conceived idea that blinking/flashing is the same as a slight flicker in lower quality LED, or think the Globe was a football, or something similarly stupid. Lifetime spent on phone calls is time I will never get back.
Although screen still may not be perfect, it’s a lot more what people are used to with their phones and tablets now and in the scenarios above it’s a massive win.
I think the issue with most people here is were are all professionals or hobbyists so cant see the need for it, but we are not the target audience for it thats why. The people that will benefit the most are not on here asking for more RAM or how they can increase the size of their AdGuard lists or run it as a NAS Those peple that really benefit are the exact opposite of this that just want it to silently work and be easy to use when it doesn’t
Nope. I like GL.inet’s products but I use OpenWRT on their stuff so I can set it up for what I’m interested in. GLinet is a company to sell products and make a profit. They should not care what people do with their routers after we pay them.
I’m rural too. About 35 miles to the nearest town in either direction. I’m on Starlink for the past 4 years which has been a blessing as before our only option was a 2.4Ghz wireless connection (antenna on roof) with a max of 25Mbps and every year lighting would take out our local access point and we’d be down for about 4 days.
"Funny, if you need a simple, better, and cheaper router with no display, just get the Flint 2 and be done with it. Do you really think GL.iNet is going to create a custom-made router for each individual? I would love to have mine painted pink!"
I used to think that the screen is useless too, on the UCG fiber.
But most of the times I’m not at home and my parents aren’t tech savvy, but they can read when the display shows an Ethernet disconnected error or host non-responding error and tell me over a call.
Earlier with the flint2 the led changed colour when the internet went down and they were clueless as to what caused it.
Most people on this forum are tech savvy and think that the screen would be a waste but I can see it’s usefulness for regular people who buy it only as a high end router.
