TP-Link WiFi 6 Travel Router TL-WR1502X | AX1500 Portable Design | Multiple Modes in One | VPN Clients & Server | Captive Portal | USB Tethering & File Sharing | Type-C Power Port | Tether App & Cloud

Have used this extensively at home and on the road for months with zero issues. Connected to every hotel, airport, and coffee shop I’ve tried, with solid speeds — usually, only a function of the host network. Extremely easy setup and configuration, as router or hotspot. I consistently use the web-based interface over the Tether app, only because I don’t want yet another app to have to manage. It’s straightforward and intuitive, and I am up and running within just a couple of minutes wherever I go. Compact and lightweight, takes up very little space in my kit. Firmware also successfully updated.

I bought this router basically to design a separate network from the rest of my house for building a personal media center and data storage (it is basically my personal local cloud), for which it provides me a great connecting speed. It supports WPA and WPA2 (personal and business), WPA3-personal and WEP. Also, it supports 2.4 and 5Ghz providing a total bandwidth of 1300 Mbps. It can also be used as a wireless extender or a wireless receptor for devices that have no wireless connection and can also convert a wired modem to wireless, but I would personally use a more powerfull router for such function. Of course it worked for me as I don't have that many devices connected at the same time, in that case, you might require a more powerful device, but at least, for connecting a small linux server computer, my laptop, my phone, my tablet, and my TV, it works great! It can also be used to extend a mobile Hotspot from your phone, that's why it has a usb port, where you can also plug an external HDD or SSD, however, it is better to use an old computer to handle the storage (which is what I did, plus an ethernet connection to the same router) and just use the wireless to share the contents to the rest of the devices (this is because the router has little CPU power and little RAM). Of course, there's a lot more stuff you can do with this baby, and even save some money, compared to other devices.

Originally bought this to serve as a client adaptor for an older PC that did not have an up-to-date wi-fi card. Set-up was straightforward, and the router worked flawlessly. I've since replaced the older PC, so I no longer need to use this device in its original capacity, but I find it to be quite handy in other applications. Good value for price - especially since I purchased a returned unit at a discounted price. Would definitely buy again.

I bought this to use while at a program with multiple "modes" of wifi available to me that I could test with. This little router is nice for the price, and as I have TP-Link's higher end routers at home with mesh wifi at my house, I figured this would be good since it would have a similar interface and features. It turns out that it has some interesting features but also some quirks. OOTB, the firmware needed an update which was painless. I don't like using the phone app for configuration, but it is handy. The web interface is functional and responsive, although I don't like how the pages load templates and then fill in the "settings" after the page loads. The "Internet" page in the web interface has a password field for networks with passwords, but it is plain text so passwords aren't hidden, even if you refresh the page for instance. Wifi tethering was the reason I bought this router. When you look at available networks, it doesn't just show available SSIDs, but lists explicitly the available SSIDs, network frequency, and MAC address. There is a lock feature, so networks with multiple APs can be explicitly connected to. In early wifi systems where the mesh standard wasn't implemented yet, this alleviates issues where some devices don't connect to APs properly. You can also specify a specific band to connect to. In the building I'm in, the wifi system has a problem on the 5GHz band, so I can lock the connection to a specific 2.4GHz AP with the right mac address and although the connection is a bit slow, it functions. There was no possible way for me to get wifi on a 3 year old laptop by changing the wifi hardware settings in the driver, which seems odd. A bit of a fluke for Windows? Anyway, there are other reasons to carry a travel router. The VPN function was a breeze to setup. I linked the router to my VPS and had Wireguard running easily. Turns out that unlike my home system, this router allows you to toggle specific devices to use the VPN. There is also a server option which could be handy if you have multiple routers and want to link networks without running a separate machine. I tested the guest network with some friends and it works great. Able to specify bands and have both guest and primary network on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz simultaneously unlike my Orbic hotspot. The guest network does not allow access to the web interface for configuration. Number of devices appears to be significant... You can specify subnet mask and DHCP server settings. By default you get 254 devices, which should be enough. DNS can be overridden for wifi tethering, including using DoT and DoH encrypted DNS without requiring a separate forwarding agent for systems that don't support encrypted DNS. The only disadvantage to messing with DNS is that on some networks, you may run into issues connecting to networks if they use web based login pages that can't be accessed when DNS is overridden, so be careful with that. I was able to setup my router to connect to NextDNS with DoH but not DoT. DoT wouldn't work for some reason; the server was detected but NextDNS reported that it wasn't using a profile. This wasn't the case with DoH. One feature request I have would be the ability to have advanced DNS configuration settings by device or at least by network, so the guest network could use a different DNS configuration or perhaps the default DNS from the wifi. The last feature I like about the router is QoS. My Verizon Orbic has a very high speed connection before I use up my data when I have a decent signal, however sometimes QoS is a good feature to have to ensure you don't abuse your own data caps if you're going to be out a while and need to conserve data. It's also useful if you're sharing a hotspot through a travel router without QoS like the Orbic, and want to make sure nobody uses all the data. NAT can be disabled, which might be interesting to try with the VPN feature. The MAC address of the wifi tether connection is completely changeable, and with the web interface can autodetect the devices' MAC address you login from and clone it. This is useful for instance, if you pay for wifi access from another device but later want to tether that wifi through the router without paying again or signing in again. I haven't tested router mode, usb mode or any of the others. Router mode would actually be useful from the Verizon Orbic or a hotspot with an ethernet port on it with the IP passthrough mode enabled and a short ethernet cable to cut down on wifi interference. The biggest most major quirk the AX1502 has is the 12volt USB-C power. I bought a USB battery, but with the router connected while my laptop is, it slows down the laptop charge rate. Same with my wall adapter. Both of these are Anker chargers. The next model up of this travel router supports USB-C 5V, but it's 3A which is also not really great for standard adapters. Don't lose the stock power adapter, which ironically enough is a 12volt USB A plug! I hope it's safe. The router itself literally draws about 3 watts of power max, so it's probably fine to get another small battery for it if I need, but I'd rather not have to carry yet another thing in my bag of tricks. Wifi range is decent, but obviously don't expect miracles. There are no external antenna connectors or even antennas. Literally just plugin and go. Works best for short range applications, but the signal will go through a wall or two. Performance is decent, but not my main consideration with this router. Most hotspots are not fast or even reliable to begin with so when tethering it's not really a consideration. VPN performance was identical to running Wireguard software on my laptop, which is a plus. One quirk is, IPv6 is not supported for Wireguard clients on the router. Why this is the case makes sense, but I don't have faith that this travel router is really IPv6 compatible to begin with. Size is fine, just feels a bit plasticy and cheap. Hopefully the chassis won't break.

Definitely great value! I have tried the Ethernet connection...super fast, as well as 2.4 and 5 frequencies... also super fast. I did purchase a cat 8 cable for the Ethernet connection because I wanted a longer cable than the older, slower, shorter cable provided. Max speed possible and this little unit does the job. It's a small and portable unit and definitely doesn't get hot..warm but not hot. I ran it as a hot spot...great results. Make sure that you change the factory default SSID and password for better security. Be careful of the sticker on the bottom with the factory reset password. It rubs off very easily and should be under plastic..it's not and I lost the factory codes but easily recoverable via a Ethernet cable reset. Overall this is the value unit that you need for a portable router. Update: Still positive about this router, I used it on a trip with the hotel Wi-Fi... perfect results and without and problems. Consider it for your next trip. I use it daily at home as a hotspot.. just plug it in and it's already configured.