GL-X750 Review
The GL-X750 Modem / Router came in very well produced packaging. Although this sounds like a minor thing, good packaging can often indicate the separation between a cheaply produced piece of junk and something that was produced professionally and well designed. Inside the box the unit was in a top compartment and underneath there were two boxes containing the power adapter and antennas. They thought to add cutouts to easily lift the internal boxes out and even added padding to lift up the smaller box so it was on the same level. This kind of attention to detail really indicates to me that a company is putting really effort into their products and not just churning out some cheap piece of kit.
The body itself is surprisingly small, with the antennas slightly comically dwarfing it. Decent antennas are helpful, so I appreciate that they are included. The power adapter cable is a little too short. Even though I would eventually be using this connected to a battery it prevents me from placing it somewhere conveniently on my desk or moving it around to experiment with the signal. The included ethernet cable is the flat cable kind, which is not my preferred style, but I have plenty of spare cables and this device is really intended for the WiFi function anyway.
The GL-X750 is available in a few different versions. A Cat-4 version and a Cat-6 version are available for North America and the same for Europe. The Cat-6 version provides more band coverage for an extra $20. I chose the Cat-6 for this project. Frustratingly only the Cat-4 version is available on Amazon. All versions use Quectel Mini PCIe modules for the cellular modem. A bluetooth module is also available for an extra ten bucks, but I didn't really see the point. It also includes a Micro SD card slot which you can use for easy Network Attached Storage (supports up to 128GB). An external USB 2.0 port is also available for NAS, etc. There is one LAN port and one WAN port (which can be reconfigured for LAN), which is enough for my testing or would allow someone to use it wired.
The WiFi is fully 802.11ac compatible with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels. Out of the box it is only possible to use the internal antenna arrangement for WiFi, which is a bit dissapointing for this project. [hopefully I can install external antennas for this] The cellular data uses both external antennas, which is good because it should theoretically be compatible with a single two-path diversity antenna or similar. As the bands for cellular range wildly it is difficult to provide a single antenna that is optimal for all cases.
In terms of software, the GL-X750 is very straightforward in both its implementation of the basic modem / router features as well as in its implementation of OpenWRT. Everything involved with the intitial setup was available on the first page shown and other features are available in menus similar to any consumer router. The typical router features and modem features run as an application on top of OpenWRT. To access OpenWRT and its more advanced features is as simple as clicking "advanced" which brings you to the luci interface of OpenWRT where you can then configure or add packages as needed.
In further posts I will be taking the GL-X750 apart to examine and evaluate the electronics within as well as getting more in depth with the software.
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