By Matthew Powell
Connectivity is not optional these days. Wherever you are, unless you’re out in the rainforest somewhere deliberately trying to unplug, you’re expected to be online. Your news, your entertainment, your work, and even your communication with friends and family requires you to be connected to the internet no matter where you go.
Fortunately, the world has provided a great abundance of WiFi and mobile internet options to keep you connected. Unfortunately, not a lot of laptops support mobile internet directly. Even more unfortunately, not all public WiFi is anything like safe.
That’s where mobile routers like the ASUS RT-be58 Go come in. It’s a reasonably full-featured router, with all the capability you would expect from a home router, but in a form factor you can easily pop into a carry bag to take with you on the road. And it really is small: about 10cm by 11cm by 3cm.
Before going too far into what it is, it’s worthwhile explaining what it isn’t. A lot of mobile routers come with internal 5G modems, so you can pop in a SIM card and connect to the mobile network and share the connection over WiFi. This is not one of those. The RT-be58 Go doesn’t have 5G and you can’t pop in a SIM. It connects to WiFi or ethernet networks, and shares the connection over WiFi — just like the router you have in your home. If you need a portable router with 5G, the ASUS 5G Go also exists, though it’s not as full-featured as this device.
And it does a pretty good job of that. It supports WiFi 7, the latest standard, features a 2.5Gbps ethernet port for connecting to wired networks and a 1Gbps LAN port if you want to connect a wired device to it. It also sports a USB-C port for power charging (and can also act as a power brick to charge your phone or tablet if needed). Theoretically, the USB-C port could be used to attach a hard drive for basic file sharing, but the device isn’t really designed for that so I wouldn’t recommend it.
The USB-C port can also be used if you have an external 5G modem you want to tether to it to add that functionality. You can also use the Personal Hotspot feature on your phone to share a wireless connection with other devices via WiFi.
But wait, if you’re using the Personal Hotspot feature on your phone to share a wireless connection, why wouldn’t you just hook your other devices onto that?
I’m glad you asked. The answer is security. When your devices are connected to the RT-be58 Go, the outside world can only see that one device on the network — everything else is behind a firewall. And the RT-be58 Go comes equipped with AiProtection, security settings that protect your devices from the dangers of miscreants on the internet — of which there are many.
Basically, any time you take your laptop on the road and connect to WiFi in a cafe or hotel or library, you’re at risk. If instead you connect to public WiFi using a mobile router and then connect your laptop to that, you’re considerably safer. That alone is worth the relatively modest asking price.
Another neat trick is the RT-be58 Go’s ability to act as a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP). In this mode the device connects to a WiFi network and creates its own WiFi network for other devices to attach to. So you could, for instance, use it in your home as a repeater on your home WiFi network, and have the family’s devices all connected to it with passwords saved and so on. Then when you go on holidays, connect the RT-be58 to the hotel WiFi in WISP mode, and the kids’ devices all find it and connect just as if they were at home. So many headaches saved.
If I had any small complaint about the RT-be58 Go, it would be that its web interface for configuration is a bit obtuse and confusing, making it harder to find some features than it should be. If you’re not the kind of user who’s going to set up port forwarding for your daughter’s Minecraft server, though, you might never even encounter that issue.
Overall, it’s an affordable and extremely portable device that adds considerable functionality for mobile connectivity. If only it had its own 5G modem, it would be perfect.
Rating: 8/10
Pros
- Very very small
- Supports WiFi 7 with good speed
- Impressive range for such a small device
Cons
- Web interface needs a redesign
- No internal 5G modem
