Boys and their Toys (Part 984,213)

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Those who know me, know that I like love my tech! 😁

If it’s also groundbreaking, then that always gets my attention. If it’s a good price too, that’s a bonus, but I’m not averse to paying over the odds for a shiny new piece of kit, if ‘it does the job well’.

So, in my research for looking for a travel router (after the c*** hotel speeds during our recent visit to Fuerteventura). I eventually came across the ‘Globlinker‘. Apart from the slightly weird name, was it worth a second look? After all, all travel routers are pretty much the same, aren’t they? (the speeds, the battery life, and not forgetting the ongoing cost of data usage!).

Well, apparently, this gizmo IS a lot different from its competitors! OK, it DOESN’T support 5G, but beyond that, it ticks a lot of boxes – even boxes that you didn’t think existed!

Let’s get into the detail of this very special piece of technology – and whether it’s worth a place in my travel bag?

Firstly, the price. Normally selling for over £200, at the time of writing, it was being offered for a smidge over £100 – but actually, that’s NOT what grabbed my attention.

First off, it works out of the box in 130 countries. Next (and here’s the clever bit) in any location, it looks for the provider with the strongest signal and locks onto it. If the signal deteriorates, it moves providers, rather than being tied to a single mobile operator such as (for the UK) Vodafone, Three, EE or O2. So far, so clever…. but there’s more!

Once it’s paid for, there are NO ongoing costs – the connection is always free, and they even offer a regular 2Gb data allowance each month – so there’s no data to buy. Could it get any better? Apparently so! The data rolls over, so if it’s not used, it stacks onto next month’s 2Gb.

Back to the technology on offer, and increasingly for me, every day’s a school day as I learned that this router uses something called CloudSIM technology (nope, never heard of it!) negating the need for a fiddly SIM card or even an eSIM. I definitely don’t understand that part of it, but I guess time will tell – and I’m a quick learner 🤔

Stop salivating at the back (Oh, just ME then!) 😊

Should you need more data, it’s easily purchased from their website and is available on the device immediately.

Should I or shouldn’t I?

To be honest, online, I felt, like many others who were doing what I was doing, this must all be a scam! (simply because there’s nothing else like it on the market). Yes, there are faster routers out there, but free monthly data? and the ability to switch providers for the best signal? Just those two features alone makes it the perfect solution if your hotel wi-fi is patchy or you are in a place where wi-fi isn’t provided at all. And the roll-over feature is very welcome!

Well, as I write this, and after a LOT of indecision, I’ve taken the risk and just placed my order. Whether anything turns up, having parted with my money, is another question. Having carried out some very thorough research online, though, it does all look legitimate. But how does Globlink make any money out of it (especially as, unlike most portable routers, there’s an ongoing cost for the data?) I’ve absolutely NO IDEA! Perhaps they’ll just rely on the revenue from selling the routers, and that’ll be enough – but that doesn’t sound like a good business model to me.

Could the deal get any better? Oh yes! 😁. For early UK adopters, like me, they’ll throw in an extra 10Gb of data to get you started. 10Gb? That’s probably enough to feed even my habit of taking gazillions of photos when I’m abroad and uploading them in real time.

Is this the 2026 equivalent of ‘snake oil’? There are plenty of 4 and 5-star reviews online, where the only negative comment is from a (very) small number of people who have said that the upload and download speeds are disappointingly slow – although there are also plenty of others who find the speeds perfectly acceptable for 4G.

By this time next week, it should have arrived, and I’ll be putting it through its paces. I’ll update this Post with my findings. If it delivers on its promises, then this is MOST DEFINITELY the bargain of the century! 👍

Update: 20 April 2026

Well, today, the device arrived – finally! 😉.

It was well-packaged and fitted through the letterbox. I followed the simple setup instructions – and it FAILED! It just wouldn’t connect, constantly displaying registering on the screen. No amount of reboots seem to sort it out, so it was time to test the emailed-based support team 😡😡

Their response times were fantastic 👍🏼. One took just 2 minutes to send me an email reply, whilst another took them just under the hour. Thiswas impressive! Then it all went a bit ‘wobbly’. I’m not sure if it was a language issue (despite the very English-sounding names of the Support Team), or something else, but I found myself having to repeat information that they must surely have already known – order number and email address! Anyway, some 10 emails later, after emails pinging emails back and forth, the 2GB monthly allowance was initiated, followed by the 10Gb welcome gift. Initially, a reboot of the router, which should have worked perfectly, did nothing of the sort – and the screen showed the familiar ‘registering’ message.

Then, after a few minutes, the router sprang into life. I rebooted it again just to be sure, and after a bit of a wait whilst it found the strongest network, we were ‘good to go’. Speed tests indicated that (here, on the Vodafone 4G network) I was getting 20 down and 10 up. It was less than I was expecting, but even at that disappointing speed, it gives me another connectivity option if we’re abroad and the local service is poor.

Best news of all? After moaning at them because it wasn’t delivered over the weekend as they had suggested, they gave me ALL my money back AND said I could keep the Router. So, it’s cost me nothing at all! You can’t get better than that, ehh?!?! 👍🏼😁