Category: Hardware

GlobLinker 4G Hotspot Review: Is the $165 ‘Free Data for Life’ Deal Actually Worth It?

GlobLinker promises free data for life. The math tells a more complicated story.

In mid-February, I purchased the GlobLinker 4G LTE Mobile hotspot. It promises 10 GB of free USA data to start and 2 GB of data every month for life. Reviews were sparse, but what I could find (largely on Reddit) were fairly positive.

With my own phone’s data limited, especially when I need to use it as a hotspot device, I decided to give this device a go, especially with the supposedly limited time offer of 2 GB of data free per month.

For persons with phones that can hotspot and offer unlimited data, this device may seem redundant and entirely unnecessary, especially with it being limited to 4G LTE speeds. However, there is an appeal for those who travel internationally or travel to areas where their native phone network may be limited. The device promises to be carrier agnostic and will attach itself to the strongest network with the fastest speeds, which may be useful if say T-Mobile is your carrier but has no service but Verizon does.

Does the Math Make Sense?

The math: On their purchase page, they mention US data averages $1.40 per GB (less if you buy more). Assuming the free 2 GB data is $1.40 per GB, that’s only a $2.80 value. Added up per month, it would take me nearly 4 and a half years to make back the initial investment. Slightly less if you count the 10 GB starter data. Keep this in mind if you decide to purchase.

Further, the 2 GB of Data is based on US data rates. If you wish to travel internationally, you need to reach out to their customer service who can convert it to the rate of the nation you are visiting. It is not a 1:1 rate – Africa will be less data, Europe is close to 1:1, while Asia will be more data.

Some Caveats Apply

GlobLinker also noted that when you turn on the device, it will automatically start the timer/use of the blocks of data. If you have multiple data blocks, it will use one at a time until it is used up or expired before activating the next.

The 2 GB data for life is also not added automatically, I had to message their customer service to activate it. They give you two options: automatic activation every month or bank it until you need it. However, they noted that regardless of which option I picked, unused data would roll over month to month. I opted to do automatic activation. The 2 GB data for life gets added automatically every month on the first of every month after this, so I should not have to reach out to customer service again to use it.

Another note is that the 2 GB is added as two 1 GB blocks of data. If you decide to use your free allotment but only need a little data, this makes sense, allowing you to carry over the remaining 1 GB to the next month.

It is helpful to register on their customer portal to keep track of your data and how much you accrue if you do not use it every month. All you need for that is your name, phone, email, password, and serial number (which is on a sticker on the side of the unit). My portal accurately reflected the free 10 GB one time data and after speaking with customer service, my two 1 GB data allotments for the month.

Speaking of Customer Service

I reached out to their customer service via email on a Saturday morning and they responded in 8 minutes. That is seriously impressive. I replied with my pick of data options, and in 4 minutes they had activated my 2 GB of data a month (now showing in online dashboard) and replied stating as such.

First Impressions

After turning the device on, I was greeted by Japanese. As far as I can tell, there is no way to change the language manually. However, the device eventually converted to English after about 5 minutes. After a couple more minutes the device automatically registered and was ready for use.

After the device was ready, pushing the center button toggles through pages on the screen. It shows the current data allotment and how much you have used, the SSID and Password, a QR code to connect your phone if you don’t want to mess with the SSID, and then another QR code which takes you to the store to purchase more data if you desire.

I did not need to have any payment method on file to use the device. Once you run out of data, you are out, but you can purchase more through their store at any time.

Initial speed impressions, which I discuss more below, seem suitable for web use and maybe even a video call, but I could tell it was a bit slower than my phone’s hotspot.

Price

The device is listed on their website for $165. While it is listed as a limited time sale, it has been at this price since I first discovered it back in late December. However, you can find it for sale for $129 on Amazon, though it has been noted that the free 2 GB data for life offer is only if you purchase the device through the GlobLinker website. However, it has been noted by several other reviewers that if you reach out to customer service, they will give you the data for life offer if you send them the device serial number. While I did purchase the device direct through their website, I used a discount code which dropped the total out the door price for me to about $149.

Their data plans, which are listed here, have been noted by some as being either competitively priced (at least for the US) or more expensive than local offerings (noted for Europe). Personally, I find the options suitably priced for my location.

For me, my carrier plan is actually more expensive to buy more data than to go through GlobLinker. Granted, there are other companies out there, but the promise of being carrier agnostic and not having to buy a new sim every time is a benefit.

Speed

When I turned the device on, it searched for a carrier and automatically attached to T-Mobile.

While not the greatest speeds, keep in mind this device is a 4G LTE device. Some reviews have noted better speeds and others have noticed worse speeds. It will likely come down to carrier, tower, location, and environment.

That said, I was able to browse the web without any real frustrations, but page loads were noticeably slower than I’m used to.

I was able to watch a YouTube video at 1080p at these speeds without buffering, and a video call I did worked fine. However, more intense situations such as streaming 4K content and gaming may not be a good idea (never mind how fast you’d go through your data).

Update: I did some traveling today and set up at a coffee shop. Connecting the hotspot yielded even better results. It seems upload is capped at about 15 Mbps, but the download speeds hit just shy of 31 Mbps.

Technical Notes

The default admin portal for the GlobLinker is 192.168.100.1 and the login is admin/admin. Keep this in mind if you decide to share the hotspot with anyone, as they will have the ability to login and make changes to your device which can cause the device to be permanently bricked. I suggest you either only allow trusted people (up to 8 devices can be connected at a time), or use this as an opportunity to change the password.

The admin portal is fairly basic and most of the configuration here you will not want to change. The Wireless and Router tabs, however, are useful.

The Wireless tab allows you to configure the SSID to something you can remember and change the password to something you know.

The router tab allows you to change the default password to something other than ‘admin’.

Conclusion

As someone who doesn’t travel much, or use a lot of data, this device may not make sense or have any benefits over competitors. The free data would take between 4 and 5 years, price depending, to make back your initial investment. Like any new company, longevity can be a deciding factor.

However, it works and it works well. I’ve not had any issues while using the hotspot, the speed is fine for my uses, and customer service has been incredibly responsive to my emails. We will be trialing the unit further during a trip to Japan and South Korea later this year, with a follow up post near the end of May of 2026.

Who is this for? Travelers, people who could use the free data as an emergency backup, people with capped mobile data plans who need a cheaper alternative, or perhaps business people who need a dedicated and carrier agnostic hotspot.

Notice: This review was on a GlobLinker 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot purchased through the GlobLinker.com website. Links to the website and device are strictly for ease for my readers and are not affiliate linked. I have received no compensation for this review.

Geekom GeekBook Pro X14 Review: How Does It Stack Up Against the MacBook Air?

I have always been a fan of thin and light notebooks, but never a fan of the lack of power they tend to leave on the table as a compromise. However, in recent years, such compromises have largely shrunk. From Apple’s MacBook Air with its powerful M series chips to a plethora of thin and light Windows laptops running Ultra 9s, such a gap has closed considerably. The GeekBook Pro X14 is no exception to the progress that has been made in this area.

As a MacBook Air user, I purchased the Geekom to see if its worth the money and to see how it stacks up against the Air. So today I am reviewing the Geekom GeekBook Pro X14, a 14″ laptop which promises a lot for a fairly affordable price.

How does it hold up? Let’s find out.

It’s specs as reviewed:

Intel Ultra 9 185H
32 GB LPDDR5x
2 TB SSD
14″ 2.8K OLED with up to 450 Nits of brightness and 120 Hz Refresh Rate
2.2 Pounds
72 Watt Hour Battery

First Impressions

To start, while pulling the laptop out of its box, I was immediately struck but how light it is. Weighing in at just 2.2 pounds, this 14″ laptop is noticeably lighter than my 13″ MacBook Air. Of course, when comparing the sizes directly, the GeekBook is ever so slightly larger than my Air. It is also a hair thicker than the Air as well, but thanks to its feet on the bottom it sits significantly higher than the Air. The feet makes sense, as unlike the Air, it is actively cooled with a fan so the clearance is necessary for better heat dissipation.

There are several ports on the GeekBook; on the left is an HDMI 2.1 port and two USB-Cs (not thunderbolt). On the right is a USB A 3.2 port, headphone jack, and a camera shutter switch for privacy.

The lid opens easily and with one hand. I’ve had 4 pound laptops need both hands to open without it lifting the bottom as well, but this lid opens effortlessly.

The body has some wobble, as if the legs are not perfectly aligned. It is not very noticeable when typing, but pushing on the bottom right corner is. Geekom claims the body is coated with a material for more comfort, offering a different (almost plastic) feel than I was expecting of an all metal magnesium body.

The instructions say it needs to be plugged in to turn it on for the first time, so I did just that and pressed the power button. Within moments, the laptop came to life and I powered through the set up screen. However, be forewarned, it took over an hour to update the laptop during the set up process.

Keyboard – 10/10

The keyboard feels familiar to that of my Air. If you do not like the keyboards of the newer M series Macs, then you won’t like this. However, I’m a fan, so this keyboard feels right at home for me.

There is no keyboard flex, something I dislike on laptops made of plastic (which is to say, most of them). Overall the body is sturdy when typing.

The power button does have a built in finger print reader, which is accurate and fast to unlock Windows.

Touch Pad – 6/10

Ouch! Not sure if its this specific unit I have, but the track pad is stiff along the entire center. I have to press hard (or tap) if I want to select something. The right and left click fine. Precision wise, scrolling wise, and feel – it is among the better track pads I have used for Windows Laptops. The stiffness really hurts the overall feel of the laptop otherwise. I am curious if any other owners have the same issue.

Speed – 9/10

The Ultra 9 185H is definitely a power house of a processor, but it is also now two generations old. I don’t hold this against Geekom, as there is clearly a price advantage to using these processors. Further, with an Intel CPU shortage in full swing, it may have been a strategic decision to do this.

For day to day tasks, office work, web surfing, I’ve not had any issues. The 32 GB of RAM offers plenty of overhead for these tasks. For photo editing, it is quite honestly, good enough. For video editing, 64 GB of RAM would be nice for larger more complex projects, however this machine has no upgradeable RAM as it is soldered to the motherboard. With the RAM shortage, this again may have been a strategic decision.

The SSD seems to speed along fine despite being PCI-E 4.0 rather than 5.0; I doubt anyone will notice any performance issues there as I certainly don’t.

Gaming – 7/10

Update 1-25-2026: The Intel Arc chip in this thing is more capable than I had expected, but as I had figured, it is not the best for AAA gaming. I tested Minecraft, Space Engineers, Star Trek Online, and Star Citizen.

Minecraft: Frames varied depending on location, chunk loading, etc., but I was as low as 30 FPS but as high as 114 FPS. The game was overall playable. I played max settings, max render, max Chunk Simulation Distance, etc..

Space Engineers: FPS was between 30 and 40. High settings and full resolution.

Star Trek Online: No FPS counter here, but the game play was smooth at max settings and resolution. However, at 2.8k, the GUI was tiny – very, tiny.

Star Citizen: Would not launch due to a driver issue with the Intel Arc. Further reading on this issue, the game did run before until an update on Star Citizen broke it about a month ago. The fix is a driver update, which does not yet exist.

Screen – 10/10

The 2.8K OLED screen is quite simply, gorgeous. For entertainment consumption, it is practically perfect. It’s 120 Hz refresh rate is also nice, though falls short of some gaming screens. I do not have a calibration tool, but the colors look accurate enough. The 450 Nit brightness is enough for me to work perfectly fine outside with a partly cloudy day. It may struggle in direct sun, however (something I have not been able to test due to weather).

Speakers – 7/10

Despite promising high quality speakers, the sound is… tinny. Playing sound at max volume, alongside my M2 MacBook Air (also at max volume), the difference is very noticeable. My Air is far richer and fuller than the GeekBook. However, the sound is passable and will certainly be fine with streaming content. But for those who prefer fuller, richer sounds, I’d suggest headphones or external speakers.

Camera 8/10

The 1080p webcam is great and works well in well-lit areas. The physical camera privacy switch on the right side, next to the headphone jack, works as advertised.

Microphone – 8/10

The built it Geekom PC Manager program offers three optional modes – “Capture Voices in Room”, “Remove Ambient Noise”, and “Clear Voice”.

Capture Voices in Room: Seems to capture (almost) everything as one might expect. My wife, sitting about 10 feet from behind the laptop could be heard mostly, but when she lowered her voice some the microphone did not register her voice until she spoke louder.

Remove Ambient Noise: Did not work well at all. With my wife speaking at a distance, her voice came through warbled and distorted with ambient noise penetrating through. So if you are in a conference call and need someone near you to be heard, do not use this option.

Clear Voice: Seems to be slightly better on the pick up and clarity, but you can hear mouse clicks and typing as well, but no noticeable ambient noise.

Microphone Effects Disabled: Definite difference in clarity and ambient noise came through (such as the laptop fan). I’ve opted to keep the effects enabled with Clear Voice as my preference.

Battery – 7/10

I’ll admit my bias here, after being spoiled by my M2 MacBook Air’s battery life, I find any Windows Laptop… lacking. The GeekBook Pro X14 comes with a 72 Watt Hour battery, promising up to 16 hours of life. Currently, as I type and browse the internet with max nits on the screen, I have used 22% over the course of an hour and a half. Windows tells me I have 2 and a half hours remaining before it needs to be charged again. This aligns with some of the other Windows laptops I have used for work. Obviously, you can get a lot more battery life out of a laptop by turning the brightness down.

By turning my brightness down to half (whereas I’ve had it maxed before), Windows says I will get up to 5 more hours out of it. I see no reason why someone can’t squeeze a full day’s productivity out of this (gaming, photo, and video editing aside). I am always suspect of claims of long battery life (regardless of the brand).

Note: I have an Anker Nano ii 65 Watt charger that I tested with this unit. It would charge for a minute and then stop. The charger that came with the laptop, also 65 Watts, works fine. I suspect a compatibility issue with the Anker and the GeekBook Pro, as the Anker Nano ii works fine with my other laptops.

Bloatware – 7/10

There is only one program on this laptop that could be considered bloat, and that is the Geekom PC Manager. It seems fairly light weight and has some useful functions, such as tracking heat, adjusting microphone profiles, and updating/installing drivers, and more. I’m usually not a fan of bloatware of any kind and immediately remove it, but this seems reasonable to keep if you want, especially as some function simply opens Window’s settings. Otherwise, of course, you are always free to remove it.

Warranty – N/A

The GeekBook Pro X14 comes with a one-year warranty, plus an additional one-year warranty when purchased through the geekompc.com website. I gave the score the N/A due to not having needed to use it, so I can’t comment on how well it’s honored.

Price – 9/10

The current price is $1249 (as of January 2026). The initial price, $1,299 appears fair for the unit as far as I am concerned. However, a few days after I purchased the laptop, the price was dropped by $50 and a 10% coupon was offered in addition to that. Go figure. However, the price of the Ultra 5 model was increased by $50, so be aware of this. Even without the coupons, at $1249 (as of January 2026), I consider the price fine, especially for it’s OLED screen. Keep in mind, these are claimed as “sale” prices, however, I’m not sure if the price will change all that much (though it may with the increased prices of computer parts and due to the CPU and RAM shortages).

The Ultra 5 125H model comes with a 1 TB SSD and is priced at, currently, $1049.

Overall – 7/10

I have some complaints – the rocking body when flat on a table (and I’ve tried different tables/surfaces), the tinny sound, and the track pad issue results in a final overall score of 7/10. I really want to give it a higher score – its weight is incredibly light for it’s size, the keyboard feels great to type on, and the screen is stunning. Still, despite the score, I will absolutely recommend buying this if you are in the market for a new laptop and want something light and portable but powerful and capable for a decent price.

As I have only gotten to use the laptop shy of a week, I plan to update as I go, as I will be using the laptop more and more.

Updates

Update 1-29-2026: I fixed the finger print reader issue very easily. I removed my finger prints and PIN, uninstalled the finger print reader in Device Manager, restarted, then opened the Geekom PC Manager and selected PC Optimization -> Drivers -> Repair Finger Print Reader Driver which reinstalled the driver. I did not reach out to support. I then added my finger print back in and re-setup my PIN and it’s been working fine ever since.

Also, I updated a typo in the date at the beginning of the article and clarified the N/A score under warranty.

Update 1-25-2026: As part of the testing, I opted to update the BIOS to the newest version. Now, as always, if you don’t need to update the BIOS, then you don’t NEED to update the BIOS. However, I decided to do this to be thorough.

Updating the BIOS appears to have broken Windows Hello / the finger print reader, as when used after rebooting, I get a Pin cannot be used right now and a flashing / refreshing screen, preventing me from using a password, pin, or finger print. Or anything else for that matter, as it refreshed several times a second. The only fix I have found thus far is to restart and NOT use the finger print reader, rather opting to just use my password instead. I will update once I have a fix.

Notice: This review was written on a Geekom GeekBook Pro X14 purchased through the geekompc.com website. Links to the website and laptop are strictly for ease for my readers and are not affiliate linked. I have received no compensation for this review.

Using an Intel NUC as a Server

Some organizations have servers that are old or perhaps they just have a single server. This can pose a problem if they utilize an Active Directory environment. I have seen an organization have only one Domain Controller, which doubled as a file server, which was infected by Ransomware. Luckily, we were able to restore the server from a recent backup. However, not all organizations are lucky. Had there been a catastrophic hardware failure or no good backup, they would have had to rebuild their environment. Another alternative issue is organizations that have several branch offices and thus need a Domain Controller at every location.

Unfortunately, not all organizations can afford another physical server. One solution is to remove them entirely from Active Directory and place them into a workgroup. However, not all organizations want that. As such, another cost-effective solution needed to be found.

Enter the Intel NUC. They are fast, cheap, customizable, but really, they are cheap. Also, depending on the one you buy, they are compatible with Windows Server 2019. They are not ideal as a standalone domain controller, let me be clear on that (unless you operate a home lab). However, they are suitable for branch offices that are interconnected via VPN tunnels, and organizations that have a physical server in place but need redundancy.

Not all Intel NUCs are compatible with Windows Server and those that are pose their own challenges. Through testing, the best and most compatible NUC we have found is the NUC7i5DNHE (we prefer utilizing the Tall version).  The NUC7i5DNHE can be customized with NVMe SSD or a traditional 2.5” SSD or HDD, with up to 32GB DDR4 Memory. Our usual build-out for clients is a 250 to a 1 TB 2.5” SSD and between 8 GB and 16 GB of memory. Regardless of the two options for SSD and memory, these things are fast. With Windows Server 2019 standard installed, we see full patch times, including boot times, to be within 5 minutes. Straight boot times usually fall inside 45 seconds.

Sounds good, right? So what issues have we found? Mainly driver support issues. With the NUC7i5DNHE, two drivers will not work out of the box (nor have we been successful in getting them to work, not that we put much effort into it anyway). The built in WiFi and Bluetooth drivers will not work. However, everything else installs perfectly with Windows Server 2019. We did have Ethernet issues working right with Windows Server 2012 R2, but there are drivers out there if you can find them to manually install via a USB drive. Windows Server 2016 on the other hand was a bit more complicated, so I would avoid that OS entirely if possible. Another note: BIOS updates through windows will not work, so it is best done to update the BIOS through the BIOS itself (which is fairly easy).

Keep in mind, we are using these only as a redundancy domain controller for smaller organizations or organizations with several branches. If one of these units die, it’s trivial and cost effective to order a replacement and have the redundancy restored in a day. Want an extra step of redundancy? Utilize an external HDD to do bare metal backups via Windows Server Backup (or another backup solution of your choice).

We have deployed nearly a dozen of these over the last year in different organizations and each seem to meet the needs of the clients nicely.

Dislike this idea or have questions? Let me know in the comments!

Random Black Screens with nVidia Graphics Card and Windows 7

For several months, I had dealt with an increasingly frustrating issue with my monitor’s screen suddenly going to sleep. Nothing I could do, aside from unplug it from the desktop and plug it back in, could get it to wake up. It certainly wasn’t a monitor issue (though I had those too), as swapping the monitor resulted in the same behavior. It wasn’t a cable issue, nor was it an issue with Windows power settings. I had narrowed it down to single point of failure – driver issues. My NVIDIA driver kept crashing and its frequency was increasing. It went from only happening in games to happening in Office and general browsing.

I had taken some steps to fix this – reverting to old drivers, installing new drivers from a completely clean slate. Nothing worked. Then I found this thread on the EVGA forums. The thread included details that matches my symptoms, down to the event log. According to that thread, it was an issue between the driver series and Windows 7. Even reverting to old drivers didn’t work as I simply hadn’t gone back long enough, as this issue has plagued the driver series for months.

So, I did what any sane person would do – I upgraded to Windows 10.

It has been two weeks now and not a single crash or blip in the event logs about a driver crash.

Now if you are having a similar issue, what do you do? Upgrading to Windows 10 for free ends December 31st, so after that you will need to pay a hefty sum for a license. I wish I can say I have a fix for users still on Windows 7 (aside from going back long enough on the driver history to avoid the bad drivers), but perhaps the thread above will.

Input signal out of range when trying to install windows 10

I had an interesting yet frustrating issue pop up after buying a refurbished dell desktop. I wanted to do a fresh install of Windows 10 on the machine so I hooked it all up. The computer I bought only had integrated intel graphics so that is what I plugged my Dell 2412M (1920 x 1200) monitor into. The computer booted up and I could view the bios just fine, but when I booted to the USB drive to install windows, I ran into a problem.

The windows logo would show and then the dots would circle, then the screen would go black and I would get the error message: “Input Signal Out of Range”. Puzzled, I restarted the computer. I again could see the BIOS followed by the windows logo with the rotating dots. Yet again the monitor went dark and displays the same message as before. (Honesty check: the dell displays a different message than input signal out of range, but my second monitor had that message instead).

So I ran downstairs and grab a spare lower resolution monitor sitting in my garage. I brought it up and plugged it in and into the computer. Same message. Weird. So it isn’t the monitor – it’s the computer. Googling the issue brought me to others having this issue, even trying the steps outlined here: https://www.infopackets.com/news/9901/how-fix-windows-10-display-not-compatible-when-upgrading.

Yet the only real fix I could find was to get a graphics card and hope that solves the issue. This was an unacceptable solution as I had a 24-hour turnaround on this build and I wasn’t in the mood to shop at several stores to try to find a low-wattage low profile graphics card that wouldn’t be sold at rip off prices.

The fix ended up being pretty simple though – when I plugged in the second monitor I didn’t bother to restart the computer – I just did a straight swap. So this time I turned off the computer, swapped the screens, and turned the computer back on. Voila. Success.

This might not fix your problem, after all who else has multiple monitors just sitting around? But maybe there is someone out there who this helps.