Check the video to see all of the details about the RAVPower Filehub Portable Wireless Router, or keep reading to get a condensed version of its capabilities.
Update 1/24/2023
RavPower has discontinued the RavFileHub apps on iOS and Android effectively making this a dead product.
My old D-Link DIR-510L
For Years I have used my D-Link DIR-510L battery powered router. It has done just about everything I could want, but now the charging port has come loose and it’s more hassle than it’s worth to try to get the USB cable in there just right to get it to charge for a few minutes.
While it’s not nearly as important for me to connect safely to public wifi as it used to be now that I have unlimited internet on my phone, it’s still nice to have a battery powered router with me to setup LANs in hotels so I can stream movies to a Chromecast, to create a quick guest network on a private SSID, or to create a wifi hotspot when there’s only an ethernet cable.
Unfortunately, D-Link no longer makes a battery powered router so I had to look at other brands. Most were Chinese companies, which I normally don’t have a problem with, but I figured if I was going to be sending private data on this network, I’d rather go for a brand I recognized.
That meant my options were TP-Link or RAVPower. A while back I bought a RAVPower 90watt USB C charger and it has worked really well so I gave them the benefit of past experience and purchased the RAVPower Filehub.
RAVPower Filehub 2nd Edition
RAVPower makes thre wireless travel routers at the time of writing. Two of them have WiFi N at 300 mbps speed and this Filehub which has WiFi AC at 750 mbps. Now that 750 mbps is a combination of both the 2.4 ghz and 5.8 ghz bands. You won’t get anything close to that speed from just one device, but having the AC antennas would mean a better signal than just the N antennas in the others so I figured it was worth the extra 25ish dollars.
I have 2 important things I want to bring up. First, I bought the 2nd Edition. The only difference between it and the first one is that RAVPower thankfully replaced the micro USB charging port with a USB C port to improve charging speeds. I made sure that the one I bought from Amazon was indeed the 2nd gen because the more USB C devices I have, the happier I am. Second, this does not support 5G in the way a phone supports 5G. This does not accept a SIM card, nor does it talk to mobile towers. The 5G is a, in my opinion, stupid marketing ploy to get you to think its better than some other devices since 5G is the buzz word right now, kind of like how HD and 3D were being put on everything back in the day even though they had nothing to do with either term, I’m looking at you Crest 3D Whitening. The 5G simply means it has a 5.8 ghz wifi band, which all modern routers have. That’s it.
But let’s get down to how it actually performs. I’m going to give you a quick run down of the features as well as my impressions. If you want to see how every single thing on it works then check out the video.
3 of the ports under a protective flap
It has a total of 4 ports. 1 type A USB Drive for connecting a Flash Drive or SSD, a USB Type C (or micro B if you get the Gen 1 version) for charging, this port does not support data, a gigabit Ethernet port, and a full sized SD card slot.
The Ethernet port lets you use this as a normal wireless router. The USB A and SD card ports let you make backups of your SD card on the go or share the media stored on them wirelessly to phones, tablets, or computers.
The Filehub also works in bridge mode meaning you can connect it wirelessly to another WiFi network, no cables needed. Bridge mode is the way I expect most people to use it. What it essentially lets you do is connect all of your devices to it on a private SSID, then connect it to another WiFi network, such as a public coffee shop or a hotel that charges per device. This way all of your devices are safe from snooping eyes. All the public internet sees is your Filehub.
I say “safe” but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t practice the normal precautions associated with internet browsing. This isn’t a VPN. The traffic coming out of the Filehub is only as protected as the websites or messaging apps that you are using, but it is much safer than just being on the public WiFi all by itself.
Bridge Mode
In bridge mode, the Filehub will only talk to the other router on the 2.4ghz band. You can connect your devices to either the 2.4 or 5.8ghz channels though. This is a bit disappointing because you’re limited to the 100 mbps or so of the 2.4 ghz channel when the 5.8 ghz band could go much faster. I suspect this has to do with the low powered processor in the Filehub. I have a feeling it couldn’t handle that much traffic, but more on that later.
If you plug an ethernet cable into the Filehub, you can still run it in bridge mode or as a stand alone router with DHCP capabilities.
The networking functions of the Filehub are lackluster unfortunately. Don’t get me wrong, it shares a wireless network and works fine doing so, but there aren’t any of the customization settings for the network. There’s no Port Forwarding, no Guest Network, no DMZ, no static IPs, etc. The only settings you can change are the Filehub’s IP Address and its IP Range for devices. If your ISP requires entering custom settings to access the internet, it does support that though, which is good.
The network speeds you can expect to get are nowhere near the advertised 300 mbps on the 2.4 ghz band and 433 mbps on the 5.8 ghz band. In real world tests with my Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, I managed 100 mbps at best.
Below are my tests. Direct to router means I just connected my phone directly to my AC Router, no Filehub involved, as a control. Wired Mode means I plugged an ethernet cable into the Filehub. It’s common for network bridges to slow things down by 40-50% and RAVPower’s instruction manual even warns of this because you’re doubling the number of hops between each packet sent and received.
Where the Filehub shines is in media management.
First, it lets you copy the contents of an SD Card to a drive plugged into the USB port with the press of a button which is really handy if you want to make backups of your work while on the go without busing out a laptop.
Second, it lets you browse whatever is on either of those drives from any connected device, even on an iPhone or iPad which have notoriously difficult file management functionality. This means you can look at the photos or videos you just shot on a bigger screen simply by plugging in the SD card, or you can play movies you’ve saved for a long road trip.
These shortcuts can only view what’s in the Share directory. File Management is hidden in Guest Mode.
You can enable guest mode on the Filehub which limits the content that can be viewed. Whenever you plug an SD card or USB drive into the Filehub, it creates a “Share” directory. The Guest account can only access what you put inside this Share Directory. They can’t browse all of your other files. This makes it handy for children to easily select their movies and tv shows that you’ve copied onto the drive for them without fear that they’ll delete your important work.
The only real complaint I have with the file management system is that it cannot play high bitrate videos. I tested it on a 20 mbps file and a 100 mbps file. The 20 mbps played smoothly with just 1 device connected, but the 100 mbps file was very choppy and unwatchable, so if you are ripping some movies, make sure you keep the file size and bitrate low to ensure smooth playback. I have a feeling this comes down to that slow processor I alluded to earlier. When the Filehub was just sharing the internet, it was sitting at around 25% cpu usage which seems stupidly high. I don’t have numbers, but I suspect 1-2 video streams will quickly push it to its limit.
The Filehub advertises DLNA support which means you can play directly from it to a smart TV or other compatible device. I tried everything I could think of to make this work, but never had any success. On an Android device I was able to use a 3rd party video player and cast the video to a connected Chromecast, but that option isn’t available on iOS.
Speaking of differences between Android and iOS. Android supports playing files with 3rd party players. iOS advertises the ability, but I wasn’t able to get it to work. On the flip side, iOS has a feature that Android doesn’t and thats the Camera icon seen in the screen above. Using this button lets you take photos using the Filehub app and store them directly onto a plugged in SD or USB drive, completely bypassing the phone’s internal storage, provided you stay within 10 meters/33 feet from the Filehub. I guess this would be nice if you are low on space and want to walk around a party snapping pictures and have them go straight to the Filehub.
One final thing is the Filehub can charge other devices using the USB A port, though the instructions specify to only use it in an emergency. It comes with a 6,700 mAh battery which isn’t huge, but is slightly bigger than the 5,000 mAhs my Note 20 Ultra has. It’s nice to know you could use it in a pinch. I was not able to find info
To see absolutely everything there is to know about the RAVPower Filehub, check out the video below.