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Mercury M301 |
105×62×17.5mm 102g (incl. battery) |
Available only in China, Mercury M301 is basically a TL-WR703N (or FAST FWR171-3G, Mercury MW151RM3G) with a built-in rechargeable battery. The 2000mAh battery is good for 4 to 5 hours of usage. TP-Link has two similar routers, TL-MR11U for the Chinese market, and TL-MR3040 for the international market. These routers differ only in the case, number of LEDs, and some non-essential hardware buttons. The default Chinese firmware of M301 can be replaced with the stock English firmware of TL-MR3040, or any 3rd party firmwares of TL-MR11U/TL-MR3040.
English firmwares
The stock English firmware of TL-MR3040 is recommended for normal users. It is very similar to the TL-MR3020 firmware, which I recommend on TL-WR703N, FWR171-3G and MW151RM3G. The list of compatible 3G/4G modem can be found here. TP-Link's firmware emulator is available here.
The next choice of English firmware is OpenWRT. The trunk and Gargoyle releases are available for both TL-MR11U and TL-MR3040. Any of these builds would work on the M301.
There is no official DD-WRT builds for TL-MR11U or TL-MR3040. I haven't tried the WR703N release on the M301; I doubt it would work, since the GPIO configurations are different. DD-WRT users should consider Gargoyle firmware as an alternative.
Firmware upgrade methods
Please refer to my previous post on firmware upgrades of TL-WR703N, FWR171-3G and MW151RM3G. The same methods also apply to the Mercury M301. Web upgrade is the easiest; modded MR3040 or OpenWRT firmwares are available to my customers through email.The serial console/TFTP method is very doable on the M301, and does not need modded firmware. The case is held together by tabs and Phillips screws. It can be opened easily without damage. The serial console pins are standard through-holes in the bottom left of the picture below; the pinout is the same as TL-MR3040.
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