Stop me before I buy again

I couldn't resist, I just ordered a TP-Link WR703N wireless router.

The thing is smaller than a credit card (5.7 x 5.7 x 1.8 cm) and can be hacked to run dd-wrt.  It's got an Ethernet and USB port.  Oh, and it can be had for around $25! And it's tiny!

It's a very low power device, allegedly it averages .5 watts - the WIFI antenna is just a corner of the circuit board, so the range is limited.  It's only got 4 MB of Flash and 32 MB of RAM, so it's a tight computing platform.  But it's only $25.  And it's tiny!

The user interface is only in Chinese, and it's manufactured in China.  So both for usability, and so that I can have some sense of trust in it, I think installing dd-wrt is mandatory.

There is a major fly in the ointment though.  In the last month or so, the factory introduced a code change that breaks dd-wrt.  The dd-wrt folks are working on a fix, so it sounds like the issue will be resolved soon.

I'll probably just use it as a portable WIFI for when I'm on the road.  But lots of other folks are using it for more advanced projects.

Some links:

http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/07/19/tp-link-wr703n-23-hackable-openwrt-wi-fi-802-11n-router/
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4325&p=42562#p42562
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-set-up-OpenWRT-on-a-pocket-router-WR703N/
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n
http://www.tp-link.com.cn/pages/product-detail.asp?d=225  (manufacturer's page, in Chinese. Google translate does a pretty good job with it)

dd-wrt page for this device.  Check here to see if the current problem has been fixed.
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n