Feed aggregator

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle No. 1,064 for Sunday, May 10.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for May 10, No. 1,786.

AI can infer personal traits from ad exposure patterns alone, turning everyday advertising streams into detailed profiles without direct access to private data

Brian Fennessy, new head of the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, says his agency is 'trying to bring on additional aircraft and bring them on early,' and dismisses criticism of prevention methods.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle)

The best Lord of the Rings game is essentially fanfiction, but the Nemesis system is still the best in class.

Two titles are on the line in Saturday's huge event – follow our guide to live stream UFC 328 online and watch Khamzat Chimaev vs Sean Strickland from anywhere.

The Braves announced Cox's death on Saturday. He managed the team to prominence during the 1990s and the team's only championship in 1995, before retiring after the 2010 season.

(Image credit: John Bazemore)

As hantavirus has dominated headlines, sparking fears of another debilitating pandemic, the CDC stressed that the risk of sweeping contagion was small.

(Image credit: Chris McGrath)

iFi GO Link 2 review: two minute reviewSpecifications

Dimensions: 137 x 12 x 7.6mm (5.4 x 0.47 x 0.31”)

Weight: 7.8g (0.3oz)

Frequency response: 10Hz-80kHz (-0.5dB)

Output: 3.5mm stereo/S-Balanced

Hi-Res support: PCM 32-bit/384kHz; DSD256

Output power: ≥1.59V/79mW @ 32Ω / ≥2.0V/14mW @ 300Ω

Connection: USB-C/A/Lightning

The iFi GO Link 2 is designed to do one thing, and it does it very well: it upgrades your laptop or smartphone's audio output to deliver impressive hi-res audio with no fuss and no unnecessary features.

It's a very good way to add wired headphone support to devices that have long since dropped the headphone jack, although if you want to connect 4.4mm headphones you'll need to look at one of iFi's larger DACs: the tiny GO Link 2 has just enough space for one 3.5mm headphone output.

This model delivers lower harmonic distortion and a wider dynamic range, and it does so in a device that's even smaller than the already tiny original. With an unchanged price tag the second-generation GO Link is one of the most affordable ways to improve your audio experience, especially for music on the move.

iFi GO Link 2 review: price and release date

• Released February 2026
• $59 / £59 (about AU$111)

The GO Link 2 was announced in February 2026 with a recommended retail prices of $59 / £59 (about AU$111). That's the same price as the original model and slightly less than the larger GO Link Max, which has a balanced 4.4mm output as well as the standard 3.5mm socket.

Pricing is competitive with the likes of the FiiO KA11 and KA1 headphone DAC/amps.

iFi GO Link 2 review: features

The cable feels a little flimsy but it helps keep the GO Link 2 from being bulky. (Image credit: Future)

• ESS SABRE DAC with up to 6dB extra range
• Low noise floor and low distortion
• S-Balanced 3.5mm output

The GO Link 2 is based on the same ESS SABRE DAC as before, but this time around it comes with what iFi calls Dynamic Range Enhancement, which adds up to 6dB between the loudest and quietest moments. It also features lower harmonic distortion — up to 62% lower than the first-gen model, iFi says.

Although there's only a 3.5mm output, the GO Link 2 features iFi's S-Balanced system which iFi claims significantly reduces crosstalk between channels by "applying balanced circuitry principles to a single-ended headphone output".

This is the first GO Link model that's fully compatible with iFi's Nexis app, which you can use to customize the filters and apply firmware updates — but only on Android so far. As an iPhone/iPad user I wasn't able to take advantage of those features, as the iPhone app wouldn't communicate with the DAC. Hopefully an update is incoming.

Features score: 4 / 5

iFi GO Link 2 review: sound quality

iFi keeps it simple: there's one output and a single color changing status light. (Image credit: Future)

• Impressively loud with great bass
• Excellent clarity and positioning
• Best suited to lower impedance headphones

The GO Link 2 will make you smile. It delivers excellent clarity, a spacious soundstage and a really inviting audio experience, especially on nice headphones. It's pretty great on budget ones, too.

I already have an iFi desktop DAC/amp, and I was pleased by how close this comparatively microscopic model sounded to its much more expensive sibling at sensible listening levels. It's particularly impressive at the low end, which it handles with power and precision, and if you're upgrading your phone or laptop you'll be really pleased that you did.

One of my favourite songs for testing audio is the live version of Peter Gabriel's Digging in the Dirt. It's beautifully performed and recorded, but there's a lot going on from the very low end to the very high, with a subterranean percussive bass, all kinds of instruments, and powerful vocals from Gabriel and Paula Cole. The GO Link 2 took it all in its stride, delivering a deeply involving sound from an Apple Lossless stream. I had a lot of fun with FLACs too, for instance U2's remastered Achtung Baby and Talk Talk's various masterpieces.

The GO Link 2 is surprisingly loud, and louder still when you connect it to a computer: there was a noticeable increase in volume when I played the same Apple Lossless audio on my Mac compared to on my iPhone.

However, I did find that being able to push the headphones harder on my Mac was counter-productive: towards full volume, snare drums and distorted guitars became harsh, while deliberately loud-mastered pop music such as Kygo and Selina Gomez's It Ain't Me became too bright and noticeably distorted by the deep bass notes. The same thing didn't happen on iPhone.

If you like to listen loud on a computer then a desktop DAC or one of iFi's more powerful DACs will have more headroom for your headphones.

Sound quality: 5 / 5

iFi GO Link 2 review: design

• Tiny and minimalist
• 137mm x 12mm x 7.6mm
• 7.8g

Dongles don't get much dinkier than this. The GO Link 2 is absolutely tiny, with the main section smaller than half of a Biro pen. It's 8% smaller than the first generation model, and it's 29% lighter.

There are no buttons, no switches, nothing to turn or poke or press, and because it's too small to have a screen it has a colour-changing status LED instead. That LED is green for PCM audio from 44.1 to 96kHz; yellow for PCM from 176.4 to 384kHz; and blue for DSD256.

The USB-C connector is attached with a short braided cable to the main unit, which has a 3.5mm headphone socket. Although the GO Link 2 is USB-C it comes with adapters for USB-A and Lightning ports, covering all the bases.

The cable feels very thin and I'd worry about it fraying long term; it's a known issue with some of the first-generation models, so it's probably wise to treat the GO Link 2 with care.

Design score: 4 / 5

iFi GO Link 2 review: ease of use and setup

• Plug...
• ...and play
• No buttons, screens or switches

It doesn't get much easier than this: plug it in and you're good to go, although as ever with USB audio devices if you're connecting to a Mac you'll need to tweak Audio and MIDI setup on your computer to enable higher quality than 16-bit/44.1KHz.

It's a shame that the app that enables you to adjust filters and other settings is currently Android-only, although I was quite happy with the out-of-box settings.

Usability and setup score: 4 / 5

iFi GO Link 2 review: value

• Superb value for money
• No unnecessary features or gimmicks
• Even better than the original

The original GO Link is much-loved, and iFi has very sensibly decided not to mess with its winning formula. Instead it's refined it with more dynamic range, even smaller dimensions and the same plug-and-go ease of use. The GO Link 2 is cheap and it'll make you cheerful.

Value score: 5 / 5

Should I buy the iFi GO Link 2?

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

S-balanced 3.5mm output and good hi-res audio support. App compatibility is currently Android-only.

4/5

Design

Function over form: tiny size means little room for design flair or fancy features.

4/5

Sound quality

Even better than before with wider range.

5/5

Value

An instant, enjoyable audio upgrade that's perfect for phones.

5/5

Buy it if...

You travel light:
DACs don't get much more diminutive than this. The GO Link 2 is a pocket rocket.

You're hungry for hi-res:
The GO Link 2 supports DSD256 and up to 384kHz PCM audio.

You're into IEMs
Low noise, punchy lows and great clarity make this an excellent partner for IEMs.

Don't buy it if...

You have hungry headphones
The GO Link 2 is too small to pack the power output of a dedicated desktop DAC.

You keep losing your keys
If you tend to misplace or lose small things, this is not the device for you.View Deal

iFi GO Link 2 review: Also consider

FiiO's KA1 is similarly small and equally affordable, but unlike the GO Link 2 it also supports MQA rendering. It's available in both USB-C and Lightning options.

For an extra 20% over the GO Link 2 or KA1's price you could buy iFi's larger but still eminently portable GO Link Max, which has higher power output and both 3.5mm and 4.4mm balanced outputs.

How I tested the iFi GO Link 2

• Open-back, closed-back and IEM headphones
• Lossy streaming, lossless FLAC and multitrack Logic Pro projects

I tested the iFi GO Link 2 for 10 days using my usual headphones and IEMs: BeyerDynamic DT990 Pro open-back headphones, DT770 closed-back headphones, and the affordable and punchy SoundMagic E11C IEMs.

I listened to a range of music on my iPhone 16 Pro, my iPad Pro and my Mac mini, with sources including lossy and lossless streaming, uncompressed multitrack projects on my Mac, and FLAC audio files.

• First reviewed: May 2026
• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

All the ways to watch Wardley vs Dubois live streams online, including PPV options as the Suffolk heavyweight defends his WBO belt against ex-champion Dynamite.

iFi's tiny DAC is smaller and lighter than the first generation and delivers an excellent audio upgrade to phones in particular

ICANN has reopened applications for new top-level domains, allowing organizations to create custom extensions.

Denver International Airport said the person had jumped a fence and dashed into the aircraft's path minutes before being struck.

(Image credit: David Zalubowski)

Complete your World Cup experience with an audio upgrade with a new soundbar: here are my four current picks.

ZimaBoard 2: 30-second review

IceWhale built its reputation on a simple idea: affordable, hackable, x86 single-board servers for people who want control over their own data. The original ZimaBoard launched in 2021 on Kickstarter. Using an Intel Apollo Lake processor, it offered a level of expandability that ARM-based boards crowding the market at the time couldn’t match. Four years later, the company is back with the ZimaBoard 2, and the update is substantial in all the ways that matter most.

The new board harnesses the power of the Intel N150 processor from the Twin Lake family, silicon that IceWhale claims delivers roughly three times the CPU performance over the Apollo.

Alongside that comes faster LPDDR5x memory, an upgraded PCIe Gen 3 x4 slot, dual 2.5GbE networking, and the same passively cooled all-aluminium chassis concept that made the first board so appealing to homelab builders.

Two variants are available at retail: the ZimaBoard 2 832 with 8GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC, and the ZimaBoard 2 1664 with 16GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC. Both ship pre-installed with ZimaOS, and both support a wide range of alternative operating systems if you prefer something else.

While it is possible to get N150 PC systems for less than even the cheaper 832 model, these don’t typically offer a PCIe slot, so this hardware might interest those developing a solution based on an X4 slot. But it might also be useful, as it's passively cooled, to those creating embedded solutions, such as automated signage.

The ZimaBoard 2, like its predecessor, is a unique offering that isn’t expensive for the flexibility it provides. However, there are cheaper ways to get a small N150 system running TrueNAS or Proxmox, and a Raspberry Pi can run some of the apps, like Pi-Hole, that this system might otherwise be useful for.

I'm not sure this hardware is generic enough to be one of our best NAS devices for home and small business users, but there are people who will be attracted to what it has to offer.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)ZimaBoard 2: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From $279
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Direct from IceWhale

There are two versions of the Zimaboard 2: a cheaper 832 model with 8GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage, and a slightly more expensive 1664 model with double the memory and storage. Since you can’t upgrade either the memory or the eMMC storage, it would be a good idea to choose wisely before purchasing either.

Direct from IceWhale, the pricing is $279 for the 832 and $349 for the 1664 model, though shipping costs vary by location.

It is possible to get it from an online retailer, such as Amazon, but the 1664 model is $399.90 in the US and £322.99 in the UK.

For those in Europe, the Euro prices are €238.62 and €298.49 respectively. Currently, the online shop allows you to buy from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea. All these locations can be paid either in the local currency or US dollars, with the curious exception of the UK, where it can only be paid in dollars.

That doesn’t seem expensive, until you put these numbers against what you might pay for a mini PC.

For example, the GMK NucBox G3 Pro costs less, $259 on Amazon.com, which gets you an Intel Core i3-10110U Processor (Beats 4300U/N150), 8GB DDR4, 256GB of M.2 SATA storage, and it includes WiFi and Bluetooth. Storage and memory are upgradable, and there is a second M.2 slot.

That’s from a known brand. But if you just want an N150 mini PC or NAS, then less than $200 is possible via Amazon, and even cheaper systems can be found on AliExpress.

Unless you want a specific feature of the ZimaBoard 2, such as passive cooling or an external PCIe slot, there are cheaper options available.

• Value: 3.5 / 5

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)ZimaBoard 2: Specs

Model:

1664 Model

CPU:

Intel Processor N150 (Twin Lake), quad-core, up to 3.6GHz Turbo

Architecture:

x86-64, 4 cores / 4 threads

Cache:

6MB

GPU:

Intel UHD Graphics (24 EUs) at 1000MHz

TDP:

6W PBP (configured at 10W)

Memory:

16GB LPDDR5x at 4800MHz (soldered)

Storage:

64GB eMMC (OS storage)

SATA Ports

2 x SATA III (6Gbps) for HDD or SSD

Max SATA Capacity

Up to 36TB via two drives

PCIe Expansion

NVMe SSD, 10GbE NIC, GPU, AI accelerator via PCIe Gen 3x4 slot

Ethernet

2 x 2.5GbE (Intel i226 controllers)

USB

2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type-A)

Display

1 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4 (4K60 output)

Audio

None onboard

WiFi / Bluetooth

None onboard (PCIe expansion required)

PCIe Slot

1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 (side-mounted, external)

Supported Add-ins

10GbE NIC, NVMe adapter, GPU, AI accelerator, WiFi card

Fan Header

Optional fan header for PCIe card cooling

Pre-cut PCIe Section

Accommodates longer PCIe cards

Dimensions

140 x 83 x 31mm

Chassis

Full aluminium enclosure doubling as a heatsink

Cooling

Fully passive (fanless); optional fan via header

Power Supply

12V DC 60W adapter included

Packaging

Box can be repurposed as a stand for the board and two 2.5in drives

Bundled OS

ZimaOS (Linux-based, pre-installed on eMMC)

Alt OS Support

TrueNAS, Proxmox, Debian, Ubuntu Server, pfSense, OpenWrt, Windows, LibreELEC

App Store

372 one-click install applications via ZimaOS

Container Support

Docker built in via ZimaOS

VM Support

Yes (limited by 4-core CPU; single VM recommended)

Remote Access

Via Zima Client (Mac, PC, iOS, Android)

Warranty

2-year warranty

ZimaBoard 2: Design

• All-metal construction
• Passively cooled
• PCIe 3.0 x4 slot

While I’ve seen even smaller, the ZimaBoard 2 is tiny for an Intel X86 platform. At just 140 x 83 x 31 mm, it sits comfortably in the palm of one hand, and the full aluminium chassis that encloses it is doing two jobs at once: protecting the electronics and acting as a radiator for internal heat ace. There is no fan, no vent, and no thermal compound to manage. The board runs silently under all circumstances, which is either its most appealing feature or a cause for concern, depending on what stress you plan to put it under.

IceWhale has kept the layout practical. Ports are clearly labelled, and the side-mounted PCIe 3.0 x4 slot is pre-cut to accept longer cards. A fan header is present for those who add a PCIe card that runs warm. The packaging has a clever trick: the cardboard box is designed so that cutting the lid converts it into a stand for the board and two 2.5in drives, which is a small but thoughtful touch for a product aimed squarely at budget-conscious builders.

However, in this reviewer's view, hot electronics and cardboard aren’t perfect bedfellows, and I do recommend spending another $30 on the aluminium rack tray accessory IceWhale offers.

It’s a bit of an exercise to mount the ZimaBoard 2 to that rack, but it makes the drives and any PCIe cards you attach seem much more secure and part of the system.

As a method to reduce the amount of internal heat generated, this system doesn’t have an internal PSU, opting instead for an external 12V wall socket PSU.

That’s fine, since I’d have expected an external supply, but what I’m less thrilled by is the lack of a power button. If you shut this down, unless you’ve configured wake-on-LAN, the only way to restart it is to pull the PSU out and then jam it back into the socket.

The other obvious absence, onboard WiFi, is a deliberate omission rather than an oversight, I believe. IceWhale positions the PCIe slot as the expansion path for wireless, which keeps the base board cost down but means an additional purchase for anyone who cannot run Ethernet. And, to be honest, WiFi seems like a poor use of the only slot, given what else it can be used for.

As I’ll get into in more depth in this review, the PCIe slot is called upon to do plenty of heavy lifting, possibly beyond the point of practicality.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

There is so much focus on the PCIe slot because the unit only has two USB ports. If you intend to attach a keyboard, mouse and anything else USB, you will need a hub. There is only Mini DisplayPort video output, so IceWhale sells a cheap adapter that converts it to HDMI. Which begs the question, why didn’t they just use Mini HDMI and include a cable?

What you do get is dual 2.5GbE LAN ports, which could be channel-bonded to send and receive up to 5Gbps over the network. That works out to about 600 MB/s of transfer, which is faster than the internal eMMC, a SATA-connected SSD, or a hard drive. The only way that network bandwidth could be saturated is for an NVMe to be attached using the PCIe slot.

However, the dual LAN configuration could be extremely useful for those wanting a hardware Firewall or to run Pi-Hole for trapping web adverts before they reach network users.

In conclusion, this is an extremely compact, silent-in-operation design that draws relatively little power and can be used interactively or as an embedded solution.

However, to achieve those things has involved some sacrifices to the specification that may or may not be the sort of trade-off that you are happy with.

• Design: 3.5 / 5

ZimaBoard 2: Features

• Intel N150
• Zero internal upgrades
• Storage choices

The Intel N150 is a Twin Lake processor built on a refined version of Intel's low-power architecture. Four cores running at up to 3.6GHz turbo, with a 6W base power budget and 6MB of cache, represent a clean generational leap over the original ZimaBoard's Apollo Lake silicon, which was already ageing when that product launched.

IceWhale's claim of roughly three times the CPU performance is plausible on paper, and the move to LPDDR5x at 4800MHz sharpens the memory bandwidth picture considerably.

Those things said, the N150 is patently not a multi-VM workhorse. Four cores and four threads impose a real ceiling on anything involving multiple concurrent virtual machines, and those who push the board in that direction will find it hits its limits rapidly under combined GUI VM workloads. For single-VM use cases, light virtualisation, Docker containers, Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Plex, Jellyfin, and general NAS duties, the processor is more than adequate.

But the N150 was never a great experience for Windows, and fitting that OS onto the 64GB of eMMC storage could be challenging. Using the M.2 addon board could provide more space for a larger OS and apps, but with only four cores at its disposal, this is a system to be pragmatic about rather than optimistic.

Where this system is compromised, compared to a typical N150 Mini PC, is that it offers no internal upgrades whatsoever. The memory is soldered in place, and the eMMC storage is also fixed. Yes, you can boot from external storage attached via the PCIe slot or USB, but whatever memory and storage are in the ZimaBoard 2 at purchase is all it will ever have.

In my testing, I explored many of the potential configurations this design allows. These included using it with nothing attached, using USB devices, and using PCIe cards. As this hardware was reviewed alongside the ZimaCube 2, I was able to borrow a PCIe to NVMe card intended for the Zima Cube, and put an NVMe drive on that, which worked fine.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

I also attached a 20TB Seagate IronWolf Pro, which also functioned normally, and I was able to format it in ZimaOS. The reason I mentioned this seemingly obvious success is that the IceWhale specifications for this machine say that the maximum amount of SATA storage is 36TB from two drives, which by definition would be 18TB.

While I don’t have the drives to test this assertion, I suspect that it would work with 24TB, 28TB, 30TB, 32TB and even 34TB SATA drives. For those curious, the SATA interface, in conjunction with 64-bit GPT (GUID Partition Table) partitioning, has a maximum theoretical capacity of 9.4 Zettabytes (\(9.4 \times 10^9\) TB). So going from 18TB to 36TB isn’t much of a leap.

More of an issue than just buying bigger hard drives is that, in constant use, these drives will get hot, and even with the aluminium cradle, there is no fan cooling to prevent overheating. It’s somewhat ironic that this is a passively cooled computer, but if you use it in certain arrangements, you would be forced to add active cooling for subcomponents, not the system. As part of the cradle kit, you do get a tiny 25mm fan meant to help cool the electronics on a PCIe card. But this wouldn’t practically cool a hard drive or an NVMe.

Any video card needs to work with only four PCIe lanes, have its own cooling and if it needs power beyond that provided by the PCIe slot, its own power supply.

Unless you are looking for a modest GPU upgrade or to enhance AI, the PCIe slot is probably best used for devices other than video cards.

• Features: 4 / 5

ZimaBoard 2: Software

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

• ZimaOS Plus
• Paid licensing tier
• TrueNAS approved

ZimaOS comes pre-installed on the eMMC and boots directly to a web dashboard the moment the board finds a network connection. IceWhale's approach is to make the first-run NAS experience as close to frictionless as possible, and it largely succeeds.

The dashboard provides access to an app store with over 370 one-click-install applications covering media servers, backup tools, containers, smart home integrations, and more.

There is a minimalist aesthetic that is attractive, and owners are guided through the installation of drives and applications neatly.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

,The Zima Client companion app for Mac, PC, iOS, and Android handles remote access and picks the best available connection path automatically. For users who want to go further, the full x86 platform means TrueNAS, Proxmox, Debian, pfSense, OpenWrt, and even Windows are all valid options with no compatibility caveats. The ZimaOS Plus licence costs $29 as a lifetime purchase and unlocks unlimited disk support and unlimited users beyond the free tier.

I mentioned this previously in my ZimaCube 2 review, and I’d prefer that the $29 fee be bundled with the cost of the hardware rather than owners discovering it when they try to add their second child. Debian is free, so if you are willing to grasp the technicalities of that OS you can exploit this hardware without further investment.

• Software: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)ZimaBoard 2: Performance

• Expansion possibilities are limited
• Ambition versus reality

Where I see this platform being most useful is as a Proxmox backup server, or a hardware Firewall. You can’t attach enough storage to make it that useful as a NAS, in my opinion, although technically you could attach two very large hard drives and use them both if you are willing to forgo drive-failure resilience. The alternative is to mirror the drives, cutting the capacity in half.

It should be possible to attach an external RAID array via USB, but frankly if you are investing in equipment like that, then why not just buy a proper four or six bay NAS, like the ZimaCube 2?

Networking tops out at 2.5GbE per port. For most home NAS scenarios, that is sufficient, but anyone wanting higher throughput will need to occupy the PCIe slot with a 10GbE card, which trades away the slot's other potential uses. Thermal behaviour under the passive chassis is worth watching closely on test, as the aluminium body does all the work, and a PCIe card installation will add heat to an already closed thermal loop.

Adding things to this system is a bit like the whack-a-mole game. Because you upgrade the networking to support 10GbE, but the storage isn’t quick enough to saturate that. So you use the M.2 card and have NVMe drives that can offer the performance, but you are back to a 2.5GbE LAN. A single Gen3 x4 slot isn’t enough to enhance the storage and network, and there aren’t enough USB ports to use them as a workaround.

For most people, they’ll eventually conclude they need a platform with more PCIe lanes than the 9 that the N150 sports, because once the four are used in the slot, and the other five are allocated to the LAN ports and the USB, there is nothing left.

The next tier of Intel hardware has 20 lanes that mix Gen 4, providing the equivalent of 40 lanes of Gen3, or more than four times as much bandwidth. This is why IceWhale used that in the ZimaCube 2, a system that costs more than double what the ZimaBoard 2 costs.

To summarise my thinking on the performance of the ZimaBoard 2, any system that runs with passive cooling isn’t going to be massively powerful. There is an old quote attributed to Dr Samuel Johnson, the first author of a dictionary, “Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

If we can ignore the Doctor’s misogyny and see the parallels with this hardware, that it can run a VM or Docker containers is amazing, but don’t expect miracles when it does.

Realistically, one VM is all I’d use, and I’d limit it to a few Docker containers. Because, as efficient Linux platforms can be, what is under the hood of the ZimaBoard 2 isn’t going to break any performance records any time soon.

This is the trade-off for the size of the ZimaBoard 2 and its passive cooling operation.

I limited my performance testing of the ZimaBoard 2 to copying large files to and from the NAS, using a 20GB video file as the blunt instrument of my assault. I’d initially intended to use SSH and an on-client CLI to do more extensive testing, but due to some issues, in the end, I merely copied files across the network and locally on the NAS.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

The ZimaOS client on the PC connects storage to specific virtual drives, and so I was able to test the eMMC inbuilt storage, the 20TB Seagate IronWolf Pro and the 1TB Kioxia Exceria Plus G3 that I’d connected via the PCIe slot.

All transfers used a single 2.5GbE LAN connection, and they all managed 280MB/s when the transfers were initiated. However, it became apparent that when writing a file, most of the data was heading into the 16GB of RAM to be written to the storage device later. This was most apparent on the eMMC, since it was so slow that the system ran out of memory for cache at about 17GB, where it dropped dramatically to around 60MB/s.

Equally, the hard drive blipped in the middle of its write, caught between what the system had memory cached and its own internal cache. The best experience, unsurprisingly, was on the NVMe drive that could write the whole 20GB file at 280MB/s without missing a beat. I estimate that the NVMe drive is capable of between 2000 and 3000Mb/s on a PCIe Gen 3x4 slot, but you can’t attach a 10GbE to deliver some of that over the network, since you only have one slot.

I could have found another NVMe drive and tried moving files between them, although this would have cut the performance in half, since one would be reading and the other writing.

A few users in the ZimaOS community have noted that if you use the GUI file manager that, transfers appear to be capped at 600MB/s, but CLI operations aren’t. I can’t confirm this, and it may have been subsequently patched.

As with many NAS, the ZimaBoard 2 can find itself hamstrung trying to express internal performance to outside services. And, those are limitations owners will need to accept.

• Performance: 3.5/5

ZimaBoard 2: Final verdict

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

The ZimaBoard 2 is a serious upgrade on the original in every area that counted against it: faster processor, faster memory, faster networking, and a better PCIe slot.

At $279 for the base model, it sits in a competitive price bracket, but the combination of x86 compatibility, dual 2.5GbE, passive cooling, and a genuine PCIe expansion path is difficult to replicate at this size and price point. The soldered memory and external drive arrangement are compromises worth knowing about before buying, and the four-core processor imposes real limits on multi-VM ambitions.

For homelab builders, NAS enthusiasts, router experimenters, and anyone who wants a genuinely hackable low-power server that can run almost any OS without argument, however, the ZimaBoard 2 makes a compelling case for itself.

Should you buy a ZimaBoard 2?

Value

Lots of features, solidly built but not cheap

3.5 / 5

Design

Ultra compact and passively cooled

3.5 / 5

Features

Limited USB, but it has a PCIe 3.0 4x slot

4 / 5

Software

Workable NAS OS, or use TrueNAS

4 / 5

Performance

Difficult to saturate the LAN using SATA and one PCIe slot

3.5 / 5

Overall

Highly flexible, but silence comes with a cost

4 / 5

Buy it if...

You need a silent system
The ZimaBoard 2 is perfect if you want a fanless, passively cooled server that runs 24/7 without making a sound. However, some items you connect might need active cooling, undermining the silence offered by the system.

You need a flexible x86 platform
While supplied with ZimaOS installed, it is possible to run TrueNAS, Proxmox, pfSense, or Docker without any compatibility workarounds. This provides a level of flexibility that many NAS do not offer.

Don't buy it if...

You need multiple VMs
For those who need to run multiple concurrent GUI-based virtual machines; the four-core N150 will struggle. This chip was designed for low-end laptops and tablets, and therefore, having more than one VM is unrealistic.

You need 10GbE and NVMe storage
With only one PCIe slot, you get to choose what aspect of this machine you want most to upgrade, but only one. That could be adding 10GbE networking, an enhanced GPU or NVMe storage. You can’t add more than one of these things to this system.View Deal

For more NAS solutions we've collated the best NAS hard drives around

Following the original ZimaBoard, version 2 has an improved processor and memory, but the same passively cooled NAS credentials.

OnePlus 15R: two-minute review

Even though the competition among the latest mid-range phones has never been hotter, OnePlus’ offerings have certainly held their own against those from Samsung, Apple, and Google. The OnePlus 13R managed to hit a home run in practically every area, from battery life to performance, so constructing a successor was always going to be a tall order (to avoid confusion, there was no OnePlus 14R).

For the OnePlus 15R, the company has gone in a slightly different direction. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing phone, but it lacks the one big upgrade that was added in the 13R: a telephoto lens. While that fact alone is sure to turn some potential adopters towards triple-sensor phones like the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro and Xiaomi 15T Pro, know that there is a trade-off at play with the OnePlus 15R.

By doing away with the telephoto lens, OnePlus has given the 15R’s battery a boost. It boasts a larger 7,400mAh cell than its predecessor, which can easily see most users through two days at a time, and it certainly means that you won’t have anything to worry about over a single day. As someone who uses their phone for a lot of things, including checking up on social media, hotspotting to other devices, and listening to audiobooks and podcasts, I prefer having the larger battery.

(Image credit: Future)

Plus, the phone's 50MP main camera still takes amazing shots, especially during the daytime. Colors look amazing, and the upgraded 32MP front camera does the rare thing of capturing selfies that I’d actually want to share online.

There are other welcome upgrades, too, including a move to the more powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset — which rarely buckled in my time using it (even while running more demanding games) — and the faster 165Hz refresh rate, which has been pinched straight from the excellent OnePlus 15.

If it wasn’t for the fact that you’re only getting four years of software updates (with six years of security patches), then I’d be giving the OnePlus 15R a higher score. But for anyone who’s happy to upgrade again in roughly four years’ time, you’ll have a blast with this good-looking, long-lasting mid-ranger.

OnePlus 15R review: price and availability

• Starts at $699.99 / £649 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB storage
• Although cheaper than its predecessor in the UK, the phone is $100 more expensive in the US
• It's not available in Australia

The OnePlus 15R is available in two storage configurations, 256GB and 512GB (both of which come with 12GB RAM), and is currently sold in the UK, US, and Europe.

It starts at $699.99/ £649, but that price jumps up to $799.99 / £729 if you want the extra internal storage, which may be more tempting to those who prefer to avoid cloud storage costs.

Oddly enough, depending on where you’re buying the OnePlus 15R, it’s either slightly cheaper than its predecessor or significantly more expensive. The OnePlus 13R had a starting price of £679 in the UK, making the 15R just a tad more cost-effective as an upgrade. But for buyers in the US, you’re looking at an extra $100, which feels utterly absurd. I fully understand that price increases are, unfortunately, becoming the norm in the current economic climate (just take a look at the Samsung Galaxy S26 range), but this is such a massive increase for a mid-range phone that the 15R risks pricing itself out of affordability entirely.

So, if you are in the US and you want a decent mid-range phone that doesn’t cost a fortune, you might be better suited with the iPhone 17e or Nothing Phone (4a) Pro.

• Value score: 4 / 5

OnePlus 15R review: specs

Easily the most eye-catching of all the OnePlus 15R's specs is its 7,400mAh battery, which is one of the largest phone batteries you can get outside of China. The 15R's cell is even slightly bigger than the 7,300mAh equivalent found within the flagship OnePlus 15.

Here are the specs for the OnePlus 15R in full:

Dimensions:

163.41 x 77.04 x 8.3mm

Weight

213g/219g

Chipset:

Snapdragon 8 Gen 5

Operating system:

OxygenOS 16

RAM:

12GB

Storage:

256GB/512GB

Display:

6.83-inch 1272 x 2800 AMOLED, 165Hz

Cameras:

50MP wide, 8MP ultra-wide, 32MP front

Battery:

7,400mAh

Charging:

80W wired charging

OnePlus 15R review: designFutureFutureFuture

• Same design language as the OnePlus 15 and OnePlus Nord 5
• More durable build than before

One of the best things I can say about the OnePlus 15R is that, when you hold it in your hand for the first time, there’s nothing about it that suggests it costs anything less than the current crop of flagship smartphones. It packs an aluminum frame and a glass rear panel, which feels very premium — it reminds me a great deal of the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, a phone that also punches above its weight on the design front.

From a visual standpoint, the OnePlus 15R is a departure from the OnePlus 13R, especially as the round camera bump has been ditched for a slightly more rectangular one. But this aesthetic aligns with OnePlus' most recent phones.

Both the OnePlus 15 and OnePlus Nord 5 opted for a more professional look versus their respective predecessors. Their camera bumps and chassis adhere to a single color, making the marble-like aesthetic of the OnePlus 12 feel like a lifetime away. If I'm being completely honest, I did find the overall look of the Nord 5 to be a tad mundane, but this approach feels far more at home on the 15R because of one thing: the Mint Breeze colorway.

This lighter green option, which I’ve had in for review, is just stunning. Although I do have a penchant for any tech that comes in green, I think the injection of color here makes the overall look of the OnePlus 15R more exciting than the Charcoal Black option. It’s a similar story with the Ultra Violet OnePlus 15, and I only hope that more companies follow suit.

All of the OnePlus 15R’s good looks aren’t just for show, however, as the phone is now a great deal more durable than before, boasting IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K certifications. While that might sound like a lot of jargon, it basically means that the 15R can do a lot more to withstand the elements than its predecessor, which is great to see in the mid-range market.

I do, however, think that the slightly larger build of the 15R can make things a bit difficult when reaching for the top of the display. This won’t be an issue for everyone, but I did find myself having to rely on both hands fairly often to comfortably use the device, although it’s nowhere near as cumbersome as something like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, with its 6.9-inch screen.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

OnePlus 15R review: display

(Image credit: Future)

• The 6.83-inch screen is larger than the 13R's
• Screen brightness peaks at a slightly lesser 3600 nits

I’ll never fully understand the urge for phone manufacturers to go bigger when it comes to displays, but for whatever reason, OnePlus has decided to ditch the 6.78-inch norm of the last two R-series phones and adopt a 6.83-inch panel instead. Like I said before, the slightly larger build now means that the OnePlus 15R is just a bit too big to be comfortably used one-handed (something like the Honor Magic 8 Pro’s 6.71-inch panel hits the sweet spot for me), but there’s still a lot to like about this display.

The larger panel makes the phone great for a bit of entertainment, and I’ve really enjoyed using the OnePlus 15R to catch up on the latest season of Invincible, as it depicts the show’s colorful visuals with eye-catching intensity. Plus, with more room for having multiple apps open side by side, OnePlus’ Open Canvas multitasking software works like a charm here.

When it comes to screen brightness, there is a slight downgrade at play, but I don’t think it’s a dealbreaker for the phone. Instead of the 4,500 nits of peak brightness possible on the OnePlus 13R for HDR content, the 15R now tops out at 3,600, but I never found myself squinting at the screen when trying to take a picture outdoors or check train times. Plus, it’s still a brighter display than you'll get on a lot of phones in this price range (the iPhone 17e, for instance, can only reach 1200 nits).

(Image credit: Future)

What is more impressive, and something I’m far happier to have as a trade-off on screen brightness, is the 165Hz refresh rate pinched from the flagship OnePlus 15. The faster speed here is perfect for gaming, and for a fast-paced title like Call of Duty: Mobile, it just goes that extra step in drawing you into the action. It also makes everything from social media scrolling to web browsing feel that much smoother.

As a final note, the OnePlus 15R's screen itself is also very responsive, with a great feeling of cohesion between the fast refresh rate and the onboard chipset to the point where using the phone never really feels like a mid-range experience. I think that if you were to hand the 15R to someone without providing any background information, they would just assume that it’s a flagship device, which is a great compliment.

• Display score: 4.5 / 5

OnePlus 15R review: software

(Image credit: Future)

• OxygenOS remains one of the best Android overlays
• Four years of software updates, six for security patches

One thing I always love about reviewing OnePlus products is that I get to step back into the OxygenOS platform, which is a big step up compared to some other Android overlays that are filled to the brim with bloatware and unintuitive designs. From a software perspective, it’s like getting into a comforting warm bath — everything just works as you’d hope, and because the experience isn’t filled with pre-installed third-party apps, there’s very little friction from the jump.

As a new dad, I now have to rely on my phone a lot more than usual for getting work done during small pockets of time throughout the day, and to that end, the OnePlus 15R has been very helpful via its Open Canvas software. If you haven’t used it, just know that Open Canvas is one of the best examples of multitasking done right on Android, and the whole thing shines particularly on the OnePlus Pad 3, but it’s still just as good on a smartphone.

You can have one app on top of another in a 50/50 split or, as I prefer to have it, a 90/10 split that allows me to swap between two mostly full-screen apps in just a tap, which is very helpful for writing in Google Docs while checking my review notes in Google Keep. When in this mode, I’ve also been able to open a windowed version of WhatsApp to quickly respond to a message, all without ever closing the multitasking setup. It all works seamlessly, and it’s right up there with what Samsung provides through One UI.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, OnePlus’ suite of AI features isn’t quite as robust as Samsung’s Galaxy AI platter, but I feel that it’s definitely a step up from Honor AI, which feels as if it’s constantly thrust at the user and just isn’t very good at what it attempts to do. By comparison, OnePlus AI does a few things quite well, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

(Image credit: Future)

OnePlus’ Mind Space, which isn’t too dissimilar to Essential Space found on the Nothing Phone (4a) and (4a) Pro, acts as a hub for notes, screenshots, and voice recordings, all of which can then be analysed by the onboard AI to provide more detailed information. For instance, a quick photo of my desk, which features a mouse mat with Stormtroopers on it, led the AI to tell me all about the Star Wars universe and what it entails.

I do think that there’s a lot of potential here, but I would like to use Mind Space as a means of collecting interesting articles I’ve come across online, and when I attempted to do just that with the dedicated Plus Key, which activates Mind Space, it could only collect a single screenshot and wouldn’t save the link to the article either. Thankfully, the AI tools available when browsing the web are a lot better.

For when I’m pushed for time, I find AI article summaries to be incredibly helpful for staying in the loop with the latest tech launches, and the style that OnePlus employs is easily among the best out there. It works very quickly, and it does a great job of highlighting key points in either a detailed or concise format.

What I most appreciate, however, is that it never feels as if OnePlus is pushing you to use these AI features. They’re readily available for when you need them, but they’re also easily ignored if you have no taste for the software, which is an approach that a few other manufacturers could definitely take note of.

In terms of support over time, OnePlus promises a total of four years’ worth of software updates and six years of security patches to extend that lifecycle a bit further. Four years isn’t bad, but it pales in comparison to the six years of support that you'll get with the Samsung Galaxy A57 or Google Pixel 10a, so it’s worth having a think about how long you’re comfortable with waiting before your next upgrade.

• Software score: 4 / 5

OnePlus 15R review: cameras

(Image credit: Future)

• 50MP wide angle, 8MP ultra-wide, and 32MP front camera
• Last year's telephoto lens is gone

Although the OnePlus 15R comes out swinging in most other categories, the one area where there’s been an undeniable step backwards is in the camera department. One of the big additions to the OnePlus 13R was the inclusion of a 50MP 2x telephoto lens, which was great for capturing subjects that were just out of reach for the main camera. Alas, that telephoto lens is nowhere to be seen on the 15R, which I can only assume is a trade-off for its much larger battery.

What’s left is a 50MP (f/1.8) wide-angle lens and an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide, both of which are identical to the ones found on the 13R. The only part of the camera set-up that’s had any kind of upgrade is the selfie camera, which has jumped from 16MP to 32MP. With that kind of reality facing potential adopters, the 15R is certainly not a must-buy for anyone who already owns the 13R, and if you’re interested in smartphone photography above all, then you may want to buy that older handset anyway, now that it can be found for less. For most people, however, I think they’ll get on just fine with what the OnePlus 15R has to offer.

Not too dissimilar to the latest Google Pixel phones, I’ve always found OnePlus’ eye for color to be very attractive, and here it’s backed up by the large megapixel count of the main camera to produce very sharp pictures that look great on the 15R’s display.

Taking the phone down to a nearby canal during a sunset, you can see just how well the camera handles the dynamic range across the sky, as well as in the reflections across the water. I’ve taken plenty of phones down to that same spot, and rarely has that location looked better than it does here.

(Image credit: Future)

Even though the 2x zoom within the camera app is a digital crop, the phone still captures enough data in these shots that they look great on the surface. I just don’t recommend zooming in any further beyond that, otherwise the composition starts to fall apart unless there’s a ton of natural light available.

On sunny days, even though it’s just an 8MP sensor, the ultra-wide camera can hold its own against the main lens with great-looking shots. It’s only when things get a bit cloudy that you notice the color is slightly muted by comparison.

Taking a few pictures during a night out around London Waterloo, I was impressed to see that the 15R did a great job of recreating the color palette around me in a fairly natural way, although I definitely recommend sticking to 1x in low light, as these shots can get a tad blurry under a microscope, but they look solid enough when viewed from a full perspective.

Something I definitely have to compliment OnePlus on is its understanding of what makes a selfie camera great. I’ve seen this before in the OnePlus Nord 5, as its 50MP front-camera is one of the best I’ve ever used, and it’s a similar experience with the 32MP alternative found on the 15R. Much like the main camera, the colors are so good that I can overlook my sleep-deprived expression and enjoy these photos for what they are.

Again, I completely understand why the removal of the telephoto lens might be enough for some to write off the OnePlus 15R, but I have still enjoyed my time with its cameras.

• Camera score: 4 / 5

Cameras samplesFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureOnePlus 15R review: performance

(Image credit: Future)

• The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset can handle almost any task
• 3D games aren't an issue here

Before writing this review, I wrote a separate piece on how the OnePlus 15R feels like another entry in the growing sector of all-rounder phones that, despite costing less than the latest flagships, manage to hit a certain bar of quality across the board, and won't leave the majority of users wanting for anything. One of the main reasons why I felt that to be the case here was because of the performance offered by the phone's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset.

Skipping two generations of Snapdragon chipset ahead of its immediate predecessor, the OnePlus 15R feels every bit like a flagship phone in everyday use. Scrolling through apps is as smooth as you’d want it to be, and when running multiple apps at one time through Open Canvas, the phone never buckled under the pressure.

Gaming is a similarly fluid experience, and it’s only further emboldened by the phone's 165Hz refresh rate. Running through a few rounds of Call of Duty: Mobile, the game felt like it was meant for this type of handset, as the large screen gives you a good view of the battlefield while the chipset keeps everything running without any signs of tearing or stuttering.

The only instance where I could see a noticeable gap between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 and the even more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 was when loading in larger areas in Honkai: Star Rail. This is quite a demanding game for those who haven’t played it, but I was impressed to see that, outside of those moments, the combat and exploitation ran to a high standard on the OnePlus 15R.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

OnePlus 15R review: battery

(Image credit: Future)

• The 7,400mAh cell can run for at least two days
• No wireless charging

Saving the best for last, the OnePlus 15R boasts something of an anomaly when it comes to batteries in the mid-range category. Although the proliferation of silicon-carbon tech has paved the way for larger batteries, it’s typically been flagship phones that have benefited from this innovation, with the Oppo Find X9 Pro and the OnePlus 15, for example, packing 7,500mAh and 7,300mAh batteries, respectively. Following in their footsteps, the OnePlus 15R has a gigantic 7,400mAh cell to draw on, something that you simply won’t find on any other mid-range phone right now.

I mentioned earlier that it appears as though OnePlus made the decision to do away with the telephoto lens on this phone so it could go all in on battery, and as someone who would prefer not to have to deal with any battery anxiety during a day out, even if I am in the minority here, it’s a trade-off I’m happy to accept. After all, if you’re dead set on having a triple camera set-up, there are plenty of alternatives out there, including the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, and the Xiaomi 15T Pro.

With this kind of longevity in the tank, I had no issues with getting the OnePlus 15R to last at least two days between charges. On a more relaxed day, when working from home and only accruing an hour and a half of screen time, plus several hours of Spotify playback, the phone only dropped to 74%. As an iPhone user who is constantly having to keep one eye on how much battery is left, I can’t tell you how freeing it felt to not have to worry about endurance at all, and it allowed me to use the OnePlus 15R unencumbered.

The phone's 80W charging speed remains unchanged from the OnePlus 13R, but that’s fine by me given that it’s still much further ahead than most phones (the 45W speed of the S25 FE seems glacial by comparison). From my testing, you can get from 0% to a full battery in 1 hour and 25 minutes. If you’re really pressed for time, then you’ll be glad to know that I clawed back 67% after just 50 minutes, which is more than enough to get you safely through an entire day.

It would have been nice to see OnePlus add wireless charging into the mix, as it would have paired well with the idea of the 15R being a battery beast, but it’s not the worst omission, given how fast the wired charging is here.

• Battery score: 4.5 / 5

Should you buy the OnePlus 15R?OnePlus 15R scorecard

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

The OnePlus 15R is great-value for UK buyers, but its price is harder to justify in the States.

4 / 5

Display

The larger display looks great but the peak brightness is lower than before.

4.5 / 5

Design

A sophisticated and very well built phone that looks exceptional in green.

4.5 / 5

Software

OxygenOS works brilliantly, but you're only getting four years of software updates.

4 / 5

Cameras

The main sensor does a great job in all settings, but the telephoto lens is missed.

4 / 5

Performance

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is a beast for mid-range value, making short work of 3D games.

5 / 5

Battery

The 7,400mAh cell is unmatched on the mid-range market. No wireless charging is a letdown though.

4.5 / 5

Buy it if…

You want a phone that lasts two days
With the OnePlus 15R in tow, you won’t have to worry about racing back to a power outlet for a battery top-up.

You want a 165Hz screen for gaming
While it’s not a necessity, a 165Hz refresh rate is a wonderful luxury that really takes mobile gaming to the next level.

You need a smooth operating system
OnePlus’ OxygenOS is right up there with One UI and Google’s stock Android, as it’s thankfully free of bloatware and clunky design choices.

Don’t buy it if…

You need a telephoto lens
The removal of the telephoto lens definitely makes the OnePlus 15R less appealing to photographers.

You need wireless charging
Although you do get 80W wired charging, the lack of wireless charging on a phone at this price feels odd.

You want a phone for the long haul
The limited amount of software updates compared to what Samsung and Google provide is a letdown.

Also consider

Still on the fence about the OnePlus 15R? Here are some contemporaries worth checking out:

OnePlus 15R

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Apple iPhone 17e

Price

$699 / £649

$499 / £499

$599 / £599

Storage

256GB / 512GB

128GB / 256GB

256GB / 512GB

Screen size

6.83-inch 1272 x 2800 AMOLED, 165Hz

6.83-inch AMOLED, 144Hz

6.1-inch 1170 x 2532 Super Retina, 60Hz

Chipset

Snapdragon 8 Gen 5

Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

Apple A19

Battery

7,400mAh

5,080mAh

4,005mAh

Charging

80W

50W

40W

Cameras

50MP wide, 8MP ultra-wide, 32MP front

50MP wide, 8MP ultra-wide, 50MP telephoto, 12MP front

48MP wide, 12MP front

OS

OxygenOS 16

Nothing OS 4.1

iOS 26

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is another solid all-rounder that leaves you wanting for very little, but it packs a more eye-catching look than the OnePlus 15R, can be bought for less, and even has a telephoto lens for zoom photography. The chipset isn’t quite as speedy as the 15R’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, but it’s powerful enough for most users.

Read our full Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review

Apple iPhone 17e
Even though it’s only got one rear-facing camera, there’s a lot to like about the iPhone 17e. Apple’s mid-range phone now packs MagSafe charging, the super-fast A19 chipset, and 256GB storage as standard. There’s also the far more scratch-resistant Ceramic Shield 2 glass on the front, which, alongside Apple’s lengthy update cycles, should allow the 17e to last you for quite some time.

Read our full Apple iPhone 17e review

How I tested the OnePlus 15R

I used the OnePlus 15R over a period of two weeks for this review. This involved using the phone during a trip to London and a trip to Cambridge, alongside visits to local cafes to have the phone operate as a hotspot for my laptop.

To test the screen, I streamed Avengers: Infinity War and Invincible over Disney Plus and Prime Video, respectively, and for gaming performance, I tapped into Call of Duty Mobile and Honkai: Star Rail.

First reviewed May 2026

Even with a missing telephoto lens, the OnePlus 15R's massive new battery makes it unbeatable in its category.

Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: 30-second review

Ugreen has been a busy bee since the DXP4800 Plus launched in 2024. The DXP series made a considerable impression on the NAS market, arriving with proper build quality, a sensible feature set and pricing that put established names under pressure.

Two years on, and the company has returned to that same four-bay formula with a notable upgrade. The DXP4800 Pro is here, and it does not mess about.

This is not a ground-up redesign. Ugreen has kept what worked and focused on what needed changing. The chassis is largely the same excellent aluminium alloy shell. The networking remains a combination of 10GbE and 2.5GbE. The storage layout of four SATA bays and two M.2 NVMe slots is unchanged. What Ugreen has done is swap out the processor, push the memory ceiling higher, and rework a few smaller details along the way.

Having spent time with the Plus model previously, I found the Pro immediately familiar. That is not a complaint. The Plus was already one of the better-built four-bay units on the market, and the Pro continues in that tradition. The question is whether the upgrade justifies the price premium over its predecessor.

What it offers is a punchier CPU, a more capable GPU, better M.2 slots, faster memory and a greater total memory capacity.

But Ugreen is not immediately removing its predecessor from its shelves. Therefore, those who don’t think all those improvements are worth the roughly $60/£60/€60 price increase over the DXP4800 Plus can still buy that model and save some money.

From this reviewer's perspective, these enhancements are easily worth the extra, and the DXP4800 Pro is destined to become one of the best NAS devices for home and small business users.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From $680/£586
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Direct from Ugreen or through an online retailer

Before we get into pricing, we need to talk about how Ugreen initially wanted to repeat its Kickstarter approach with newer hardware, since that's how they launched the original DXP machines.

This all went horribly wrong when Ugreen changed its mind about how it wished to launch the iDX series, having already taken deposits on the hardware, throwing a complete curveball at those who thought they’d secured an early system at a reduced price.

I’ve long been critical of companies that use Kickstarter as a marketing tool rather than for what it was meant to achieve. And, after this public relations mess, I suspect Ugreen will probably avoid using it in the future to channel interest.

You will be glad to know that the DXP4800 Pro isn’t part of a Kickstarter exercise, so you can buy it directly from Ugreen without jumping through any overly complicated marketing hoops.

For Americans, the Pro is $679.99 versus $619.99 for the Plus, a $60 hike. And for EU countries, the cost is €679.99, a €60 difference from the Plus model.

The official UK price for this NAS is £689.99, but the current offer is a much more realistic £585.99, more than £100 less.

That makes it £59 more expensive than the DXP4800 Plus, which seems reasonable considering the enhancements. At this time, Ugreen seems happy to sell both, but perhaps once the Plus model's stock runs out, the Pro might replace it.

I've also seen it available for $679.99 at Amazon.com and £585.99 at Amazon.co.uk.

Who gets the best deal? Converting the UK and EU prices to US dollars, the UK is paying $797.33, and the EU is paying $798.36. Therefore, the US price is about $120 lower than in Europe, but much of this is due to the current weakness of the dollar.

Heading the competition is the Synology DS925+ at around $640. It runs an AMD Ryzen V1500B, which is a genuinely old chip at this point, supports only DDR4, has dual 2.5GbE rather than 10GbE built in, and getting 10GbE requires a pricey add-in card.

It could be argued that DSM is the best NAS operating system available, but the hardware is not in the same league as the Pro. Synology has also had well-publicised issues with its drive compatibility policies recently. It rolled back on the SATA drive limitations, but you must use Synology-branded M.2 drives in the DS925+. That makes it a non-starter for many.

QNAP TS-464 sits in a similar price bracket with a lower-spec Intel Celeron N5095 or N5105, dual 2.5GbE, M.2 slots, and PCIe expansion. QuTS Hero is a mature and capable OS. The PCIe slot is a meaningful advantage if you want to add a 10GbE card yourself, but you are paying extra to reach parity with what Ugreen gives you out of the box.

TerraMaster F4-424 Pro is probably the closest hardware match. It uses an Intel Core i3-N305 or similar, has 10GbE, M.2 slots and is priced competitively at around $690. TOS 5 is more mature than UGOS, but the interface is not as polished. TerraMaster is another NAS maker embracing third-party OS options, but I don’t think its hardware is as well finished as Ugreen's.

Asustor has a new 4-bay in the AS6804T. But that’s north of $1300 for a system that has a quad-core Embedded Ryzen V3C14, 16GB of ECC DDR5, dual 10GbE and 2.5GbE LAN, and USB4 ports. But at this price, you can buy a six-bay NAS with Thunderbolt.

My honest summary is that the Pro's hardware specification at $680 is difficult to match. The main trade-off buyers are making is between Ugreen's maturing software and the deeper ecosystems of Synology and QNAP.

Ignoring the software part of this equation, the DXP4800 Pro easily delivers the best hardware for the asking price in this part of the NAS market.

• Value: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: Specs

Item

Spec

CPU:

Intel Core i3-1315U (13th Gen Raptor Lake-U), 6-core, up to 4.5GHz Turbo

GPU:

Intel UHD Graphics (64EU)

RAM:

8GB DDR5-5600 (base), expandable to 96GB via 2x SO-DIMM

Internal Storage:

128GB SSD for UGOS Pro

SATA Storage:

4x 3.5/2.5-inch SATA III

M.2 Storage:

2x M.2 NVMe (both PCIe Gen 4 x4

Ports:

1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps)

1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps)

1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps)

2x USB-A 2.0

1x HDMI 2.0b

1x SD 4.0 slot (front)

Networking:

1x 10GbE RJ45, 1x 2.5GbE RJ45

OS:

UGOS Pro

File Systems:

EXT4, Btrfs

Maximum Capacity:

136TB (4x 30TB SATA + 2x 8TB M.2)

RAID Modes:

JBOD/Basic/RAID 0/RAID 1/RAID 5/RAID 6/RAID 10

PSU:

19V 7.2A 150.1W external

Power Consumption:

42.36 W (drive access), 18.12 W(drive hibernation)

Dimensions:

257 × 178 × 178 mm (LxWxH)

Weight:

520g (including PSU, but without drives)

Warranty:

2 Years

Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: Design

• Largely unchanged from Plus model
• Lockable Trays
• Simple and silent

If you know the DXP4800 Plus, the Pro will feel like home. The same compact aluminium alloy shell sits on the desk, looking rather purposeful in its near-black dark grey finish. Rounded edges take the industrial edge off things, but I did notice that the bend profile on the Pro is slightly tighter, saving perhaps a millimetre off the height of the NAS.

Four numbered drive bays occupy most of the front face. Numbering them is a small thing, but it avoids that horrible moment when you cannot remember which drive is which.

It’s also incredibly useful if you go from the Plus to the Pro, or from the Pro to one of the six or eight-bay designs later. All the trays seem identical, so you might not even need to take the physical drives out.

Drive trays use a tool-free telescopic mechanism for 3.5-inch drives, and SATA SSDs can be mounted in the trays using the included screws. Screws and a screwdriver are provided for 2.5-inch mechanisms, if you intend to use them. A lockable key system on the caddies adds a layer of physical security that many cheaper NAS devices simply do not bother with.

Below the bays sit the power button, activity LEDs, an SD card slot, and a pair of USB-A and USB-C 3.2 ports. The USB-C port runs at 10Gbps, which is genuinely useful.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Around the back, you find the 14cm diameter cooling fan behind its magnetic dust filter. That filter is attached magnetically, making it easy to pop off for cleaning, and it shows the kind of real-world thinking that separates good NAS designs from average ones. Also on the rear are HDMI 2.0 for 4K 60Hz output, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port at 5Gbps, two USB-A 2.0 ports, the 10GbE and 2.5GbE Ethernet jacks, and the DC power input.

The M.2 slots sit beneath a spring-loaded cover on the base of the unit. Access is straightforward. Two SO-DIMM slots are right next to them. The base 8GB module lives on one stick, leaving the other slot free for immediate expansion. Ugreen includes two adhesive thermal pads for the M.2 drives, which is exactly the sort of thoughtful addition that saves you a trip to the accessory drawer.

Build quality throughout is hard to fault. It was great when the DXP4800 Plus came out, and Ugreen haven’t dialled it back in any noticeable way.

• Design: 4 / 5

Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: Features

• Better CPU and GPU
• Faster memory
• Enhanced M.2 slots

The key upgrade is the processor. The DXP4800 Plus ran a 12th Gen Intel Pentium Gold 8505, a five-core part with a top frequency of 4.4GHz. Capable enough, but not a chip that was ever going to set the world on fire with heavy concurrent workloads. The DXP4800 Pro replaces it with a 13th Gen Intel Core i3-1315U.

That Core i3 is a genuinely better chip. It brings six cores in a hybrid configuration: two performance cores capable of full multi-threading and four efficiency cores handling background tasks. Turbo boost reaches 4.5GHz. The integrated GPU supports AV1 decoding natively, which matters if you are running Plex or Jellyfin and want hardware transcoding. The i3 also supports DisplayPort 1.4a and HDMI 2.1, though the hardware outputs them via HDMI 2.0.

Another significant change is the memory used. The Plus topped out at 64GB of DDR5 4800MT/s. The Pro raises that ceiling to 96GB (dual 48GB modules), which aligns with the i3-1315U specification. More importantly, the DDR5 speed steps up from 4800MT/s on the Plus to 5600MT/s on the Pro. That boosts bandwidth, although you still get a single SODIMM of 8GB by default.

Personally, I’d recommend any buyer to get at least another 8GB module, if the budget allows. I can imagine some reading this section and saying they would never buy a NAS that didn’t use ECC memory. And, it's true that this NAS doesn’t offer ECC support. Synology is keen on that technology, should you insist on it.

All the hardware changes in this NAS revolve around the improved platform, and another of those is the enhanced PCIe lanes situation. On paper, the Intel Core i3-1315U offers up to 20 PCIe lanes, with a mix of PCIe 4.0 on the CPU and PCIe 3.0 on the chipset.

That’s identical to the Intel Pentium Gold 8505, so how is it seemingly better on the Pro NAS?

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Given that the needs of all the external ports are almost the same, clearly some reorganisation of the PCIe lanes has occurred on the new Pro platform. On the Plus, one of the M.2 NVMe slots was PCIe 4.0, and the other was PCIe 3.0. Logically, that suggests that the Gen4 slot was connected directly to the CPU and the other Gen3 to the chipset.

Where now it looks like both slots on the Pro are connected to the CPU, and the chipset lanes are then reallocated for LAN ports and USB.

On the Intel Core i3-1315U, there are eight PCIe 4.0 lanes and twelve PCIe 3.0 lanes, meaning that all available PCIe 4.0 lanes have been used for the M.2 slots, unless Ugreen has introduced a PCIe switch. Why this wasn’t done on the Plus machine originally is a mystery, but it's definitely an improvement for the Pro.

The SD card reader receives a quiet upgrade to SD 4.0, which is a small but welcome improvement for anyone who shoots a lot of card-based media. Everything else, the chassis, networking, port selection and accessory bundle, remains essentially identical. The Plus is still available and costs less, so buyers need to decide whether those CPU, memory, card reader and M.2 improvements are worth the premium.

• Features: 4.5 / 5

Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: Software

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

• UGOS Pro
• Limited applications
• Yes to TrueNAS and other 3rd-party OS

UGOS Pro runs everything on the DXP4800 Pro, and it continues to be a system with a genuinely friendly face. Setup is fast. Visit find.ugnas.com, let the discovery portal find the device on your network, name it, create an admin account, and you are off. UGOS walks you through pool creation with sensible guidance on RAID options for people who have never had to think about parity drives before.

Day-to-day management is handled through a clean web interface. Docker runs properly, and there is a Virtual Machine app for full hypervisor work. The Sync and Backup app handles local-to-remote and Rsync-compatible server tasks. Cloud Drives connects to seven cloud services, including OneDrive and Google Drive. Security Manager provides real-time malware scanning with quarantine. Samba sharing is disabled by default, which is a correct security decision even if it catches people out initially.

The harder truth is that UGOS still has 29 apps for this model. Synology DSM and QNAP QuTS Hero offer far larger ecosystems. Btrfs snapshots work well for shared folders, but iSCSI LUN snapshots are not yet supported. The mobile app lacks Wake-on-LAN unless you run a UPS. Power-loss notifications require the same UPS dependency. These are not dealbreakers, but they are the kinds of gaps that remind you this platform is still growing up.

Ugreen is clearly listening to its user base and pushing updates at a reasonable pace. Jumbo frame support at 9000 bytes arrived with a recent UGOS update, which makes a real difference to 10GbE throughput. A Surveillance Station equivalent remains on the roadmap but has not yet arrived. Being pragmatic, the trajectory for UGOS Pro is positive, but the destination is still some distance away.

What I do like is that Ugreen has a published roadmap for their operating system, which can be found here.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Therefore, if there is a feature you especially want to see on this hardware, you can check whether it is planned for next year. More of an issue is that some of the requested features do not appear on this list.

But, as Ugreen supports TrueNAS SCALE, Proxmox VE and Unraid, owners aren’t stuck with using UGOS Pro if an alternative provides that feature by default. Obviously, Ugreen won’t provide support for any issues you might have with TrueNAS if you install that, but it will still provide warranty support for the NAS hardware.

Overall, UGOS Pro has gotten dramatically better, but is still a little behind what QNAP and Asustor offer. However, the closure rate suggests it will be equivalent in the near future, and for many users, it already provides sufficient functionality.

• Software: 3.5 / 5

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: Performance

• Plenty of power
• Network expansion possible
• More power consumed

With four Seagate IronWolf NAS drives fitted and a RAID 5 volume configured, the DXP4800 Pro connects to a 10GbE network and delivers what you would expect from properly specified hardware. Sequential reads reach around 9.2 GB/s with jumbo frames enabled. Sequential writes come in at approximately 8.1Gbits per second. Those numbers comfortably saturate a 10GbE connection, and that’s without needing SSD caching.

Real-world large file transfers sustain roughly 3.2Gbits per second in both directions. That is the nature of spinning disk technology. It’s fast enough for most serious workflows, but not the paper-limit headline figure. If you fit NVMe SSDs in the M.2 slots and run them as a dedicated pool, transfers between SSD pools are considerably faster, though they do not always reach theoretical ceilings.

It’s also worth noting that both LAN ports can be channel bonded with the right switch, and it is possible to add extra LAN bandwidth using USB adapters, and Ugreen also makes these.

Adding a 1GbE port will cost about $10, 2.5GbE is $26, and 5GbE is $36. Using these inexpensive add-ons can enable those sharing M.2 storage to get more of the performance they see internally out on to the network.

The Core i3-1315U earns its keep in mixed workloads. Running Docker containers alongside active file transfers while Plex transcodes video is the kind of scenario where the Plus would start to feel the pressure. The Pro handles it with more composure. The two performance cores with HyperThreading are particularly useful for tasks that benefit from high single-thread speed, while the efficiency cores absorb background processes quietly.

Power draw is higher than some competing alternatives. The external 150W PSU is a practical acknowledgement of that, but it’s no larger than the one on the Plus model.

Possibly due to the second PCIe Gen 4 drive, but also the extra performance core on the CPU, the Pro

If power efficiency is your primary concern, simpler ARM or low-wattage Intel N-series NAS units will serve you better. The DXP4800 Pro is not built for frugality; instead, it is more about capability. And, with more capability, the horizon of possibilities widens.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

• Performance: 4/5

Ugreen DXP4800 Pro: Final verdict

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

The Ugreen NASync DXP4800 Pro does exactly what a mid-cycle refresh should do. It addresses the performance ceiling of its predecessor without trashing a perfectly workable form factor. The jump to a 13th Gen Core i3 is not a cosmetic upgrade. It translates into better concurrent workload handling, proper AV1 decode, and more headroom for virtual machines and containers. The 96GB memory ceiling and dual PCIe Gen 4 x4 M.2 slots round out a hardware package that looks very attractive at this price point.

If only memory and SSD storage were cheaper, allowing more of us to exploit these options.

Thankfully, at some point, the insanity of stockpiling memory, storage, and production capacity for AI datacentres that will never be built will end, and these systems can be enhanced with the parts needed to make the most of them.

The other elephant in the room remains UGOS. It is a capable operating system with a clean interface and a sensible setup flow, but the app ecosystem is shallow compared with what Synology and QNAP have built over many years. Missing features like iSCSI LUN snapshots and a surveillance application are genuine gaps for some buyers.

I know a surveillance app is being developed, so that one bugbear might soon be eliminated.

Given how far this OS has come since its work-in-progress launch, I’m confident that all the features people want will be added eventually. But unlike most competitor NAS, Ugreen have no issue with you installing TrueNAS on their hardware without invalidating the hardware warranty, should you want some of those features today.

The difference between this open, flexible approach and Synology’s absolute control-freakery is striking, and it’s undoubtedly driving market share toward Ugreen.

Also, for the right user, though, software limitations are perfectly manageable or even circumventable. If you need Docker, virtual machines, media serving and solid file storage performance in a well-built four-bay chassis with excellent 10GbE throughput, the DXP4800 Pro delivers all of that and more. Ugreen is improving UGOS with every update, and the hardware they have built around it gives the platform room to grow. The Pro is a compelling NAS that builds on the Plus version in a highly logical way.

Ugreen barrelled into the NAS market roughly two years ago like a bull in a china shop, and now has a reputation for exceptional hardware that’s priced competitively. And, nothing about the DXP4800 Pro suggests a misstep in their grand plan to dominate the SOHO NAS market in short order.

Should you buy a Ugreen DXP4800 Pro?

Value

More bang for the buck

4 / 5

Design

A good design largely unchanged

4 / 5

Features

Four bays and dual M.2 in a solid package

4.5 / 5

Software

Rapidly improving OS

3.5 / 5

Performance

10GbE and 2.5GbE LAN and plenty of power

4 / 5

Overall

Better than the Plus in many ways

4 / 5

Buy it if...

You want something flexible
Four drive bays have enough capacity to hold plenty of data, and the 10GbE and 2.5GbE LAN ports can distribute it effectively. While ARM processors are more power efficient, the Core i3 CPU in here can use Virtual Machines, making it great for code development.

You need transcoding
One improvement that the new silicon brought to the Pro from the Plus is AV1 hardware transcoding, making this model much more useful as a media distribution server.

Don't buy it if...

You want Thunderbolt
The next rung on the Ugreen NAS ladder is the DXP6800 Pro, and that comes with Thunderbolt ports that you can use for even faster networking or attaching even more storage. If you want Thunderbolt ports or PCIe expansion, then the DXP4800 Pro isn’t for you.

You want minimal power consumption
Ugreen makes a basic four-bay NAS, the DH4300, that consumes 22.89W when drive access is occurring and 7.23W during drive hibernation. The DXP4800 Pro uses 42.36 W when active and 18.12 W during hibernation. Therefore, the running cost in electricity for the DXP4800 Pro is almost double, and that also generates more heat.View Deal

For more storage solutions we've tested the best NAS hard drives around

The Ugreen DXP4800 Pro is a sophisticated four-bay NAS at a price that makes sense for both home and small business users.