Pros: Amazingly functional for the price, power consumption, and footprint. What I love most is that it looks and acts almost exactly like any Ubuntu box on my network. All of the packages are there, and everything pretty much just works (the main exception being some of the harware packages, like lm_sensors). Unless you try to run a bunch of desktop/GUI apps on it (web browsers, etc.), you can get away with just thinking of it as just another Linux box. This thing only burns 2-3 Watts, making it far more efficient than any NAS or even most WiFi routers. You can really afford to leave it on 24/7 without a second thought.

Cons: The only major difference between this and a mainstream PC is that it really is a bit slow. Worse than the CPU speed is actually the I/O performance. Both the SD card or USB seem to top out somewhere around 16-18 MB/sec, and the bottleneck is definitely not the flash memory, which I benchmarked on another system. The RAM size also becomes a significant limitation, if you start trying to use it like a desktop or build large software packages on it. I configured swap, just in case, but I think I'd be pretty sad if it were swapping on any kind of regular basis. I hope they put more RAM, USB3, and a mSATA connector on its successor.

Overall Review: I've had a Pi running Raspbian for about 3-4 months, and it's worked flawlessly. I use it for automated internet radio recording, and I'm about to setup automated HD broadcast recording. I'm also planning to use it to serve up my music collection for in-home streaming to my various devices. It would be great for home automation, too. Note that I've never used its video outputs, so I can't comment on any aspects related to its graphics performance, etc. I log into it using ssh - even for the initial setup.

Comments: http://www.realtek.com.tw The shipping drivers are junk. This product has been out nearly a year, and Netgear had no newer ones on their website! I had to download the RTL8169/8110 drivers from Realtek's site, before I could even get the card to work. The problem I had with the shipping drivers is that the card kept switching to different speeds (even though the 1000mbps led on the card was solid). I tried 2 different cat 5e cables, and different ports on a known-good switch. Disabling auto-negotiation caused the card to go catatonic, unless I set it to 10mbps. Once I upgraded to the Realtek drivers, all of those problems magically disappeared and it's been running stably, at 1gbps, for weeks. However, the reason I'm rating this only 3 stars is because the card runs HOT (can't touch it, after ejecting it), I can't get more than 200mbps (even when a large file is 100% in cache and I'm sending to a server capable of much more than that), and it maxes out my CPU (1.4 GHz Pentium M - though this could be more the fault of my cardbus driver or chipset). Also, it has jumbo frame support, but only to 3 KB MTU (in spite of the fact that the drivers list options up to 7 KB). Still, it's a pretty good deal - particularly given Newegg's awesome prices!

Pros: * Has mounting holes compatible with those of a 120 mm fan. * Relatively quiet.

Cons: * Obsolete. * Not really 150 mm, as the name implies. It's really just a 140 mm fan.

Overall Review: If you have something like a heatsink with holes spaced for a 120 mm fan, you could probably use this. However you should get the NF-A14x25r G2, instead of this one. The specs on that are exactly the same as their NF-A14x25 G2 with the square frame, which is one of the better 140 mm fans out there (and the best for noise-sensitive applications).

Cons: * Couldn't even write 4 GB worth of data to the drive without it failing.

Overall Review: I bought 4 of these drives (this single-pack and a 3-pack), separated by a few months, and only one of the drives in the 3-pack actually worked. All of the others were DoA. After that experience, I switched to Samsung BAR Plus. Much more expensive, but they actually work.

Pros: * Provides cooling for your VRM and a little bit of memory cooling, which is why I still use down-draft coolers. * Relatively quiet fan. * Sufficient for i5/R5 X/K-tier CPUs. Great for anything with a 65 W TDP. * Flexible mounting options for different orientations - important for some server boards! * Fit and finish on the product are top notch. * Packaging and instructions are well-thought out.

Cons: * Overdue for a design update to cope with higher-end CPUs. * Still includes old (G1) 140 mm fan. * No offset mount for those running only the P-cores on Raptor Lake.

Overall Review: I haven't quite dialed it in, but my testing so far suggests it can sustain about 150 W. I did replace the fan with a G2 and got a couple degrees of improvement. Note that the black NF-A14 G2 fans are now available! I also used Arctic MX-7, rather than the included paste. Note that some server boards have sockets that are rotated 90 degrees from how most desktops are setup. This is where such a top-down cooler can really shine. In general, you should orient it so that the heat pipes run perpendicular to the long axis of Intel CPUs. On AMD CPUs, look at how the chiplets are arranged and get as many heat pipes to intersect with them as possible.

Pros: When you open the package, the build quality is immediately apparent. I have a pair of $150 Audio Technica headphones I quite like, but they're made mostly of plastic that warps over time and gets creaky. These use much more metal and feel precision engineered like a good pair of eye glasses. I've already worn them for about 6 hours, yesterday. Not continuously, but they seemed non-fatiguing to wear. Definitely one of the more comfortable headphones I've owned (and have/had top models from Sennheiser, Sony, Beyerdynamic, AKG, Grado, etc.), though the clamping force is rather tight due to the need to create a good seal. The noise cancellation is excellent. When they seal, it's like the air conditioner was switched off. With no music playing, voices drop maybe 10 dB, which is still loud enough that you can clearly hear them, although they sound a bit thin and metallic - like you're listening over an analog phone or something.

Cons: Perhaps you noticed the collection of industry leading headphones I've had, over the years? Plugged into many good quality sources, DACs, AMPs, etc. So far, I've only heard music on these with the wired connection. It's detailed, yet somehow unnatural. I have difficulty describing it, but I'll see if I can update after listening to more material. This is my first Bose product, and they have something of a reputation (in my book) for sounding unnatural. I'm not deducting an egg, because I honestly didn't get them for music. I just needed a better option for shutting out noise than earplugs. These do the trick, and seem like they could endure several years of daily usage. If so, I'd say they're worth the money.

Overall Review: I plan to get some binaural recordings to play on these. Nature sounds, mostly. Note that they don't support lossless audio compression over Bluetooth. If you use a USB Bluetooth dongle, I've heard it recommended to avoid using USB 3.0 jacks, because USB 3 interferes with the Bluetooth RF spectrum.