It’s that time of year… CNX Software giveaway week! For the 9th edition, we’ll have seven items to give away, five that I will send myself, and two that will be sent directly from two companies that accepted to add their own products to the giveaway.
We’ll start the giveaway with NanoPi R5S router based on Rockchip RK3568 SoC with 2 GB DDR4 RAM, 8GB eMMC flash plus an M.2 socket for NVMe SSD, two 2.5GbE Ethernet ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port, as well as HDMI 2.0 video output and two USB 3.0 ports.
I reviewed the NanoPi R5S router with OpenWrt and Ubuntu 20.04 “FriendlyCore”, but I had to call this a “preview” since 2.5GbE was far from optimal, sometimes only a little faster than with a Gigabit Ethernet link. But I can see the company has released new images, including one based on the latest OpenWrt 22.03, so hopefully the performance has improved. Debian with desktop and Android 12 images are now available as well so the HDMI port has become more useful.
At the time of the review, I also tested an M.2 NVMe SSD on the board/router. It could reach about 380MB/s read and write speeds which may seem low, but the values are expected since the router relies on a PCIe 2.0 x1 interface.
The giveaway includes the router fully assembled. So you’ll just need a 5V/3A USB power adapter if you want to boot the pre-installed OS.
To enter the draw simply leave a comment with your country and whatever else you’d like to say (no links in the body of the comment). If the country is missing, I’ll consider the entry void. Other rules are as follows:
- Only one entry per contest. I will filter out entries with the same IP and/or email address.
- Contests are open for 48 hours starting at 10 am (Bangkok time) every day.
- Comments will be closed after 48 hours. If comments are open, the contest is still going on.
- Winners will be selected with random.org, and announced in the comments section of each giveaway.
- I’ll contact the winner by email, and I’ll expect an answer within 24 hours, or I’ll pick another winner.
- Note that I may not be able to contact people who log in with Facebook, Twitter, or Google, so it’s better to use an email address to enter the draw.
- Shipping
- $18 for registered airmail small packet or ePacket for overseas shipping payable via PayPal within 48 hours once the contest (for a given product) is complete.
- If Paypal is not available in your country, you can still play, and I’ll cover the cost of sending the parcel by Sea and Land (SAL) without registration if you win.
- I’ll post all prizes at the same time, around the 16th of November, except for products shipped directly by companies which will be handled separately.
- I’ll make sure we have 7 different winners, so if you have already won a device during this giveaway week, I’ll draw another person.
Good luck!
If you don’t win and you’d like to buy the NanoPi R5S gateway with the metal case, you can do so on the FriendlyELEC store, Amazon or Aliexpress for $75 and up.

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
OK… That was fun with 757 entries. That’s a record on CNX Software by a wide margin.
Let’s ask Mr. Random… who picks number… 730
That would be irnis. Congratulations! I’ll contact you by email.There were some unfortunate issues related to shipping with the first winner, so I had to draw another contestant.
Random.org selected #114 that would be Ingmar. Congratulations!
Greetings from Canada! ๐
Make My Day! ๐๐
USA
Old geeks still love new tech!
Greetings from the UK. Enjoy your articles and I love to tinker with new tech and gadgets.
Canada! Wouldn’t mind experimenting with this box.
Thatโd be neat.
United States, and I love reading the reviews and articles you post of various SBCs!
Olivier, France.
Thanks for the nice gesture !
I’ve switched my elderly mom to an Android desktop instead of Windows, that way all her devices look and work the same. But it’s hard to find Core A7x TV boxes. She’s currently on an A72 H96Max, but that’s Android 6 and the last update forced the Launcher to Android TV, which is bad. I’m planning to get her better hardware w/ more recent Android, as soon as I find a good+affordable device… looks like it’s going to be a dev board, not a TV box.
Hello from Singapore.
United States
Woohoo rk3568 go hummmmmm
Hi, David here in the USA. Thanks for the opportunity!
Thank you for the Giveaway Week
Greeting from Taiwan!
Denmark: Love CNX Software! Keep us updated on the good stuff!
Hello from Kingdom of Bahrain.
I enjoy reading cnx articles.
Keep up the good work.
Way Hay…… UK
Tom from Hong Kong
Good evening from the USA
Hong Kong, and I can’t believe it’s been another year already
Vietnam. I look forward to more technical articles.
Would love to own this cool gear ๐
Singapore
Denmark
Hello from Vietnam!
Hello from Vietnam
Hi from Germany and thanks for all the news!
Greetings from Canada!
It seem great. Taiwan, Taipei
Canada
Since it is a router, what use would be NVMe SSD?
Hello from Malaysia
Indonesia
Korea
I am always interested in watching CNX news.
Hi from Russia.
Thanks for giveaway. RK3568 is interesting SoC, I would like to test it for my purposes)
India….Nice work as always!!
Hi from United States, hope to win the Pi.
Russia.
Thanks for opportunity.
Greetings from the US!
Thank cnx. VietNam
Hello from Vietnam. ^^
Would love one of these units! United States of America.
Gizme from Taiwan.
I’ve bought several NanoPi Neo products from FriendlyElec. They are solid built and well supported. I am sure the R5S could be the best choice for my home router. Hope this is my day.
I just recently got 1000/1000 fiber connection installed in my apartment so this would be perfect.
Sweden!
USA! Been relying on you to keep me updated on the latest new devices! ^_^
All hopes from France !
Hello from India โค๏ธ
Turkiye’den selamlar ๐โโ๏ธ
Slovenia. Hello!
Germany
I tested the NanoPi r4s, despite of a little issue on the management of MTU and VLAN tagged packeds on the WAN port, this little box was awesome to replace the router provided by my FRENCH fiber ISP.
looking forward for the NanoPi r5s capabilities.
Hi from Vietnam, hope i can use this board to replace my old router.
Hello from Luxembourg ๐
Hello from Finland!
Yet, another Canadian Eh. Looks like something I could enjoy putting to use.
Hello from Sweden. A 2.5 GbE router would be great!
Dav, hi! from France
Nice opportunity…
Hello from the United States
That R5S looks like a nice router! Greetings from USA!
Hello from France.
Hello from Perรบ! I am developing parental controls based on openwrt. Si this nano pi might be a great prototyping platform <3
Poland
Japan
It is exciting to see 2.5Gbe filtering down into more and more things.
Singapore!
Would make a great replacement for my current Intel J1900 based router/server.
Vanakkam from India! cnx-software is my daily dose of Embedded news.
Bisous de France
Hi from Germany
Sweden !
Hello from Sweden!
Hello from Brazil
France! Merci pour ton site
Yes, please, South Africa
Poland! ๐ต๐ฑ
Kind regards.
๐
Romania
Hello from Ukraine
Nice SBC, I’ll be happy to play with it!
Hello from Germany
The Netherlands, thx for the giveaway!
Hi from Australia. Sold my R2S and regret it ever since.
France! And thank you for all of this ๐
United States
Does it run mainline Linux too?
Bonjour de France
Pick me, pick me!
Hello from Germany. Very cool.
HUngary ๐
From Vietnam, I love cnx-software. I like this board!!!!
Hola from Spain ๐ช๐ฆ
USA. Interesting product.
Hi there from India, I wonder how this would compete with the solid-run cubox that I had a few years ago? After that broke I have not used any ARM box for more than 5 years.
Hello from France !
Thanks from Seville, Spain.
Hello from Turkey
Greetings from France !
Hungary. Need to replace my router. ๐
Greetings from Belgium.
That would be a good addition to the different types of SBC I have.
Best regards
Another entry here from Finland.
I never win anything, so I expect not to win anything in this one, either, but oh well, I guess I won’t lose anything either by joining the rowdy crowd of needy nerds!
Hi from Germany
Greetings from Singapore.
Belgium
austria.
thanks!
UK.
The Android image certainly adds to it’s versatility.
Netherlands
Greetings
Poland here. It would be great to win that SBC!
Greeting from Israel.
Portugal
I ported the R4S to Talos and plan on doing the same for the R5S, if only I had one here in Germany.
Greetings from Germany. Like to read news from CNXSoft as I get info on devices I otherwise would not have found. Thanks!
Greetings from Czechia!
From Russia with hope.
maybe this year is my lucky one !
Romania
Hey, Poland here!
Iโm in for the giveaway from Australia ๐
Germany here.
Thanks for your work. I enjoy reading cnx-software daily.
Greetings !
Salut din Romania !
Hello from Bulgaria
Haithem, Libya.
I enjoy reading your articles/reviews. Keep up.
Hello from Indonesia
Greetings from the UK
Hello from Germany!
Italy! Would really like to try it.
Hola from Spain!
Greetings from Belgium, the land of the waffles. Enjoyed the reviews so far, would be great to give it a run, potentially with a reverse proxy and a home assistant (and some other containers)!
Hello from Lithuania!
Korea
I want to play with a fun board
+1 Gratings from Poland.
Michal from Poland here ๐ best regards
The Netherlands
Another great year of blogging!
Thanks for all the information the past year!
Thank you from Italy
France ๐ Xing fingers ๐ค๐ป
greeting from romania
The Netherlands!
Greetings from Germany.
Hungary. CNX-Software is my go-to tech site. Thanks for all your hard work.
oh I’ll post from all my vpn IPs now – really want that !
:)) joking – George from France
Poland
Serbia
The best time of the year!
Greetings from The Netherlands!
Greetings from Italy and congratulations for this great blog!
Sweden, the weather here sucks. Give me some hardware “sunshine” ๐
Poland
Greetings from Lithuania!
Let it come to Germany! ๐
Thank you Jean-Luc for running the giveaway!
Netherlands ๐
Servus from Germany and thanks for all the hard work!
I want it ๐
Serbia
<3 from italy
Israel
Hello from Greece!! ๐ฌ๐ท Great giveaway!
Greetings from Lithuania!
As always, greetings from Romania. I may be the second one here, but there are a lot more Romanians reading your website.
Thank you for the Giveaway Week
Switzerland. This is such a nice little box for router, NAS or small server experimentation.
Hi from France and thanks for your reviews.
Estonia! R5S Would be really good upgrade for my current router.
Indonesia
Poland.
Georgia, hello ๐
Hi from Turkey to the GiveAway-Contest/Week ๐
Hello from Northern Ireland! Looks like an awesome wee device
hungary
Germany-based here
Thanks for your great (p)reviews and tips over the years! Just trying my luck this time around.
Hello from Sweden!
united kingdom
I’d love to win a little router ๐
Szabi
Pete; Australia.
Australia
Hi from France !
I’m reading this awesome blog every days ! For years now !
Hello from Germany!
Spain. Thank you for this initiative, this blog is one of my favorites that read every day!
Thanks from Pakistan.
Witam! Poland
Greetings From Serbia
United States, thanks for the opportunity
USA
Israel.
Keep up the good work !
Why not ..would like to have this..from India…
Hi from the UK! I love the SBCs from FriendlyELEC, they make some really great kit
Scotland (UK)! I love my R2S and this would be a lovely upgrade ๐
Germany! Great work, keep it up!
Greetings! ๐
germany ๐
Finland
Greetings from Germany!
This post is from the Netherlands. Would love to win! ๐
I’m in the U.S.A. and would love to try this in place of my current router
Switzerland
Colombia here ๐ … Trying ๐ค… Thanks for the giveaway!
hello im from indonesia
Israel
Thanks!
Poland
Greetings from Slovenia! Me, me!
Greetings from Singapore!
Been eyeing this one for micro home labbing.
The best, from Portugal!
Thank you for the opportunity.
United States! I love reading about all the cool tech via this site
Would be interesting to play around with in Sweden.
Hi from Philippines!
Poland, it really improve my local network and I will test own docker builds!
Hi! from Indonesia.
Germany. I’d Love to Play around with a NanoPi Router Board!
Greece
Poland. Nice to win this prize.
Greetings from Belarus!
Could really use a router SBC right now. (=
thx Switzerland
Cheers from the USA!
I would be keen to tinker with this router board in the homelabโฆ.
Thanks for your generous contest!!
โ Mike R.
I live in United States, Colorado, Boulder. As an embedded developer I would love to get my hands dirty on this board.
Thanks
Hi from Japan.
I built a router with a NanoPi NEO3 and a USB NIC, but the ManoPi R5S looks much better than that.
Greeting from Hungary!
Romania – cheers and thanks for reviews
Latvia
Good luck for all! ๐
Hello from Poland!
USA ๐บ๐ธ would like one fan of raspberries choose me
Thanks
Hello from Poland
I would love to add this device to https://github.com/warpme/minimyth2
Germany
Would be awesome to experiment with the r5s.
Greeting from Singapore, Would like to try this as as small vpn server when I travel out of Singapore..
Portugal. Keep up the good work.
Thanks from Australia!
From Sweden; Hello World
Hello from Germany
United States
Love learning about all the new gear you cover.
Thank you.
No whammies!!
Hello from united states.