FriendlyELEC's NanoPi NEO3 Plus Packs Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 Into a 48mm SBC for Just $24

Tiny Board, Big Upgrade

FriendlyELEC has quietly released the NanoPi NEO3 Plus, and it might be the most compelling sub-$25 headless SBC on the market right now. At just 48 x 48mm — roughly the size of a large postage stamp — this board packs a quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC clocked at 2.0 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.2 Gen 1, and a 26-pin GPIO header into a package that weighs about 20 grams.

The NEO3 Plus is powered by the Rockchip RK3528A, which upgrades the clock speed from the original NEO3's 1.5 GHz to 2.0 GHz — a meaningful bump for a headless server that spends most of its time handling network traffic and running lightweight containers. It ships with 1GB of LPDDR4 RAM, which is sufficient for most headless use cases like DNS servers, VPN endpoints, home automation hubs, or lightweight NAS controllers.

What's New Over the Original NEO3

The "Plus" suffix earns its keep with several practical additions. There's now a socket for an optional eMMC flash module (64GB for $23 or 256GB for $61), which eliminates the microSD card as a single point of failure for always-on deployments. An RTC battery connector means the board can keep accurate time through power cycles without NTP — important for logging and scheduled tasks. A MASK button simplifies firmware updates, and the board ships in a sleek black metal case (sold separately for $8) instead of the original's white plastic housing.

Software support is impressively current: FriendlyELEC provides ready-to-flash images for Debian 13 Core, Ubuntu Core 24.04, OpenMediaVault (NAS), Proxmox VE (virtualization), and FriendlyWrt 24.10/23.05 (OpenWrt fork), all running Linux 6.1 LTS.

Where the NEO3 Plus Shines

At $24 for the bare board, the NEO3 Plus occupies a sweet spot that the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W can't quite reach — it has Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 that the Zero lacks, while costing less than a Pi 4. For homelab builders who need a dedicated device for Pi-hole, WireGuard, or a lightweight Docker host, the NEO3 Plus delivers everything you need without anything you don't.

The combination of eMMC support, RTC, Gigabit Ethernet, and Proxmox VE compatibility makes this a surprisingly capable platform for edge deployments where reliability matters more than raw performance.

Sources: CNX Software (March 4, 2026), NotebookCheck (March 2026), FriendlyELEC Wiki (March 2026)