NanoPi R28S Puts Dual GbE and Wi-Fi 6 in a $20 SBC

A Router You Could Lose in a Drawer

FriendlyELEC has introduced the NanoPi R28S, and the dimensions are the first thing worth reporting: 49.5 x 49.5 x 24 mm in its CNC-milled metal case. That is a two-inch cube with two gigabit Ethernet ports, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.3, built around Rockchip's RK3528A. The bare board is $20; the cased router is $29.

• $20 for the bare SBC, $29 with a CNC-milled metal case, measuring 49.5 x 49.5 x 24 mm
• Rockchip RK3528A with 1GB LPDDR4, dual gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3
• Storage via microSD plus an eMMC module socket, so the eMMC is a fitted option rather than a soldered decision
• FriendlyELEC's first USB-C console port — USB-C handles power, eMMC firmware flashing, and serial debugging; there is no data USB port and no GPIO header

Why the USB-C Console Port Is the Real News

For anyone who has worked with these boards, the serial console has been a recurring small indignity: a USB-to-TTL adapter, three jumper wires, and a header you hope you have identified correctly. It works, and it is annoying every single time, and it is the exact step that turns a five-minute recovery into a twenty-minute hunt through a parts drawer.

Putting the console on USB-C means a laptop cable gets you to a shell. On a board whose entire purpose is networking — where the most likely reason you need console access is that the network configuration you just applied cut you off — that convenience is not cosmetic. It is the difference between fixing a mistake and reflashing.

What Are You Giving Up at This Size?

Real things, and FriendlyELEC has been clear about them. There is no USB data port and no GPIO header. That rules the R28S out as a general-purpose maker board — you cannot hang a USB drive off it for a small NAS, and you cannot wire sensors to it.

Read that as focus rather than omission. The R28S is built for firewalls, soft routers, and IoT gateway duty, and those roles need Ethernet, wireless, and a stable console far more than they need expansion. Trading the header for the size is a defensible call for a device that is going to sit behind a modem for three years without anyone touching it. Anyone who does want GPIO and USB from the same silicon already has the NanoPi NEO3 Plus family and similar boards to choose from.

Is 1GB of RAM Enough for a Router?

For its intended workloads, comfortably. OpenWrt-class routing, firewalling, and NAT on a gigabit link are not memory-hungry tasks, and the RK3528A is a familiar quad-core Cortex-A53 part with well-established support in FriendlyELEC's FriendlyWrt images.

Where 1GB starts to bind is anything beyond routing — container workloads, ad-blocking DNS with a large blocklist plus logging, or a VPN concentrator with many peers. The honest framing is that this is a networking appliance with a Linux userspace attached, not a small server, and buying it as the latter will disappoint. For the price of two takeaway coffees, it is an unusually complete networking appliance.

Where It Sits in the Current Crop

The under-$30 networked-board segment has gotten genuinely good this year. Our mini computer coverage recently looked at the Waveshare RP2350 board adding Ethernet and PoE for $14 and the LILYGO T-Display C5 with Wi-Fi 6 and battery for $12, though both are microcontroller-class parts. The R28S is the Linux-capable option in that price band, which is a different tool for a different job.

Wi-Fi 6 at this price point is the specification that would have looked out of place a year ago. That it is now unremarkable on a $29 device tells you how quickly the floor has moved.

Sources: CNX Software — July 31, 2026; FriendlyELEC — July 2026.