"Wow" moments in games?


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Walking out of the sewer in Oblivion, and thinking: "****, where do I go now?"

Thinking the exact same thing after the intro in GTA3.

Getting the ugly zombie cutscene towards the beginning of Resident Evil.

First time playing Final Fantasy VIII, seeing the CGI.

Agree with everyone who talked about HL2. Simply so many great moments (tho I haven't played Ep2 yet).

Playing Silent Hill 1 @ 3am in a very dark and old house :)

A few off the top of my head are: The ending of COD4, you just get so attached to the characters, it was an insane ending.

The ending of HL2:ep2, WOW

Ending of portal

Most WW2 games do a great job immersing you into those battles, just get a good headset, crank the volume, and step into an Omaha beach level in COD or MOH, amazing.

Normandy beach in Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault.
Omaha beach on Call of Duty i think it was.

Amazing, especially on hard.

That, and Stalingrad...

Any of those Normandy ones were just crazy. I had just watched "Enemy at the Gates" in a social studies class and then played COD2...That boat crossing scene was near identical it scared the crap out of me.

Playing Bioshock for the first time... More specific the intro to it...

I would have to agree. It was like you were stepping into a whole other universe and there was so much detail everywhere!

I just took my quotes off the first page because I need to go to bed soon, but those examples above were some of the ones that stuck out for me. The ending of HL2 had me going because I had gotten attached so much to the story. Bethesda also has a pretty good lock on initial "wow" moments near the start of their games as well.

Out of all the CoD4 comments, I'm surprised no one mentioned the entire sniper level. Actually the entire two sniper level. Lets recount shall we?

At the very beginning, when your eyes are just adjusting and your partner pops randomly out of the grass. Wtf?

When you had to crawl past a million soldiers and their tanks. It just got nerve wracking when you had to actually do it. But there was one moment when you JUST saw the patrols appear from the horizon and your commander tells you to let them pass. At first your like ok w/e until you realize just exactly what he was asking you to do. That was wow.

Right after that. Run across the street! What? There are some big trucks? Crawl under and hide! Wow.

Take your target out. Oh btw watch for wind and the rotation of the earth. The scope of that challenge when you first heart it. Wow

Watching your bullet actually friggin curve. Wow

Taking out the helicopter pilot to buy extra time. Wow.

Repelling off a building as it explodes...uhhh Wow.

Taking out the second helicopter and watching your commander getting s** faced and for 5 horrible seconds thinking your gonna get s*** faced too. Wow.

Had to carry your commander around. Wow (annoying :p)

We will be here in 10 minutes just hold off the entire army of whatever country you were in? uhh yeah. Wow.

I'm sorry. I think I'm just gonna go and replay those two levels now....

Zone of the Enders 2. The huge battle just before you enter the game's final stretch (Fortress of Aumaan). I've never seen that much insane sh*t going on all at once in a game. I'm generally less than impressed with Hideo Kojima as a game designer, but goddamn, he gets full credit for unleashing a can of whoopass for that scene. It was the most intense, balls-to-the-wall sequence I'd ever played when I saw it and even now, some 7 years after the game's release, I'm still impressed beyond belief.

NeoXY, I think the initial wow moment when you realize what you have to do was pretty cool. The feeling quickly left me though when I was crawling underneath the trucks etc. because it seemed so unrealistic that nobody would see you. Seriously with the truck that high off the ground and camo against concrete just seems pretty obvious, but oh well. :p

MechWarrior 3 (PC): I was playing a random mission and I decided to fly past this bridge in my mech. When I reached the other side, I used my boosters to fly as high as I could making sure I made the best of every boost I had. I timed everything so perfectly and pretty much hit an imaginary ceiling in the sky. To my surprise, I plummeted back to the ground so quickly that I actually went through it and ended up in some secret bunker. I literally yelled "Woooooooooooow!". My friend was with me and I think he nearly fainted.

Spyhunter (PS2): The first PS2 game I ever played. I remember how eager I was to set up my PS2 and play it. At the very beginning, there's some training level you have to do (I think). I was driving around in the tricked out car and I went over this ramp. As I was flying through the air, I noticed that the road ended. Instead... there was water. I was like "Awww man.. I'm gonna crash now". Instead of crashing, the car did some crazy transformation midair and changed into a water vehicle mode. It definitely made me say "Wow".

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (PC): This is perhaps the best PC game I've ever played. It's a real-time tactics and space combat simulator. Every mission just pulled me into the game more and more. The graphics were the best in its class. I've been playing it since '06 and I just recently beat it. Everything was just perfect - the story, missions, and graphics. Wow. Just wow. I'm having a hard time explaining how good the game is. It's just ... too good for words to describe. Try it out for yourself. You can buy it on STEAM for $9.99 (click here). This is the kinda game for Homeworld fans.

I'm running short on time but I'll be back to post some more.

Watching the moment you arrive at the bridge in Hyrule and the camera pans back to show you just what Nintendo are trying to create with each new console. That bridge, for a Zelda game is huge!

Also the end sequence when you finish the game and realise what happens with the Twilight Princess, was very sweet.

When you first arrive onto Hyrule field in Ocarina of Time, wow, it's big.

Metal Gear Solid (PS1) when you finally finish the game and listen for the audio sequence right at the end.

+1 for the scene when you first played Tomb Raider on the PS1 and you step out into the Lost Valley and see the T-Rex for the first time. Crapped and pants was my reaction. Plus when you first step out into the room with all the Gods challenges (can't remember their names right now), looking down made me feel like I was sitting really high myself!

CoD4 and Chernobyl. That level is amazing with the stealth and sniping sections being the most exciting and tense I've played in a game in a long, long time.

Umm i have a few, when you first come out of vault 101 in Fallout 3 and see the landscape made me go wow. As did HL 2 when i first opened that up. Also, when i was driving really fast in GTA4, i miss judged the off ramp and hit that at an angle which made Niko go flying through the windshield, that made me go wow.

CS: Playing on "de_inferno" in a local tournament's semi-final game. The result was 15-12 for our team. We were winning the last round (the game ends when a team reaches 16 rounds) and all of a sudden, a guy from the opposite team knifed 3 of our guys. We were like... :omg: And they got banned. :laugh:

Seeing Shadow of the Colossus gameplay. Amazing.

For some reason, seeing the seagulls and just being on the ship on Metal Gear Solid 2. That really impressed me how they did that.

The areas on WoW make me say WOW. So detailed and intricately done. The caves, forests, trails. It may be addictive but damn does it look good.

The Boss vs Big Boss final battle and the entire ending - Metal Gear Solid 3

Final Fantasy VII's Flashbacks

When you discover Dr Polito has been dead all the time - System Shock 2

The entire Half - Life 2 experience, but specially the ending of Episode 2

The first time you fight pyramid head - Silent Hill 2

The first time you play Max Payne (That feeling carry on over the second game too)

The entire Deus Ex game

Mass Effect's final hour of gameplay + ending

When the AI glitches on Metal Gear Solid 2, letting you know the true intentions of your superiors.

The first time you hear a Howler in Clive Barker's Undying

Im sure I will remember more later.

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    • TerraMaster F4-425 Pro review: an octa-core Intel NAS that ships with AI (OpenClaw) by Steven Parker It has been a while since I reviewed a TerraMaster NAS, but the company reached out to me asking if I was willing to test the F4-425 Pro, which goes on sale today. It is an upgrade on the F4-425 Plus, which I reviewed back in October 2025 What you need to know is that it basically follows the design principles of the four-bay F4-425 series, with its all-metal exterior. Here are the most important specifications: TerraMaster F4-425 Pro CPU Intel Core N350 (8x E Cores/Threads, Max burst up to 3.9 GHz) Intel Core N305 (4x E Cores/Threads, Max burst up to 3.8 GHz) TDP: 7W / 9W (Base) Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 32 EUs (1.35 GHz) Intel UHD Graphics 24 EUs (1.25 GHz) Memory 1x slot 16 GB DDR5 4800MT/s non ECC SODIMM (Max 32 GB) 1x slot 8 GB DDR5 4800MT/s non ECC SODIMM (Max 32 GB) Disk Capacity 120 TB (30 TB x 4) Supported RAID Types TRAID, TRAID +, RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, RAID 6, RAID 10 Network 2x RJ-45 5 GbE Internal storage 3x M.2 2280 NVMe Slot (PCIe 3.0 x1) Bootloader 2Gbit 256 GB NAND Flash card (MX30LF2G28AD) USB port (internal) USB Ports 1x Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) 3x Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) HDMI 1x (HDMI) Hardware Transcoding Engine H.264, H.265, MPEG-4, VC-1 Maximum resolution: 4K (4096 x 2160); Maximum FPS: 60 Size (H/W/D) 219 x 181 x 150 mm Weight 2.9 kg System Fan 150 x181 x 219 mm Power 90W, 100V - 240V AC, 50/60 Hz, Single frequency Power consumption (HDDs) 45W (4x 4TB ST4000VN008 in read/write state) 14W (4x 4TB ST4000VN008 in hibernation) Noise Level: 20.9 dB(A) Using 4 SATA HDDs/SSDs in standby mode; Test environment noise: 17.3dB(A); Test distance: 1m Warranty 2 Years OS TOS 7.0.0706 (Beta) MSRP £639.99, $699.99, €739.99 / £739.99, $799.99, €839.99 As you can see above, there are two variants of the F4-425 Pro releasing today. The lesser variant has the slightly weaker N305 CPU and iGP, and 8 GB less RAM, although it also costs $100 less than the top variant we are testing today. In addition, these new F4-425 Pros are shipped with the as-yet-unreleased TOS 7 beta. So what is TOS 7 exactly? During the device initialization, you are warned not to use it in a production environment, which we'll get into later. My contact told me that TOS 7 exits beta today, June 23 with version 7.0.0746. The clear difference with the F4-425 Plus is that it contains the more powerful N350 Intel CPU released in the first quarter of 2025, with support for DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, LPDDR5 (4800), DDR5 and DDR4, and a max TDP of just 7W. It also supports AV1 decoding, as well as H.264, VP8, VP9, H.265 (8 bit), and H.265 (10 bit). The different capabilities in the Alder Lake-N (and Twin Lake) series are listed below. Processor E-cores L3-cache Turbo clock GPU GPU-clock TDP Intel N355 8 6 MB 3.9 GHz 32 EUs 1.35 GHz 9 W Intel Core 3 N350 3.9 GHz 1.35 GHz 7 W Intel Core i3-N305 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 9 W Intel Core i3-N300 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz Intel N250 4 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 6 W Intel Processor N200 3.7 GHz 0.75 GHz Intel N150 3.6 GHz 24 EUs 1 GHz Intel N97 1.2 GHz 12 W Intel Processor N100 3.4 GHz 0.75 GHz 6 W The CPU is part of the Alder Lake-N series that sits just below the top N355 offering, albeit with an impressive TDP (less than the N355 and N305) for the features it offers. It is designed for low- powered systems and entry-level laptops. As before, we are seeing another NAS with an acceptable, if not great, amount of RAM. It should be noted that the F4-425 Pro only has one SODIMM slot, so if you are planning to upgrade the already 16GB included in this NAS, it will have to be on one module of Single Rank DDR5. As a reminder, up until a couple of years ago, it was commonplace to only get 2 or 4GB max on a flagship Synology or QNAP home NAS. Ever since the likes of TerraMaster and more have entered the market with ample RAM sizes included in their NAS offerings, it has gone a long way in forcing the hands of the traditional makers to up their game a bit. Before we dive in, you can view the different SKUs released so far since the 2025 series launched for Home and SMB users, with the most important specifications listed along with the MSRP listed below: SKU CPU Cores Memory Link Price F2-425 Intel N5095 4 4 GB DDR4 2.5 GbE x1 $249.99 F4-425 Intel N5095 4 4 GB DDR4 2.5 GbE x1 $369.99 F2-425 Plus Intel Core N150 4 8 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $399.99 F4-425 Plus Intel Core N150 4 16 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $569.99 F4-425 Pro Intel Core N305 8 8 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $699.99 F4-425 Pro Intel Core N350 8 16 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $799.99 The F2 in the product name means two 3.5-inch HDD bays, where F4 is four 2.5-inch bays. First impressions Like with the F8 SSD Plus packaging, the F4-425 Pro is using the upgraded box materials, which certainly look better than a plain cream colored box with TERRAMASTER stamped on the sides. The box gives off a premium feel and certainly adds a positive vibe to first impressions. In the box F4-425 Pro TNAS device Power adapter LAN cable (CAT 6) Quick guide [full online guide] Limited warranty notice Screws (for HDD bays) Stickers 2x rubber feet (spares) Design As has become kind of common with TerraMaster, certainly in the last three years, the 2025 F2- and F4-series have received a makeover that really adds to the premium feel of the NAS. Gone are the plastic shells, now replaced with an aluminum outer shell, with the front and back retaining the textured black plastic we saw on the 2024 models. Some key differences from the 2024 series include placing the power button back on the front, along with the addition of a Type A USB port. It's not much bigger or heavier either; in fact, it weighs 500 grams less than the F4-424 Pro. It's slightly shorter in height and depth (length), but only by a few millimeters. The front and back do retain a similar style to the 2024 series. On the front, you just have your four bays along with LED indicators for the HDDs and power. The welcomed change is having a USB port on the front for quick access, should you need to back up a USB drive, for example. Around the back, from top to bottom, you have a reset pin hole, an HDMI port, two 5 GbE Ethernet ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type A ports with a Type-C port below them, and a connector for the barrel port power source. Again, there's no Kensington Security Slot present, which is a bit of a shame considering it's a data storage device. Left side Right side On the left and right of the F4-425 Plus, it is completely smooth aluminum with a TERRAMASTER logo printed on both sides. On the bottom, there are some holes to assist ventilation. Unlike with the F4-425 Plus, the rubber feet did come unstuck during the teardown, which was also an issue on the 2023 series. It seems like other customers have lodged complaints about them, as TerraMaster now includes two spare rubber feet in the box, in case any of the preinstalled ones are lost; however, this seems more like a papering over the cracks solution rather than actually fixing the issue with better quality rubber stand-offs. There are also four screws that must be removed in order to access the internals. Teardown Upon removing the four screws, you can slide the device out of its shell to reveal the three NVMe M.2 slots (PCIe 3.0 X1) and single SODIMM slot connector, which is populated with a single 16GB DDR5 4800MT/s module. I added a couple of MP44Q M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs (2 x 4TB) that can be availed on Amazon for $492.99 that TEAMGROUP supplied us with, along with a 250GB 970 Evo Plus that my colleague Chris White sent me by accident and let me keep a few years ago. As I have said in previous reviews, TerraMaster support staff actually encourage installing whatever you want on their devices, and happily, the USB port for the bootloader is now easily accessible should you want to use it for your own flavor of NAS OS, such as TrueNAS, Unraid, or maybe Xpenology. Yes, because TerraMaster has now switched to a 256 GB NAND Flash card (3rd photo above) for the TOS bootloader. This is also replaceable, but you can also simply add a USB bootloader, access the BIOS, and tell the F4-425 Pro to boot from that instead of the Flash card. Unlike earlier iterations of TerraMaster NAS, you don't have to tear this down any further than the four screws on the outer shell in order to be able to access and manage the memory, NVMe slots, and USB bootloader. However, if you need to access the NAND Flash card or CMOS battery, then eight more screws (four on each side) need to be removed in order to take off the rear panel with the 120mm fan, and then the motherboard can be lifted off and removed from the SATA connector PCB. There's also no risk of threading the screw holes, because the four that hold the shell in place are metal on metal, while the screws that hold the rear panel on do screw into plastic. Either way, like last time when I reviewed the F4-425 plus, I was just happier to see larger screws being used. Overall, it follows some great improvements in build quality from the 2024 series and earlier. Setup BIOS The F4-425 Pro includes an Aptio BIOS from American Megatrends [1, 2], and you can setup pretty much everything here including the boot order, which is locked to the UEFI OS, however above that choice you can enable or disable booting to the USB bootloader so this would still allow you to switch to a USB stick with an alternative bootloader and boot from it, or disable it to instead always start from the first disk with an OS installed on it. Initial Setup Setup is roughly the same as the F4-425 Plus, along with the new TOS 7 setup dialogs, so there will be no surprises here. Upon connecting to the LAN and booting up, the F4-425 Pro can be reached by navigating to http://tnas.local. If that doesn't work, you can use the local address assigned via DHCP, which you can find using the TNAS PC desktop application, which is essentially a TerraMaster NAS finder. The setup process is pretty straightforward, through a wizard, and in full below: TOS 7 Initialization As you can see, TOS 7 received a new coat of paint, and the initialization requires fewer interactions. Happily, TOS no longer decides to throw all disks into the same Storage Pool; 2.5-inch HDDs are allocated into Storage Pool 1. This is because two of the HDDs are allocated to hold system files. Previously (with TOS 5 and 6), if you pre-installed HDDs and SSDs, they were all placed into Storage Pool 1, even if you did not select the SSDs for inclusion during the onboarding. TOS 7 Setup On first boot, there is a tutorial and some steps to take to harden the TNAS (or not), which includes an immediate update from TOS 7.0.0616 to 7.0.0706, of which the changelog screenshot is also included in the above gallery. It must be noted that the Security Advisor still contains (in my opinion) a pretty major bug in that if you enable SPC and then do the required rebooting, the Security Advisor still says that SPC is disabled. TerraMaster provided the following statement about it: It is disappointing that TOS 7 has been in beta since December, and this OOBE issue is still there. Shutdown option has moved Instead of a Taskbar option to manage the NAS, all of these options have been moved to a "Start panel", initially I didn't see it and my contact had to show me how to power off the F4-425 Pro. To logout, reboot or power off you can find those controls at the top right of the Panel. It is also possible to power off through the TNAS mobile app beta. Storage setup Above, you can see the steps I took to create the Storage Pools and Volumes. I made a second Storage Pool using TRAID on two 4TB MP44Q SSDs (which, in this instance, is similar to RAID 5), and finally, I added the 250GB 970 Evo Plus drive as Hyper Cache on Storage Pool 1 in Balanced mode. Registering If you decide not to lock down the F4-425 Pro in Security Isolation Mode (blocking all external connections), then you could set up a TNAS device ID through the Remote Access setting in the Control Panel (which must be unique). This works in combination with an online TerraMaster account. TOS 7 TNAS Online Creating a TerraMaster account and linking the device online activates the warranty when you provide proof of purchase and the serial number, but it also gives you access through the TNAS mobile app, which allows you to complete certain operationsб including powering off and restarting the NAS remotely. A TNAS mobile update is required to gain access through TOS 7, and this is provided on the TerraMaster website, as it is not yet on Google Play. The app is evolving all the time and has made leaps and bounds since I first started reviewing TerraMaster devices almost three years ago. It is not quite there yet if you are comparing the likes of Synology, which, sadly, a lot of users online do all the time. OpenClaw setup One of the main selling points of the new F4-425 Pro is the inclusion of OpenClaw, with TerraMaster claiming that it is "powered by the world's first AI-native TOS 7 OS, supporting local-first smart workflows and independent data control." However, I immediately ran into problems trying to enable OpenClaw. After waiting 20 minutes at the "Enabling" message of the OpenClaw app following installation, I decided to do some searching online and discovered that it couldn't complete the installation process due to SPC being enabled, which is something TOS 7 immediately recommends to be enabled on first boot. SPC for NAS (TOS 7) is basically the same principle as UAC in Windows; it blocks executables from being launched by non-Super Users. After reaching out to my contact about these issues, I received the following response: Anyway, this only became clear when I closed the OpenClaw app screen and clicked on the OpenClaw icon in the taskbar; that is when I saw the message about disabling SPC. I think, due to the fact that this is a requirement, this should be a prompt during the installation process, not when closing the App Market and then trying to launch OpenClaw. There's also no 'Getting started' guide for people like me who have never used OpenClaw. I tried to add an LLM and discovered the tutorial led nowhere. That's when I started looking around the official TerraMaster forums, and I found a guide that helpfully explains that you won't get anywhere with OpenClaw unless you have a paid plan, which is disappointing because I imagined there would be an option to use a local LLM as I do in SubtitleEdit with Whisper-XXL. In addition, with the marketing imagery on the official site, it says that the OpenClaw feature is "all processed 100% locally for absolute privacy." which led me to believe that I could install a local LLM, not one that required paid tokens. In any case, TerraMaster does not provide guidance for this new feature, which was also a selling point of the F4-425 Pro! My contact also provided clarification about the above points I raised with TerraMaster Since it is not in the scope of the review to add paid services, I'll leave that to the people who are more qualified with OpenClaw. F4-425 Pro Surveillance App TOS also comes with a Surveillance app, which is not installed by default; it can be found in the App Market recommended section. In addition, after installing, it doesn't drop a shortcut on the Desktop or top taskbar, but you can "Send to Desktop" from the App Market listing for the app for a quick way to open it. Adding my Reolink POE doorbell camera was painless. TerraMaster doesn't appear to have a repository of preconfigured cameras; instead, the camera must be added using ONVIF or RTSP. No mobile Surveillance app TerraMaster still doesn't have a dedicated Surveillance app, although from searching online, Surveillance can be used and managed through the TNAS mobile app. I tried this with the updated TNAS mobile app beta in combination with TOS 7 and got a message that Surveillance was "Only accessible through web browser," so I reckon this must be limited to the stable versions of TOS 6 and the mobile app. More quirks In addition, whenever I minimized the Live View window in the browser Surveillance app, the feed appeared to switch to the Low-bandwidth stream, and there was no way to get the High-quality stream back. To get the High-quality stream back, I had to close Live View and then reopen it. Benchmarking A pretty cool feature of the TOS 7 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD. In order to do that, you would have to leave out any HDDs during initialization, and even then, the system partitions are always written to two HDDs when they are eventually added. With three NVMe slots, this also gives an interesting scenario where you could build a TRAID storage Pool for installing all your apps and Docker on, and keep the third for SSD cache on the HDD pool. Limitless options! SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 5 GbE hub was well within acceptable ranges. Although the read result on SATA was a little less than with the F4-425 Plus, for some reason, while writes were generally better. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. TOS 7, which, as of testing, is still in Beta, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, Docker, as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-425 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core N350 CPU and its 16 GB of DDR5 memory. Accessing from mobile is only possible if Security Isolation Mode is disabled, which can put your NAS at risk from external sources, so there was no way to access it from the TNAS Mobile app. It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past week, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan (which was a little annoying) when the disks were not actively copying or reading data. Conclusion So what have I learned? Unfortunately, this release raises a few important questions and concerns that I feel haven't been adequately addressed. What I didn't like Our variant shipped with TOS 7 beta, and it's advised not to use it in a production environment. I feel that's a bit limiting on an $800 device. The mobile app is also still in beta and does not support some of the first-party apps, like Surveillance, and it still has quite a few bugs. I am a bit confused about the OpenClaw marketing along with the F4-425 Pro. I feel like that if it's going to be a main selling point, then offer official guidance on how to get started with it. TerraMaster recommends enabling SPC, but then markets the NAS for use with OpenClaw, which requires disabling SPC to be able to use it, opening up genuine security concerns for the NAS; and that's before you get into the security concerns of OpenClaw itself. Of course, the above issues won't be a problem if you decide to install something else on it, or even go back to the stable TOS 6. I wish TerraMaster had just given TOS 7 as opt-in rather than shipping with it. TOS 7 has been available as a preview since December 2025 (so well before my last TerraMaster review), and according to a thread on Reddit where a user shared a screenshot from the TerraMaster Facebook page, it is scheduled to launch today, June 23, but there's nothing about that in the TerraMaster news blog. My contact confirmed over email that TOS 7 exits beta today. The rubber feet also deserve a mention as they continue to be a problem, with them coming unstuck the moment you shift the F4-425 Pro anywhere on your desk. What I liked What it comes down to, though, aside from what I already mentioned, you are still getting a quality, affordable device here, so recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, backup your files, and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly futureproof you for some time. It provides good performance, takes up little space, and is, on the whole, very quiet. Four bays afford proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link. Considering the 2024 releases were more about power, with the likes of an Intel Core i5-1235U high-end laptop CPU under the hood, I asked my contact last time if we could expect more of the same in higher-end models and was told: It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N350 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the F4-425 Pro is intended for, media streaming and backup. The only downside is still the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. In the past, I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there would be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. Along with the other things I mentioned, it all ends up costing it a couple of points. If you are comfortable with the command line, Docker, and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. In TOS, the apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.\ AI NAS?! What has become clear to me this year is that we are going to start seeing all kinds of "AI NAS" come to market, and while that might be good for us consumers, be diligent and research these claims. Although the F4-425 Pro technically comes with AI, it is really using a cloud service that is externally sourced off-device through the third party OpenClaw app. My colleague did review a newcomer to the NAS space earlier this year, and it includes a local AI assistant inside the Zettlab D4 NAS, and they do not even use AI in the product name, check out Chris' review here. Where to buy and a discount coupon However, it does not change the fact that this is truly a great entry-level home media-class NAS that you can buy right now. TerraMaster is having a 20% off launch discount, plus you can also still apply our unique 10% off coupon on checkout, which only works on the official website. So here is a breakdown of the pricing that is only valid on the official TerraMaster website. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $575.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $503.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £525.59 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £460.79 Use NEOWIN coupon code during checkout for 10% discount Over on Amazon US and UK, the F4-425 Pro also gets a 20% launch discount, but here, the above 10% coupon cannot be applied. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for $639.99 at Amazon US (was $799.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for $559.99 at Amazon US (was $699.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for £583.99 at Amazon UK (was £729.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for £511.99 at Amazon UK (was £639.99) As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • well you can add a GPU for around $500, that's still around the price of Steam Machine but overall significantly better in performance.
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