Galaxy Unpacked is exactly one week away and Samsung is going all in on the teasers. The latest ones are all about Galaxy AI and the new image editing features that are coming to the native Galaxy camera app.
Samsung is going all in on AI imaging by incorporating more creative tools inside the native camera app. Users will be able to capture, edit, and share images all in one place without switching apps.
Samsung is touting new multimodal input, which will facilitate edits. Users will be able to describe how they want to alter their images in simple terms or even scribble shapes,...
Apple is working on three new wearable devices, according to a new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The company is allegedly developing smart glasses, AirPods with cameras and "expanded AI capabilities", and "a pendant that can be pinned to a shirt or worn as a necklace".
All three of these are being "built around the Siri digital assistant", which will "rely on visual context to carry out actions". All of the products will be paired to an iPhone, and all of them will have cameras, but the AirPods and pendant will come with lower-resolution cameras that are there only to help the AI,...
Samsung recently teased the upcoming Galaxy S26 Ultra's low-light photography chops, and today the company's arm in the US has released a short video teasing the phone's low-light video recording capabilities.
That's nothing out of the ordinary, but here's the thing - the teaser video itself was "generated with the assistance of AI tools", as the company's disclaimer clearly notes at the bottom.
That's... interesting, to put it nicely. Why wouldn't Samsung just share a video captured in low-light conditions with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, if the idea is to tease how good it is at...
Samsung recently teased the upcoming Galaxy S26 Ultra's low-light photography chops, and today the company's arm in the US has released a short video teasing the phone's low-light video recording capabilities.
That's nothing out of the ordinary, but here's the thing - the teaser video itself was "generated with the assistance of AI tools", as the company's disclaimer clearly notes at the bottom.
That's... interesting, to put it nicely. Why wouldn't Samsung just share a video captured in low-light conditions with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, if the idea is to tease how good it is at...
I’ve been dipping in and out of Serif Affinity for years now. It always struck me as a very impressive set of apps designed to compete with Adobe’s core offering: Affinity Designer was their answer to Adobe Illustrator, Photo was their Photoshop, and Publisher took on InDesign, all for a remarkably competitive price.
So what do you do for an encore? You get bought out by Canva for $500 million, of course! This happened back in March 2024 and everything went silent - until a few months ago. That's when Affinity merged all three apps into one and dispensed of licenses to become free for all.
I took a look at the all-new Affinity (sometimes known as Affinity by Canva) to see what's going on and how the new, completely free version stacks up.
Some optional AI tools locked behind a Canva Pro subscription
Price is the biggest change to the all-new Affinity.
It's completely free. No subscriptions, no perpetual licenses. 'Free forever' is the promise. But there’s no such thing as 'forever' in the business world, so how is Canva expected to make its money back from such a huge investment?
The current answer is by offering most tools for free, while restricting some higher end ones behind a paywall. Canva currently have an impressive 200 million total users, out of which 16 million pay for their premium subscription. The company is banking on Affinity luring a few more to it.
As a guide, Canva Pro would cost an individual $15 / €12 a month, or $120 / €110 a year, which will unlock all those AI tools, as well as everything else Canva’s premium side of things already offers.
So yes, in reality, Affinity is more freemium than free. However, these 'advanced' tools are AI-based, and all the tools you used to enjoy - and pay for - in Affinity 1 and 2, are free in 3.
Right now, and especially if you’re not a fan of AI, you can download, install and make use of Affinity 3 without spending any money. That's a heck of a deal for three Adobe-killer apps. And even if you were to fork out for the Pro subscription, it’s far cheaper than what Adobe charges.
Affinity: Interface
(Image credit: Affinity // Canva // Future)
Superb interface consider it's three apps in one
Launching Affinity for the first time will reveal a slight wrinkle: you need to log in to your Canva account, or create one, before you can use the software. It’s not that big a deal as setting one up is free, and you’ll still be able to access the app when offline.
You may wonder how Affinity manages to combine three apps with vastly different sets of tools, into a single interface. It's achieved by dividing the interface into a number of ‘studios’, which are essentially separate interfaces depending on what you wish to work on.
Toggling between them is done through a menu, top left of the window. By default, you have ‘Vector’ (for Illustrator-type work), ‘Pixel’ (what’s where your photo editor tools are located), ‘Layout’ (where your desktop publishing software tools can be found). And, of course, ‘Canva AI’ if you pay the subscription for AI-laced tools.
But that’s not all.
Click on the three dots to the right of that menu, and you’ll find other workspaces are available, such as ‘slice’, ‘color grading’ and ‘compositing’, and you’ve even got the ability to create your own ‘Studio’, starting by cloning an existing one, and modifying it until it only contains the tools you need.
In that respect, this is a very elegant design. Better still, while working on a project, you can effortlessly switch between studios without having to save your work or anything. You’re in ‘Pixel’ and need to add some curves, just click on ‘Vector’ and carry on working. It’s that simple.
Furthermore, to help designers along in their Affinity journey, mouse over any tool and you’ll get some information about its purpose. Big deal you might think: almost every other software program does that.
True… except here, they go into great detail for each of them, and if that’s not enough for you, there’s a ‘learn more’ button that opens a ‘Help’ window with even more information.
A feature I quite liked deals with additional tools hidden in a single icon. Just like with Adobe, you can tell there’s more there thanks to a little chevron lower right of the icon. In other apps, were you to click on it, it would reveal the additional tools in a sub palette; select the one you need and that extended menu promptly disappears.
Here, it opens up a floating window, making it easy to access those tools again and again should you need to. Click on a different tool’s chevron, and its additional tools will overwrite the previous selection in that floating window, so you won’t end up with a proliferation of floating windows, which can only be a good thing.
All in all, I felt the interface was well designed and considering Affinity now does the job of three apps in one, it all works impressively well.
Affinity: Importing from Adobe
(Image credit: Affinity // Canva // Future)
Importing Adobe projects works - mostly
More complex files can take a while
Importing Adobe documents into Affinity wasn’t as seamless as I had hoped. Now don’t get me wrong, it works, and it works pretty well - for the most part - but there are flaws.
For one thing, although Affinity is broadly on par with Adobe’s tool palette, some are missing. If you created documents with those missing tools, the result may not be replicated perfectly as you import your file into Affinity. For instance, Smart Objects fall into that category.
Another hindrance I found is based on the fact Adobe doesn’t solely make use of the fonts installed on your computer, but also relies on Adobe Fonts, a collection of cloud-based typefaces. If you use those in your work, it won’t come as a surprise to see that those won’t transfer over when you open your project in Affinity. But as long as you only use fonts installed on your computer, you’ll bypass that problem.
Affinity can read PSD (Photoshop) and AI (Illustrator) files without too much problem. INDD (InDesign) ones however, can’t be read. In order to open them, you need to export your work from InDesign into the IDML format (InDesign Markup Language). It’s frustrating, but it’s nothing new: this was the case for when Affinity Publisher existed, before it was merged into this all-in-one new version.
Finally, the worst part of importing I experienced, was the wait. Go to File > Open, select the document you want and… nothing happens. Or at least, nothing seems to open.
You get no progress bar, no nothing, so I was left with the impression that it didn’t work. I tried again, and again, and again… and then after a while all those files eventually opened, one after the other.
This does show Affinity can handle multiple commands at once, which is not a bad thing, but it would be good to know something is happening which you wait for the file to open. Now this doesn’t happen for every document, but the more complex it is, the more likely you’ll have to wait, with no clue as to when your project will eventually deign to appear.
Affinity: Tools
(Image credit: Affinity // Canva // Future)
A huge selection of tools
All well organized with helpful assistants
If you’re used to other design tools, you’ll understand the concept right away. You have a sidebar where all the tools you need are located (these change depending on which studio you’re in as mentioned above).
On the other side of the interface is your contextual inspector, showing you all your changeable parameters, along with your project’s layers, and more. At this rate, you’ve seen one image processing app, you’ve seen them all.
And yes, don’t expect Affinity to possess all the tools Adobe cram into its own software. Adobe is renowned for that. But to be frank, the overwhelming majority of users don’t use all these tools, and if the one you need happens to be missing from Affinity, chances are there are other ways of doing the same - or similar - thing.
But it’s the little things that I greatly appreciated. Say you want to add a new object to an existing project. You get your paint brush, start drawing, only to realise you forgot to create a new layer and are messing up an existing part of your work.
So, you have to undo what you did, and start again. Well that doesn’t happen with Affinity, as a little clever assistant just automatically creates a new layer as you start drawing. It’s not a big deal really, but it makes using this software a more enjoyable experience.
Now of course, as I keep mentioning, some tools are missing if you’re used to Adobe. I brought up Start Objects earlier on, but a bigger omission is the lack of Curve tools in Illustrator - sorry, I meant Vector. You can use the Pen tool instead, but if you’re migrating, it’s another adaptation you need to make. Thankfully, a lot of the keyboard shortcuts are the same, greatly easing the transition.
If you’re upgrading from Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher, you might be puzzled as to where the filters have gone to in the Pixel Studio: they’re still there, but now they’re located in the menu bar’s Pixel menu, which means you gain access to those filters whichever Studio you’re in, so you could apply one of them to a vector layer if you wish (doing this will get an assistant to automatically rasterise the selected layer for you).
Since you can so easily go from a vector layer to a rasterised one, you’ll be pleased to learn that Affinity can also do the reverse, thanks to its impressive Trace tool. Select the layer you wish to alter, activate the tool, tweak the couple of parameters, check the result before applying it, and you’re good to go. I found the outcome to be remarkably good.
One thing to bear in mind, is that Affinity Photo - now the Pixel section of Affinity - is designed to be a competitor to Photoshop, not Lightroom. As such, it has no file management capabilities, so you’ll need to get yourself a separate app to sort out your images on your computer - or failing that, just be very good at maintaining order in your computer’s file system.
Affinity: Premium AI
(Image credit: Affinity // Canva // Future)
Tools designed for subscription don’t feel good enough to achieve that goal - for now
All of the above is free. It’s a huge gamble, but one that will certainly benefit those who are tired of renting their software by paying expensive ongoing subscriptions to the likes of Adobe and others to gain access to creative tools.
But Canva hopes that you will choose to take advantage of the Premium subscription to gain access to the AI tools now added to Affinity. These include features such as AI-based object selection, generative fill, upscaling, generative edit, portrait blur, lighting, colorise and depth tools.
To be honest, they’re not show stoppers, must-haves, revolutionary tent pole features. In fact, compared to the tools available for free, these feel pretty average at best.
Still, it’s early days, and Affinity may well release over time tools that feel indispensable and worth their - let’s face it - quite affordable subscription. But today doesn’t feel like it’s that day.
Should I download Affinity?
(Image credit: Affinity // Canva // Future)
Get it if…
You’re looking for powerful image compositing tools that are free with no strings attached, that combine the best of raster, vector and page layout design, in an impressively well made interface.
Don’t get it if…
You’re 100% wedded to Adobe’s portfolio, and regularly rely on the tools Adobe has, but Affinity lacks.
I’m not going to get to have the Acer Veriton GN100 for long, so this is more of a hands-on discussion than an actual review.
My first reaction, out of the box, to the Acer Veriton GN100 is that it all seems remarkably familiar. An elegant mini-PC style case with a car-grill aesthetic, a selection of USB-C ports alongside a 10GbE LAN port and the mercurial NVIDIA ConnectX-7 SmartNIC.
While it’s physically a little smaller, the ports on this machine are identical to those on the ASUS Ascent GX10, as both brands followed Nvidia’s Blackwell system plan exactly.
The only significant difference is that where the Asus provided access to the single M.2 NVMe drive that was installed, the Acer Veriton GN100 is an entirely sealed unit, where whatever storage it has can’t be replaced or upgraded.
Inside is the same Nvidia DGX Spark Personal AI Supercomputer built around the ARM v9.2-A CPU and Blackwell GPU integrated silicon. This, when combined with 128GB of LPDDR5 memory and 4TB of NVMe storage, is collectively called the GB10 platform.
This is a remarkably powerful platform that has uses in data science, medical image analysis, robotics and AI model development. To be clear, this isn’t a Windows PC, and an understanding of Linux is required to use it.
As the specification suggests, this isn’t an inexpensive item, starting at $2999 for the US-supplied hardware, but £3999.99 in Europe. For those who want a highly compact and efficient development environment, especially for AI, the Acer Veriton GN100 is an option, but it isn’t the only machine available using the same platform.
Acer Veriton GN100: Price and availability
How much does it cost? From $3000, £4000
When is it out? Available now
Where can you get it? Available from Acer and online retailers
To avoid any confusion about specifications, Acer decided there would be only one SKU of the Veriton GN100, with 128GB of LPDDR5 and 4TB of storage.
Inexplicably, it costs £3999.99 direct from Acer in the UK, but only $2999.99 from Acer in the US. Why do we pay 82% more for an identical part when the UK doesn't tariff Taiwanese goods, Acer?
Also, this product doesn’t seem to be available elsewhere, so finding it cheaper on Amazon, for example, isn’t currently possible.
The alternatives built around the same platform are the ‘founders edition’ Nvidia DGX Spark Personal AI Supercomputer, ASUS Ascent GX10, Gigabyte AI TOP ATOM Desktop Supercomputer, and MSI EdgeXpert Desktop AI Supercomputer.
The Nvidia DGX Spark Personal AI Supercomputer, as the originator modestly calls it, undercuts the Veriton GN100 in the UK and costs £ 3699.98 for a system with 128GB of RAM and 4TB of storage. But, it’s more expensive for US customers, costing $3999 on Amazon.com.
The ASUS Ascent GX10 price on Amazon.com is $3088.94 for the 1TB storage SKU (GX10-GG0015BN), and $4,149.99 for the 4TB storage model (GX10-GG0016BN).
Even with the current price of M.2 modules, that is a remarkable price hike for the extra storage capacity.
For UK customers, the 1TB ASUS Ascent GX10 model price is £3713.02, but I found it via online retailer SCAN for a tempting £2799.98. SCAN also carries a 2TB option for $3199.99 and the 4TB model for £3638.99.
The Gigabyte AI TOP ATOM Desktop Supercomputer 4TB model sells for £3479.99 from SCAN in the UK, and can be found on Amazon.com for $3999.
And the final model with the same spec as most is the MSI EdgeXpert Desktop AI Supercomputer, selling for £3,598.99 from SCAN in the UK, and $3998.01 on Amazon.com for US customers.
The conclusion is that the US price is difficult to beat, whereas the European pricing is wildly out of what competitors are charging for this technology.
ARM v9.2-A CPU (GB10) (20 ARM cores, 10 Cortex-X925, 10 Corex-A725)
GPU:
NVIDIA Blackwell GPU (GB10, integrated)
RAM:
128 GB LPDDR5x, unified system memory
Storage:
4TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD storage
Expansion:
N/A
Ports:
3x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C, 20Gbps, alternate mode (DisplayPort 2.1)
1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C,with PD in(180W EPR PD3.1 SPEC)
1x HDMI 2.1
1x NVIDIA ConnectX-7 SmartNIC
Networking:
10GbE LAN, AW-EM637 Wi-Fi 7 (Gig+) , Bluetooth 5.4
OS:
Nvidia DGX OS (Ubuntu Linux)
PSU:
48V 5A 240W
Dimensions:
150 x 150 x 50.5 mm
Weight:
1.2kg
Acer Veriton GN100: Design
Oversized NUC
Connect-7 scalability
Zero internal access
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
While the GN100 looks like an oversized NUC mini PC, at 1.2kg, it's heavy, although it is lighter than the ASUS Ascent GX10 by over 200g.
In order to drive the monster silicon inside, Acer included a Delta-made PSU that’s rated to 240W over USB-C.
All the ports are on the back of this system, and nothing is on the front, not even the power button, other than some visual styling and the Acer logo.
These include, identical to the ASUS Ascent GX10, four USB-C ports, one of which is required for the PSU to connect, a single 10GbE LAN port and a single HDMI 2.1 video out.
This arrangement enables a single monitor using HDMI, but additional ones using the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ports in DP Alt mode, although one is exclusively needed to power the unit.
Why Nvidia chose USB 3.2 and not USB4 seems curious, since the models and data processed on this unit will eventually need to make it somewhere else, and the best networking on offer is 10GbE, which equals roughly 900MB/s transfer speeds.
And for those working on the hardware, the lack of any USB-A ports for mice or keyboards looks a bit silly.
However, this hardware is intended to be used ‘headless’ using a remote console, so perhaps that isn’t an issue in the greater scheme of things.
Where this design sheds any resemblance to PC hardware is with the inclusion of a ConnectX-7 Smart NIC, a technology acquired by Nvidia when it bought Mellanox Technologies Ltd, an Israeli-American multinational supplier of computer networking products based on InfiniBand and Ethernet.
In this context, ConnectX-7 is like those annoying cables that Nvidia used to make video cards work collectively, when they cared about video cards. Except that the capacity amount of bandwidth that can travel over ConnectX-7 is substantially more.
The port has two receptacles, with each capable of 100GbE, allowing 200GbE to flow between the GN100 and another, doubling the number of AI parameters from 200 billion in a single machine to 400 billion when buddied up to another.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Acer Veriton GN100: Features
ARM 20-core CPU
Grace Blackwell GB10
AI platforms compared
The Nvidia GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip marks a notable advancement in AI hardware, created through a partnership between Nvidia and ARM. It arises from the growing need for specialised computing platforms to keep pace with the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence models. Unlike a typical PC, the GB10 is designed around the ARM v9.2-A architecture, incorporating 20 ARM cores (10 Cortex-X925 and 10 Cortex-A725). This reflects a wider industry move towards ARM-based options, which are more power-efficient than PC processors, and potentially more scalable for AI tasks.
The capabilities of the GB10 are impressive. It combines a robust Nvidia Blackwell GPU with the ARM CPU, achieving up to a petaFLOP of AI performance with FP4 precision. This level of power is especially suitable for training and inference of large language models and diffusion models, which are fundamental to much of today’s generative AI. The system is further supported by 128GB of unified LPDDR5x memory, enabling it to handle demanding AI tasks efficiently.
The caveat to all this power and memory is that PC architectures aren’t designed to exploit them effectively, and Microsoft Windows memory management has long been an issue.
Therefore, to be efficient and communicate effectively with other nodes, the GB10 needs Ubuntu Linux, modified with NVIDIA’s DGX OS, to harness the platform's power and handle multi-node communications.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
As I already mentioned, the GB10 delivers up to 1 petaFLOP at FP4 precision, ideal for quantised AI workloads. But that is still less than the multi-petaFLOP performance of NVIDIA’s flagship data centre chips, the Blackwell B200 or GB200.
However, where it goes toe-to-toe is in respect of power efficiency, since this node only consumes around 140W, which is much less than the Blackwell B200, which can consume between 1000W and 1200W per GPU. The GB200 combines two B200 chips and a Grace CPU, and the power demand can bloom to 2,700W. Although these systems might offer up to 20 Petabytes of performance, at around 19 times the power.
The balance here is that the GN100 can sit on your desk without needing any special services or environment, whereas the datacentre hardware needs a specialist location and services to ensure it doesn’t overheat or cause the local electricity network to fail.
In this respect, the GN100 and its counterparts represent the more realistic end of the AI wedge, but how useful they can be is dependent on what you are attempting to do, and if this much power is enough for your purposes.
Acer Veriton GN100: AI Reality Check
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
In my prior Asus GX10 coverage, I talked at length about AI, and how there are lots of people making a bet that it is the next big thing, and others who are much more critical of the technology and how it's developing.
I’m not going to rehash the obvious flaws of AI, or the lack of a path to address all of those, but I would strongly recommend researching before starting any AI endeavour and creating expectations that either can’t be met with current technology, or the power in this physically small computer.
What I can say is that recent AI releases have substantially improved over previous generations, but access to these advanced models, like ChatGPT 5.3 Codex and Claude 4.0, is ringfenced for paid subscribers using the Cloud.
Obviously, the beauty of a device like the GN100 is that you can download these models and run them on your own hardware, even if getting the most out of them requires them to be connected to the Internet to source information.
For those interested, running GPT-5.3-Codex on this hardware requires you to install Tailscale and a local inference engine like Ollama, pull the codex to the GN100 using the appropriate commands. Then you can open up an Open WebUI from another system, ideally, and use the model.
For anyone familiar with Linux, none of this is especially taxing. But to make it even easier, the ChatGPT team (or is that the AI?) has made a Codex App that does most of the legwork for you.
If you want to try something else, some models come in pre-prepared Docker Containers that can simply be installed and executed, making deployment remarkably straightforward.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
When you first power the system up, you are presented with a web interface created for the Nvidia DGX Spark, and install VS Code, the DGX Dashboard with JupyterLab, Open WebUI with Ollama and Comfy UI.
To be clear, this isn’t like a Windows application install. You are given instructions as to the commands you need to execute, which install the tools and libraries that are needed. Those who don’t use Linux every day will find it a challenge, but eventually, even I managed to get almost everything working, at least enough to load models and create some output. Image generation was especially impressive, although some of the deep thinking models aren’t that responsive if you ask them something genuinely challenging.
Some people might assume that because the code for these models is being run locally on the GN100, the cost of a subscriber model should be cheaper. But I’ve not noticed that so far, you just get better performance and save the creators' electricity bill. What running a model on this hardware gives you is that you own the model, it can’t be removed from you, and there is the potential for you control the model, customising it in a specific and personal way.
For those exploring AI in a serious way its necessary to use the latest models, and that often has a cost implication, even if you own the hardware platform.
What you certainly don’t want to do is install some free model from a couple of years ago, and then be disappointed with the results. The steepness of the curve of development on models is extraordinary, and even versions of the best ones from six months ago have been overtaken by the latest releases.
For those working in this area, using modern AI is like trying to get onto a bus when they don’t stop or even slow down to allow passengers on or off. Being aware of where the model of interest is, and when it's been overtaken, is critical to not being completely out of date before the project is completed.
Acer Veriton GN100: Early verdict
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
NVIDIA decided to ship its Grace Blackwell technology in an entry-level form and created a blueprint for that in their NVIDIA DGX Spark Personal AI Supercomputer, its partners are delivering their versions, like the Acer Veriton GN100.
Other than the outer case and a few other small choices, it's debatable how much variation we’re likely to see between these machines. It’s not like the GPUs, where the partners get to design variations and even tweak the founders' editions for better performance.
Maybe if these become massively popular, then we might see more variation, like combining two systems in a single box, or blending the technology with DAS storage. But for now, this is where we are.
That said, the Acer version is perfectly serviceable, but when the specifications are so close its mostly about price. For Americans paying $2999 for the GN100, it's probably one of the cheapest options, and for those in Europe, oddly, it's one of the more expensive. Perhaps Acer can fix that for Europeans, but given the rising cost of RAM, it's more likely the USA will have to pay more.
The one weakness of this design is the lack of access to the SSD, and if that’s a deal breaker for you, some other machines do have that capability.
As ever, Acer has delivered a workable solution for demanding computing tasks, but what this brand can’t guarantee is the skills needed to make the most from their platform. Buyers need to appreciate that while the hardware offers more than ten times the AI processing of a high-end PC, making the most of what it can do requires a particular skill set.
For more compact computing, see our guide to the best mini PCs you can buy
Wix Studio is an all-in-one website creation platform that extends the capabilities of traditional website builders to meet the demands of agencies, consultants, and professional web designers. While not a typical choice for the best website builder, this platform deserves serious consideration for specific businesses.
We have spent thousands of hours testing 140+ website builders. We've seen the market evolve dramatically. While we named the Wix website builder as our pick for the best website builder in 2026, Wix Studio takes things even further for professionals and agencies.
Built by the same company that led the concept of accessible web design, Wix Studio was specifically engineered for agencies managing multiple client sites. It includes enterprise-grade features like team collaboration, client handoff tools, and centralized workspace management that standard platforms simply don't offer.
Wix Studio: 1-minute review
Wix Studio delivers a compelling package for agencies and consultants. It combines sophisticated design tools with practical business features that simplify client work. Unlike consumer-focused builders, it provides role-based permissions, real-time collaboration, advanced design tools, and automated client reporting — all from a unified dashboard.
What is Wix Studio?
Wix Studio is a website development platform that agencies and consultants use to build, manage, hand off, and maintain client websites at scale. Think of it as a complete workspace where you can collaborate with team members on different designs, then seamlessly hand off projects to clients without leaving the platform.
With Studio, you get custom breakpoints for responsive design, Figma integration for importing designs, several AI website management tools, and a no-code CMS for content-heavy sites. It also includes features like personalized onboarding kits, content mode for safe client editing, and automated performance reports. Everything runs on Wix's enterprise-grade infrastructure with built-in security, automatic updates, and SEO tools.
Features
(Image credit: Wix Studio )
Wix Studio packs an impressive feature set tailored for professional use. Its design tools offer precision control with grid systems, API management, custom CSS, and advanced typography. Responsive AI automatically adapts layouts for different screen sizes, while custom breakpoints let you fine-tune designs for specific devices. The Figma-to-Studio plugin lets you import your wireframes and prototypes directly into functional sites.
For agencies managing multiple clients, you get real-time collaborative editing, commenting, and role-based permissions that keep teams synchronized. Your workspace lets you manage unlimited client websites from a single dashboard, accessible via web or mobile app. Client handoff is smooth thanks to personalized kits and content mode, which lets clients update copy and layouts safely without breaking design fundamentals.
With the StudioCMS, you can create dynamic pages with custom collections, schedule content for later, and design your own multi-author workflows. Built-in analytics track traffic, signups, sales, and behavior across categories, with customizable reports you can schedule and export. Native integrations with Google, Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn connect to your social media campaigns seamlessly.
Unlike with Wix standard, AI tools extend beyond basic text and image generation. They help you create meta tags, Google Ads copy, CMS collections, and even generate code through the AI assistant. However, low-level code control is restricted, and certain integrations require complex workarounds. Starting at $19/month for the Basic plan and scaling to $159/month for Business Elite, this won't be the platform of choice for most individual and business users. But for agencies and freelancers managing multiple high-volume projects, this pricing is worth the toolset it offers.
Tools
(Image credit: Wix Studio )
Wix Studio bundles multiple specialized tools into one platform. They cover everything from design and development to marketing and client management. Each one addresses specific needs that agencies face daily, for example:
Design tools
Studio's design system includes grid layouts, flexbox controls, section stacking, and custom breakpoints for responsive design. You can also use CSS overrides to adjust specific style settings beyond the default options. There's an AI assistant that can make advanced layout suggestions, create workflows, and even write code for you.
Figma integration
There's a Figma-to-Studio plugin that exports high-fidelity designs directly into Wix Studio, saving you the trouble of manually recreating the entire design. It speeds up the design-to-development process, which works great for designer-developers who can get to deliverables more quickly. Your designs still retain their structure and can be enhanced with Wix's interactive features.
CMS collections and pages
Wix Studio's no-code CMS builds content-rich sites with multiple dynamic content streams like blogs, wikis, and knowledge bases. Create custom collections, connect them to repeating layouts, and generate hundreds of pages from a single template. Content translates into 180+ languages directly from the dashboard.
Ecommerce
Build fully customized online stores with flexible product pages and category layouts. Wix handles the inventory, orders, returns, and refunds from the same dashboard. Native integrations add gift cards, loyalty programs, and dropshipping connections, reducing the reliance on third-party software.
Collaboration workspace and hub
Manage unlimited client websites from one centralized hub. Role-based permissions control team access, while real-time editing and on-canvas comments keep everyone aligned on the current designs. A mobile app lets you manage projects on the go.
Analytics and reporting
Track website performance across sales, traffic, bookings, subscriptions, and SEO. Schedule automated reports daily, weekly, or monthly to keep clients informed without manual work. Export data or create custom reports tailored to specific metrics.
Lots of AI tools
AI features generate text, images, and videos directly on canvas. Wix's AI code assistant provides code snippets and troubleshooting help. Responsive AI makes layouts mobile-friendly in one click, while AI-powered content marketing tools create meta tags, Google Ads copy, and CMS collections at scale.
Client management features
Personalized client kits include brand assets, guidelines, and templates for smooth handoffs. Content mode gives clients controlled editing access to update copy and media without disrupting layouts. Automated status reports keep clients informed automatically.
Ease of use
(Image credit: Wix Studio )
Wix Studio walks a fine line between accessibility and power. The interface is sleek and minimal, with an inspector panel on the right that controls styles, spacing, and layout. You start with a clean dashboard offering three options: use a template, start from scratch, or import an existing site. This works for both resourceful beginners and professional designers.
The drag-and-drop editor uses WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) functionality, so changes appear instantly. There's no need to understand code for basic website creation. However, there's a learning curve when mastering advanced features like responsive behavior and custom breakpoints. Some users suggest the platform is more complex than its marketing implies, particularly compared to the standard Wix Editor. There are also a few outdated components from the classic editor that haven't been updated, which can affect responsiveness.
For agencies, the interface works great for collaborative workflows. On-canvas commenting, role-based permissions, and centralized multi-site management make coordination a breeze. The mobile app extends accessibility while travelling, letting you manage projects remotely. Yet while beginners can grasp basic functions with a bit of effort, professionals will need time to unlock the platform's full potential.
Wix Studio pricing and plans
Plan
Starting rate (paid annually)
Renewal rate (paid annually)
Basic
$19/month
$19/month
Standard
$27/month
$27/month
Plus
$34/month
$34/month
Business Elite
$159/month
$159/month
Wix Studio's pricing structure scales with your agency's needs. The Basic plan at $19/month includes 10GB storage, 3 site collaborators, and 1,500 CMS items. It's good for freelancers or small teams managing a few client sites. Standard ($27/month) and Plus ($34/month) increase storage, collaborators, and CMS limits, with Plus adding priority support. All plans include unlimited bandwidth, a free domain for one year, site analytics, and payment acceptance.
Business Elite at $159/month is built for large agencies. You get unlimited storage, 100 site collaborators, advanced ecommerce tools, and the full developer platform. Compared to similar options, Wix Studio is competitively priced. Webflow starts at $18-$29 but charges more for ecommerce and CMS features. Meanwhile, WordPress requires separate hosting costs and paid plugins that can exceed these prices.
Security
(Image credit: Wix Studio )
All websites automatically include SSL certificates that encrypt data between visitors' browsers and your site using HTTPS and TLS 1.2+. Data at rest uses AES-256 encryption, the strongest commercially available standard. Payment processing complies with PCI DSS Level 1, the highest industry security standard, with anti-fraud protection included.
Wix Studio maintains multiple certifications, including SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, and several ISOs, while remaining compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD. Real-time detection systems guard against DDoS attacks, keeping sites available during threats. Machine learning monitors pattern changes to block suspicious activity across accounts and sites.
Account security features include multi-factor authentication via email, SMS, phone, or authenticator apps, plus social login through Facebook and Google. Enterprise users get additional protections: SSO integration with Azure, Okta, Auth0, and Google; IP whitelisting for access control; full audit trails of user activities; and SCIM for automated identity management.
Wix also runs a Bug Bounty program with independent security researchers and maintains a strict third-party risk management program for vendors.
How good is Wix Studio support?
(Image credit: Wix Studio )
Studio offers multiple support channels tailored to different user needs. 24/7 live chat provides quick troubleshooting and help for common issues, accessible through the floating chat icon. Response times are fast, particularly for premium plan holders dealing with design or functionality questions. Email support operates through a guided contact form that routes requests to the correct department, with response times typically ranging from 24 to 72 hours.
For phone support, Wix uses a callback system rather than direct phone numbers. You request a callback through your account, then representatives reach out during business hours (Monday through Friday, with timing varying by region). The Plus plan includes priority support, giving agencies faster response times. The Help Center features tutorials, videos, community forums, and step-by-step guides covering everything from design basics to SEO.
Enterprise account holders receive white-glove service with a dedicated customer success manager available 24/7. This manager handles technical questions, business strategy, and platform migration with regular check-ins. While standard support is solid, the lack of direct phone numbers frustrates some users when dealing with urgent issues.
Wix Studio alternatives
Wix Studio occupies a unique position between beginner-friendly builders and developer-focused platforms. It's best for agencies and consultants who want advanced design control without diving into full code development.
Some of the best website builders for agencies include Webflow, which offers more code-level flexibility and appeals to developers comfortable with technical customization. You can see how the two stack up in our Wix Studio vs Webflow guide.
WordPress provides maximum customization but requires more technical knowledge and separate hosting, along with advanced design and management plugins like Elementor or Duda. Shopify still dominates the market for ecommerce-focused agencies.
Non-website building professionals may find WiXx Studio a little overwhelming. If you are just looking to build an individual website for your business, Wix's AI website builder may be a better option for you. You can see how they compare in our Wix Studio vs Wix AI website builder guide.
Wix Studio review: Summary
Wix Studio delivers a complete platform tailored specifically for multi-client agencies and consultants. It combines powerful design tools with practical business features like collaborative editing and role-based permissions.
A powerful CMS and Studio's ecommerce capabilities handle content-rich sites and online stores without any add-on subscriptions. Security is enterprise-grade with automatic SSL, PCI DSS compliance, and multiple certifications.
While there's a learning curve for advanced features, the platform balances accessibility with professional power. Pricing scales from $19/month for small teams to $159/month for large agencies — making it a worthwhile investment for seasoned service providers but not novices.
Wix Studio FAQs
Is Wix Studio different from regular Wix?
Unlike regular Wix, Studio is specifically designed for agencies, consultants, and professional web creators, while regular Wix targets individual users and small businesses. Studio includes advanced features like team collaboration tools, role-based permissions, custom breakpoints for responsive design, and centralized site management. You also get Figma integration, advanced CSS controls, and client handoff features like content mode and personalized kits.
Can I migrate existing Wix sites to Wix Studio?
Yes, you can migrate existing Wix sites to Wix Studio. There's an import option when you start a new project, allowing you to bring in sites built on the regular Wix Editor. This gives you access to Studio's advanced features like improved responsive controls, team collaboration, and enhanced design tools. Enterprise customers get dedicated support from customer success managers who can assist with platform migration. However, some elements may require adjustments after migration due to differences in layout and components.
Does Wix Studio require coding fluency?
Wix Studio doesn't require coding knowledge for most website-building tasks. The drag-and-drop editor uses WYSIWYG functionality, meaning you see changes instantly. You can build professional websites, add ecommerce functionality, and manage dynamic content entirely through the visual interface. However, Studio does offer code access for those who want it —you can add custom CSS, use the AI code assistant, and integrate APIs for complex workflows.
What's included in the Business Elite plan?
The Business Elite plan ($159/month paid annually) is Wix Studio's top tier for large agencies. You get unlimited storage, 100 site collaborators, and the full advanced developer platform. Ecommerce features include advanced tools for managing products, inventory, orders, and customer relationships. The plan also includes the complete advanced marketing suite with native integrations for Google, Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Can clients edit their sites without breaking the design?
Wix Studio includes a dedicated content mode that gives clients controlled editing access — they can update copy, swap images, and modify basic content without touching your design. You can set permissions through role-based access controls, determining exactly how much each client can edit. For more hands-off clients, you can provide personalized client kits with brand assets, guidelines, and templates.
The world of NAS systems has been turned on its head in the past couple of years, with Ugreen entering the fray aggressively and Synology walking away from the prosumer market.
In what appears to be an attempt to rekindle the same spark that propelled Ugreen, ZettLabs is launching a range of NAS on Kickstarter, with a focus on personal AI.
Having already launched two ARM-based NAS, the D4 and D6, the two new AI models use Intel processors and are the six-bay D6 Ultra reviewer here, and an eight-bay D8 Ultra. These are both available through a pre-order system and can be purchased either barebones with no memory or with DDR5 pre-installed.
At the heart of the D6 Ultra is the Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 125H, a series 100 processor that first appeared in laptops back in late 2023.
This platform is powerful enough to handle the six conventional drive bays, the dual 10GbE LAN ports, and the dual USB4 ports that this NAS offers. The memory installed model comes with 32GB of DDR5, but this can be upgraded to 96GB for those who can afford 48GB modules.
Where this diverges from other six-bay NAS is that, with the Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 125H and its Intel AI Boost capabilities, this system can host LLM AI models and run them in isolation. AI is a niche requirement, but those who don’t use AI are still going to get a fast, powerful NAS to share files, make backups, and interact with Cloud services.
With this level of system-resident functionality in a NAS, the price is higher than that of a conventional 6-bay NAS, so it will only be of interest to those who want its AI capabilities. However, Zettlabs aren’t the only NAS maker offering the hosting of local AI models, and the general features of ZettOS aren’t at the same level as more established solutions.
I wouldn’t write off the Zettlab D6 Ultra as one of our best NAS devices in years to come, but the operating system needs to mature before that happens.
This Zettlab D6 Ultra is currently on pre-order from the company's website and comes in two variants, with and without memory. The version I tested for this review came with 32GB of DDR5 memory and costs $1679.99, and the same hardware without that RAM is only $1079.99.
That’s either a reflection of how much RAM costs these days, or how much Zettlab is willing to charge you for it. As I was able to find Crucial 16GB SODIMMs for around $150 on Amazon.com, taking the thirty seconds to populate this machine yourself could easily save you $300.
For those interested, the 8-bay D8 Ultra, is priced at $1319.99 with no memory, and $1919.99 for 32GB, which is a similar price differential for two memory modules.
What might be more problematic for Zettlab is that the Super Early Bird pricing of the Ugreen NASync iDX60011 Pro with 64GB of DDR5 is only $1559, while the MSRP is $2599.
The iDX60011 Pro is also a 6-bay NAS, built on Intel mobile silicon, but it uses the more powerful Core Ultra 7 255H, a modern 200-series processor.
I haven’t tried that NAS yet, but it arrived today, so soon I should have a baseline for comparing the two platforms. But on paper, the D6 Ultra does seem expensive when supplied with RAM, and the iDX60011 Pro has a potential performance advantage.
The design and layout of the D6 Ultra aren’t radical, but the chassis's all-metal construction suggests this is a machine with a long life ahead.
However, if this NAS had been entirely metal, it would be exceptionally heavy, and the six drive trays are made of plastic.
Curiously, the trays are labelled A through F and are not numbered. What’s nice about the tray design is that for 3.5-inch drive installations, no tools or screws are required. What I didn’t care for is that they don’t include any sort of locking mechanism, and triggering them to open requires only a light press.
Given the utter chaos that disconnected drives can cause in a running system, these drive trays need locks or a mechanism to prevent all trays from opening accidentally.
A feature of all Zettlab NAS is the 3.49-inch display at the bottom left of the fascia, which shows drive status, network IP address, and more. Most people will need to get reasonably close to read the information from this display, but it’s a good alternative to flashing LEDs.
Also on the front are two card readers, one is SD4.0 and the other TF4.0, covering both common card types. And alongside those are a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port and a USB4 Type-C port. A feature that initially confused me was the button on the far right of the fascia, which I easily assumed powered the NAS up. It doesn’t.
The power button is on the back, out of the way. The button on the front is designed to initiate copying files from SD cards and USB ports to the internal storage.
On the rear are another USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, another USB4 port, a USB 2.0 port, dual 10GbE LAN ports, and an HDMI out. These are all to be expected on a NAS at this price point, but what I’ve not seen before is the SFF-8654, a port built to provide an external connection for PCIE4.0 card with 8 lanes.
Using that port, it should be possible to connect an external GPU, expand the storage, or install a 25GbE network adapter. While there isn’t the physical room inside the NAS for a full-sized video card, the SFF-8654 enables one to be outside with enough bandwidth to the system to be useful.
Based purely on the included ports, the specification of this machine was carefully designed to please those who use NAS systems to their fullest potential.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
My only concern about the hardware is that a few minor details suggest the D6 Ultra changed extensively during development, and the industrial engineers involved struggled to keep up with those modifications.
An obvious mistake I noticed was that the magnetically attached filter that covers the fans on the back doesn’t fit correctly. It’s too small, and slides down when attached.
Another is that, underneath the NAS, there is an access panel that provides access to the two M.2 and two SODIMM memory slots. The plate that covers this has four screws retaining it, when one or two screws would have been sufficient.
That’s a minor thing, but what’s more of an issue is that Zettlab provides two thermal pads to place on M.2 drives to connect them thermally to the skin of the D6 Ultra. Unfortunately, these pads are far too thick, and if four screws are tightened down, they could put excessive pressure on the NVMe drives to the mainboard, causing damage.
This configuration also doesn’t account for NVMe SSDs that have a heatsink attached.
I hope the filter and the thermal pads both get addressed when the D6 Ultra next has a version change, because the cost of this NAS dictates that the details are right.
Design: 3.5 / 5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Features
Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
28 PCIe Lanes
Intel Deep Learning
For many years, NAS makers almost exclusively used either ARM SoCs or, occasionally, low-power Intel chips like the Atom or Celeron series.
The design logic for this was sound, since moving data from SATA drives doesn’t require much computing power.
What’s happened more recently is that the app installations on NAS have become much more sophisticated, with Virtual Machine and Docker containers being used, but also now we’re transitioning into an era where NAS are AI nodes curating the data they hold.
As a result, we’re seeing more machines like the D6 Ultra, which use repurposed mobile platforms like the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H, a processor with 14 cores, a 7 Xe core GPU, and dedicated AI silicon.
This is far from the most powerful CPU that I’ve seen in a NAS, but the functionality that it inherently comes with because of this Meteor Lake generation processor casts a long shadow over those NAS designs still relying on ARM CPUs or Intel N300 chips.
The AI component in the Core Ultra is an important aspect that elevates it above lesser Intel silicon and ARM SoCs, but the feature of this hardware that has a greater impact, I’d suggest, is the 28 PCIe lanes.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The Zettlan support documentation helpfully reveals how those lanes are allocated, taking the guesswork out of how the bandwidth pie is sliced up.
For starters, each of the two M.2 SSDs is configured as PCIE 4.0 x4, which could make them capable of up to 7,000Mbps transfers if used directly as storage. That’s eight lanes, and a further four are given over to the 10GbE LAN ports, with two lanes per port.
That’s twelve used up, another eight are allocated to the SFF-8654, and two are used for the SATA interface that the hard drives attach to. That leaves two lanes for the card readers and other minor requirements. It’s my understanding that the USB ports are all inherent to the CPU, so they don’t need PCIe lanes, but I could be wrong about that.
If all that is accurate, then this is one of the few NAS I’ve tested where most of the PCIe bandwidth is utilised, on a platform that has plenty to hand out.
However, this technical achievement isn’t the focus of the Zettlab marketing, because the favourite buzzword of the moment is AI, and the Core Ultra 5 does bring reasonable offerings to the AI table.
Where the D4 and D6 models have ARM processors with 6 TOPS (Trillions/Tera Operations Per Second) of AI processing, the D6 Ultra and its Intel Core Ultra 5 125H have 34 TOPS. That number is a combination of the CPU, GPU, and NPU, with Intel’s AI Boost silicon contributing 11 TOPS to the total.
That’s significantly better than the ARM chips, although compared with the likes of the Nvidia high-end GPUs, like the RX 5090, which can muster 3,352 TOPS, it's still at the modest end of the scale. However, this NAS is sufficient for running local AI models, and using the SFF-8654 port, external GPUs can be added to significantly bolster AI capability.
Overall, the hardware in the D6 Ultra is impressive, even if Intel has released better chips since the Meteor Lake era.
Features: 3.5 / 5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Software
ZettOS
ZettAI
Since the likes of Synology, Qnap and Asustor all have mature NAS operating systems, the best comparisons can be made between ZettOS and Ugreen’s evolving UGOS Pro operating system.
My immediate reaction to ZettOS was that even in this early stage, it has features that took at least six months or longer to appear on UGOS Pro, and a much better app selection.
These include support for Docker and Virtual Machines, media tools, Home Assistant, Plex, Jellyfin, Unifi, and a collection of developer tools.
While I’d have expected to see more software development options, the inclusion of Docket and VM provides an easy means to add those things either with a container or a VM of a desktop Linux distro.
I’m not a huge fan of the red, yellow, green dots for window controls, aping Apple; the Web interface is relatively clean and doesn’t require supporting documentation to navigate.
But there are a few significant holes in the feature selection of the OS, most notably with respect to security. At the time of writing, there is no 2FA, limiting access to the machine via a login and password, and if you use the Windows Zettlab AI NAS app, those are both stored on the client PC. It is possible to use a Zettlan Remote ID to connect to the NAS externally, using the Zettlab cloud portal.
I was a little shocked by some of the security choices made for this unit when I discovered that by default, the FTP server functionality was active. That’s not typically considered a wise move, and admins only activate that feature when they’ve put in place controls to avoid it being externally exploited.
Another area where this NAS OS veers slightly off the beaten path is its file system, which, to my understanding, is a proprietary one developed by Zettlab. Those expecting the choice of Ext4 or BTRFS will be disappointed, and I don’t think the current file system supports a hybrid structure with drives of different sizes. For sharing, SMB and NFS are supported, but I didn’t see any means to format USB-connected storage. In fact, all the external drives I connected, either to USB 3.2 or USB4 ports, were ignored. Eventually, I got a thumb drive that appeared to be formatted in FAT32, but drives that were preformatted in exFAT or NTFS were not recognised. That’s a feature that needs to be made a priority, I’d suggest.
Having two 10GbE LAN ports offers some great network bandwidth, but there currently aren’t any link aggregation or failover options to leverage the full potential of them.
In my tests, the USB4 ports did not work in host mode, although this feature, I believe, is promised. The USB-C ports did charge my laptop, at least.
The HDMI port does nothing currently, not even showing the Linux boot.
During my time with this machine, it underwent two firmware updates, suggesting that the software developers are backfilling functionality that’s either missing or not working optimally.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Software: 3.5/5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Performance
Network performance
External drives limitation
AI models
For my testing, I used six IronWolf 4TB drives and allocated them into a RAID 10 pack for the best possible speed available. And to enhance that further, I allocated one Crucial P3 NVMe drive as a 1TB cache.
Like with many NAS, for whatever reason, a single drive can only be allocated to caching reads, and it takes two modules to cache reading and writing. I didn’t have two spare M.2 drives, so I went with the cached reading instead.
Over a single 10GbE, the read throughput hit over 900MB/s, which is excellent. As there is no link aggregation on the network ports, that’s realistically as fast as it’s possible to go. Should host mode on the USB4 be made active, that should be capable of much faster speeds. But without caching, six hard drives hit a bandwidth ceiling of around 900MB/s, since each is only capable of about 150MB/s. For this reason, unless you run SATA SSDs or have large M.2 cache drives for both reading and writing, there is little point in using the SFF-8654 port to add more or faster network ports.
And, in the support material, it states that “We currently do not natively support U.2 or U.3, but our machines can expand via the SFF-8654 interface.” Since SFF-8654’s function on some motherboards is to connect U.2 or U.3, that seems an odd choice.
As I mentioned earlier, external drives' functionality is incomplete, and without support for NTFS and exFAT, it's extremely limited in what it can be used for. I also found it disappointing that if the system didn’t recognise the file format, it didn’t offer to format it into one it was happy to work with.
That fun was as if nothing compared to the adventure of using this NAS as an AI local platform.
Inherently, the D6 Ultra and D8 Ultra support a local LLM model that can analyse whatever documents you put on the NAS, providing a chatbot interface to work with the contents.
If that sounds great to you and you have lots of files you need to navigate with AI logic, then right out of the box, this might be the NAS for you.
When the processing of the local model occurs is configurable, so that it doesn’t step on current tasks like file serving.
What’s great about this functionality is how automatic some of it is. After loading some prior review content folders onto the NAS, I discovered that the LLM had created a photo album based on the files and the subjects that it saw in the images. It could then also answer questions about the files, revealing the knowledge it has gained processing them.
Or rather, that’s what is implied. Except when you ask it in the AI chat window, it wants you to specifically say which files it should check, which isn’t super-helpful.
I should also say that the default ZettAI created by Zettlab, I assume, was poor at some general AI tasks, like history.
To further explore this feature, I looked at all the models that the system has available to install. These included four variants of Gemma, the Google AI, four flavours of Phi, the open-source Small Language Models (SLMs) created by Microsoft, two more QwQ models made by the Owen Team, two DeepSeek-R1 models, and a couple of Meta-made Llama models.
It’s possible to load and use each of these, though they range in size from about 2GB to more than 4GB, and some use plenty of memory.
I tried a number of them, and to put it mildly, my mileage varied considerably.
What I learned was to not ask DeepSeek about history, since it failed the most basic questions about historical events.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Its collection of the Kings and Queens of England was horrifically wrong, with it deciding that Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1237 to 1558, which would have easily made her the oldest person ever recorded, if it were true. For those wondering, her reign lasted from 1558 to 1603.
Realizing what a rich mine of alternative information DeepSeek could be, I then asked about which US presidents died in office, and it completely messed up that challenge. It said ten presidents had died while in office, whereas the right answer is eight. It got the names of those eight wrong, included people who died after they left office, and insisted that three presidents died while hunting.
ZettaAI did a better job of the King's question, although not perfect, as it left out Harold, who died at Hastings. But it entirely messed up the dead Presidents, leaving out Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, Warren G. Harding and even John F. Kennedy. Then it included Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, none of whom died in office. Out of eleven U.S. presidents it provided, the only ones it got right were William Henry Harrison and William McKinley.
I’m sure it’s possible to find subjects that these AIs are much better with than Western history, but the point is that if you were a student using these tools for homework exercises, you could be in deep, deep trouble.
To be clear, the effectiveness of these models, or not, isn’t a reflection on the Zettlab D6 Ultra, but the nature of AI technology, and its value to those expecting it to come back with generally correct answers.
When I questioned the ZettAI about how Abraham Lincoln wasn’t in the list of Presidents in one of those who were assassinated, it tried to say that the list of those who died in office didn’t include those who were killed, even though that was not a context I created. Then contradicting itself, it also argued that Lincoln died of Pneumonia, caused by the gunshot, but not directly from the assassination. This appears to be a riff on the concept that guns don’t kill people; complications from gunshot wounds kill people.
In short, if you are expecting something as powerful as datacentre AI in a small box on your desktop, you might need to scale that objective back that thinking somewhat, though as models improve, it might become an invaluable tool.
Performance: 4 / 5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Final verdict
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
There are some positive things to say about the D6 Ultra, since, for a NAS platform in the earlier stages of development, ZettOS is already reasonably sophisticated.
Where more questions exist is in the value of AI on hardware like this, because, as nice as a Core Ultra 5 CPU is, it's hardly a data centre. Depending on the size of the dataset you wish to use with the AI, this could be a highly responsive and productive solution, or something painfully slow to access.
I’m aware that even more powerful NASs are coming along that can outperform the D6 Ultra, although if an external GPU were added to this platform, it might be quicker. What’s not a guess is that if you added an RTX 5090 to this machine externally and gave it 96GB of RAM to run its models, this could be an impressive local AI solution, but the system's cost would be a minor part of the total expenditure.
Given the power of datacentre AI solutions, a solution like the D6 Ultra is likely to interest only those who want to use models experimentally or isolate the development of an AI platform from the Internet.
But I have to question how cost-effective this would be in the long term, should the model reach a level of complexity where the NAS struggles to run it interactively to achieve the level of performance you might want.
Should the AI bubble burst and people realise that it's of limited use for many tasks, at least this hardware is sufficient to be an excellent file server and media system.
Should you buy a Zettlab D6 Ultra?
Value
Expensive option, especially with RAM
3.5 / 5
Design
Metal constuction but no tray locks
3.5 / 5
Features
Powerful CPU with plenty PCIe lanes
4 / 5
Software
A work in progress that needs more security features
3.5 /5
Performance
A quick platform with bags of potential
4 / 5
Overall
AI is unconvincing, but ZettOS could be great with some development
4 / 5
Buy it if...
You want to explore AI on a NAS The Zettlab D6 Ultra is AI-agnostic, allowing the deployment of a wide range of LLMs and even use as an AI test environment. It also has the potential to become much more powerful in this respect, using an externally connected GPU.
You have data to deep-dive Using the provided AI tools, you can hand the local AI on the D6 Ultra a large amount of data, in photos, documents, or other file formats, and have the LLM look for relationships and patterns. You can even use it to create AI agents to alert you to things seen in newly added data.
Don't buy it if...
You want proper security At this phase in the development of ZettOS, security doesn’t have the priority that many NAS users expect. While these things are likely to be added, security on ZettOS currently doesn’t support two-factor authentication, WORM volumes, or approved client IP/Mac addresses. At this time, it's purely user/group-level security using passwords.
You need hybrid RAID or Ext4 The RAID models supported by ZettOS are the basic ones most are familiar with, which include JBOD, 0,1, 5, 6 and 10. What this file system can’t cope with is drives of different capacities, and it doesn’t use a familiar file system such as Ext4 or BTRFS. View Deal
The world of NAS systems has been turned on its head in the past couple of years, with Ugreen entering the fray aggressively and Synology walking away from the prosumer market.
In what appears to be an attempt to rekindle the same spark that propelled Ugreen, ZettLabs is launching a range of NAS on Kickstarter, with a focus on personal AI.
Having already launched two ARM-based NAS, the D4 and D6, the two new AI models use Intel processors and are the six-bay D6 Ultra reviewer here, and an eight-bay D8 Ultra. These are both available through a pre-order system and can be purchased either barebones with no memory or with DDR5 pre-installed.
At the heart of the D6 Ultra is the Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 125H, a series 100 processor that first appeared in laptops back in late 2023.
This platform is powerful enough to handle the six conventional drive bays, the dual 10GbE LAN ports, and the dual USB4 ports that this NAS offers. The memory installed model comes with 32GB of DDR5, but this can be upgraded to 96GB for those who can afford 48GB modules.
Where this diverges from other six-bay NAS is that, with the Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 125H and its Intel AI Boost capabilities, this system can host LLM AI models and run them in isolation. AI is a niche requirement, but those who don’t use AI are still going to get a fast, powerful NAS to share files, make backups, and interact with Cloud services.
With this level of system-resident functionality in a NAS, the price is higher than that of a conventional 6-bay NAS, so it will only be of interest to those who want its AI capabilities. However, Zettlabs aren’t the only NAS maker offering the hosting of local AI models, and the general features of ZettOS aren’t at the same level as more established solutions.
I wouldn’t write off the Zettlab D6 Ultra as one of our best NAS devices in years to come, but the operating system needs to mature before that happens.
This Zettlab D6 Ultra is currently on pre-order from the company's website and comes in two variants, with and without memory. The version I tested for this review came with 32GB of DDR5 memory and costs $1679.99, and the same hardware without that RAM is only $1079.99.
That’s either a reflection of how much RAM costs these days, or how much Zettlab is willing to charge you for it. As I was able to find Crucial 16GB SODIMMs for around $150 on Amazon.com, taking the thirty seconds to populate this machine yourself could easily save you $300.
For those interested, the 8-bay D8 Ultra, is priced at $1319.99 with no memory, and $1919.99 for 32GB, which is a similar price differential for two memory modules.
What might be more problematic for Zettlab is that the Super Early Bird pricing of the Ugreen NASync iDX60011 Pro with 64GB of DDR5 is only $1559, while the MSRP is $2599.
The iDX60011 Pro is also a 6-bay NAS, built on Intel mobile silicon, but it uses the more powerful Core Ultra 7 255H, a modern 200-series processor.
I haven’t tried that NAS yet, but it arrived today, so soon I should have a baseline for comparing the two platforms. But on paper, the D6 Ultra does seem expensive when supplied with RAM, and the iDX60011 Pro has a potential performance advantage.
The design and layout of the D6 Ultra aren’t radical, but the chassis's all-metal construction suggests this is a machine with a long life ahead.
However, if this NAS had been entirely metal, it would be exceptionally heavy, and the six drive trays are made of plastic.
Curiously, the trays are labelled A through F and are not numbered. What’s nice about the tray design is that for 3.5-inch drive installations, no tools or screws are required. What I didn’t care for is that they don’t include any sort of locking mechanism, and triggering them to open requires only a light press.
Given the utter chaos that disconnected drives can cause in a running system, these drive trays need locks or a mechanism to prevent all trays from opening accidentally.
A feature of all Zettlab NAS is the 3.49-inch display at the bottom left of the fascia, which shows drive status, network IP address, and more. Most people will need to get reasonably close to read the information from this display, but it’s a good alternative to flashing LEDs.
Also on the front are two card readers, one is SD4.0 and the other TF4.0, covering both common card types. And alongside those are a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port and a USB4 Type-C port. A feature that initially confused me was the button on the far right of the fascia, which I easily assumed powered the NAS up. It doesn’t.
The power button is on the back, out of the way. The button on the front is designed to initiate copying files from SD cards and USB ports to the internal storage.
On the rear are another USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, another USB4 port, a USB 2.0 port, dual 10GbE LAN ports, and an HDMI out. These are all to be expected on a NAS at this price point, but what I’ve not seen before is the SFF-8654, a port built to provide an external connection for PCIE4.0 card with 8 lanes.
Using that port, it should be possible to connect an external GPU, expand the storage, or install a 25GbE network adapter. While there isn’t the physical room inside the NAS for a full-sized video card, the SFF-8654 enables one to be outside with enough bandwidth to the system to be useful.
Based purely on the included ports, the specification of this machine was carefully designed to please those who use NAS systems to their fullest potential.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
My only concern about the hardware is that a few minor details suggest the D6 Ultra changed extensively during development, and the industrial engineers involved struggled to keep up with those modifications.
An obvious mistake I noticed was that the magnetically attached filter that covers the fans on the back doesn’t fit correctly. It’s too small, and slides down when attached.
Another is that, underneath the NAS, there is an access panel that provides access to the two M.2 and two SODIMM memory slots. The plate that covers this has four screws retaining it, when one or two screws would have been sufficient.
That’s a minor thing, but what’s more of an issue is that Zettlab provides two thermal pads to place on M.2 drives to connect them thermally to the skin of the D6 Ultra. Unfortunately, these pads are far too thick, and if four screws are tightened down, they could put excessive pressure on the NVMe drives to the mainboard, causing damage.
This configuration also doesn’t account for NVMe SSDs that have a heatsink attached.
I hope the filter and the thermal pads both get addressed when the D6 Ultra next has a version change, because the cost of this NAS dictates that the details are right.
Design: 3.5 / 5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Features
Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
28 PCIe Lanes
Intel Deep Learning
For many years, NAS makers almost exclusively used either ARM SoCs or, occasionally, low-power Intel chips like the Atom or Celeron series.
The design logic for this was sound, since moving data from SATA drives doesn’t require much computing power.
What’s happened more recently is that the app installations on NAS have become much more sophisticated, with Virtual Machine and Docker containers being used, but also now we’re transitioning into an era where NAS are AI nodes curating the data they hold.
As a result, we’re seeing more machines like the D6 Ultra, which use repurposed mobile platforms like the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H, a processor with 14 cores, a 7 Xe core GPU, and dedicated AI silicon.
This is far from the most powerful CPU that I’ve seen in a NAS, but the functionality that it inherently comes with because of this Meteor Lake generation processor casts a long shadow over those NAS designs still relying on ARM CPUs or Intel N300 chips.
The AI component in the Core Ultra is an important aspect that elevates it above lesser Intel silicon and ARM SoCs, but the feature of this hardware that has a greater impact, I’d suggest, is the 28 PCIe lanes.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The Zettlan support documentation helpfully reveals how those lanes are allocated, taking the guesswork out of how the bandwidth pie is sliced up.
For starters, each of the two M.2 SSDs is configured as PCIE 4.0 x4, which could make them capable of up to 7,000Mbps transfers if used directly as storage. That’s eight lanes, and a further four are given over to the 10GbE LAN ports, with two lanes per port.
That’s twelve used up, another eight are allocated to the SFF-8654, and two are used for the SATA interface that the hard drives attach to. That leaves two lanes for the card readers and other minor requirements. It’s my understanding that the USB ports are all inherent to the CPU, so they don’t need PCIe lanes, but I could be wrong about that.
If all that is accurate, then this is one of the few NAS I’ve tested where most of the PCIe bandwidth is utilised, on a platform that has plenty to hand out.
However, this technical achievement isn’t the focus of the Zettlab marketing, because the favourite buzzword of the moment is AI, and the Core Ultra 5 does bring reasonable offerings to the AI table.
Where the D4 and D6 models have ARM processors with 6 TOPS (Trillions/Tera Operations Per Second) of AI processing, the D6 Ultra and its Intel Core Ultra 5 125H have 34 TOPS. That number is a combination of the CPU, GPU, and NPU, with Intel’s AI Boost silicon contributing 11 TOPS to the total.
That’s significantly better than the ARM chips, although compared with the likes of the Nvidia high-end GPUs, like the RX 5090, which can muster 3,352 TOPS, it's still at the modest end of the scale. However, this NAS is sufficient for running local AI models, and using the SFF-8654 port, external GPUs can be added to significantly bolster AI capability.
Overall, the hardware in the D6 Ultra is impressive, even if Intel has released better chips since the Meteor Lake era.
Features: 3.5 / 5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Software
ZettOS
ZettAI
Since the likes of Synology, Qnap and Asustor all have mature NAS operating systems, the best comparisons can be made between ZettOS and Ugreen’s evolving UGOS Pro operating system.
My immediate reaction to ZettOS was that even in this early stage, it has features that took at least six months or longer to appear on UGOS Pro, and a much better app selection.
These include support for Docker and Virtual Machines, media tools, Home Assistant, Plex, Jellyfin, Unifi, and a collection of developer tools.
While I’d have expected to see more software development options, the inclusion of Docket and VM provides an easy means to add those things either with a container or a VM of a desktop Linux distro.
I’m not a huge fan of the red, yellow, green dots for window controls, aping Apple; the Web interface is relatively clean and doesn’t require supporting documentation to navigate.
But there are a few significant holes in the feature selection of the OS, most notably with respect to security. At the time of writing, there is no 2FA, limiting access to the machine via a login and password, and if you use the Windows Zettlab AI NAS app, those are both stored on the client PC. It is possible to use a Zettlan Remote ID to connect to the NAS externally, using the Zettlab cloud portal.
I was a little shocked by some of the security choices made for this unit when I discovered that by default, the FTP server functionality was active. That’s not typically considered a wise move, and admins only activate that feature when they’ve put in place controls to avoid it being externally exploited.
Another area where this NAS OS veers slightly off the beaten path is its file system, which, to my understanding, is a proprietary one developed by Zettlab. Those expecting the choice of Ext4 or BTRFS will be disappointed, and I don’t think the current file system supports a hybrid structure with drives of different sizes. For sharing, SMB and NFS are supported, but I didn’t see any means to format USB-connected storage. In fact, all the external drives I connected, either to USB 3.2 or USB4 ports, were ignored. Eventually, I got a thumb drive that appeared to be formatted in FAT32, but drives that were preformatted in exFAT or NTFS were not recognised. That’s a feature that needs to be made a priority, I’d suggest.
Having two 10GbE LAN ports offers some great network bandwidth, but there currently aren’t any link aggregation or failover options to leverage the full potential of them.
In my tests, the USB4 ports did not work in host mode, although this feature, I believe, is promised. The USB-C ports did charge my laptop, at least.
The HDMI port does nothing currently, not even showing the Linux boot.
During my time with this machine, it underwent two firmware updates, suggesting that the software developers are backfilling functionality that’s either missing or not working optimally.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Software: 3.5/5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Performance
Network performance
External drives limitation
AI models
For my testing, I used six IronWolf 4TB drives and allocated them into a RAID 10 pack for the best possible speed available. And to enhance that further, I allocated one Crucial P3 NVMe drive as a 1TB cache.
Like with many NAS, for whatever reason, a single drive can only be allocated to caching reads, and it takes two modules to cache reading and writing. I didn’t have two spare M.2 drives, so I went with the cached reading instead.
Over a single 10GbE, the read throughput hit over 900MB/s, which is excellent. As there is no link aggregation on the network ports, that’s realistically as fast as it’s possible to go. Should host mode on the USB4 be made active, that should be capable of much faster speeds. But without caching, six hard drives hit a bandwidth ceiling of around 900MB/s, since each is only capable of about 150MB/s. For this reason, unless you run SATA SSDs or have large M.2 cache drives for both reading and writing, there is little point in using the SFF-8654 port to add more or faster network ports.
And, in the support material, it states that “We currently do not natively support U.2 or U.3, but our machines can expand via the SFF-8654 interface.” Since SFF-8654’s function on some motherboards is to connect U.2 or U.3, that seems an odd choice.
As I mentioned earlier, external drives' functionality is incomplete, and without support for NTFS and exFAT, it's extremely limited in what it can be used for. I also found it disappointing that if the system didn’t recognise the file format, it didn’t offer to format it into one it was happy to work with.
That fun was as if nothing compared to the adventure of using this NAS as an AI local platform.
Inherently, the D6 Ultra and D8 Ultra support a local LLM model that can analyse whatever documents you put on the NAS, providing a chatbot interface to work with the contents.
If that sounds great to you and you have lots of files you need to navigate with AI logic, then right out of the box, this might be the NAS for you.
When the processing of the local model occurs is configurable, so that it doesn’t step on current tasks like file serving.
What’s great about this functionality is how automatic some of it is. After loading some prior review content folders onto the NAS, I discovered that the LLM had created a photo album based on the files and the subjects that it saw in the images. It could then also answer questions about the files, revealing the knowledge it has gained processing them.
Or rather, that’s what is implied. Except when you ask it in the AI chat window, it wants you to specifically say which files it should check, which isn’t super-helpful.
I should also say that the default ZettAI created by Zettlab, I assume, was poor at some general AI tasks, like history.
To further explore this feature, I looked at all the models that the system has available to install. These included four variants of Gemma, the Google AI, four flavours of Phi, the open-source Small Language Models (SLMs) created by Microsoft, two more QwQ models made by the Owen Team, two DeepSeek-R1 models, and a couple of Meta-made Llama models.
It’s possible to load and use each of these, though they range in size from about 2GB to more than 4GB, and some use plenty of memory.
I tried a number of them, and to put it mildly, my mileage varied considerably.
What I learned was to not ask DeepSeek about history, since it failed the most basic questions about historical events.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Its collection of the Kings and Queens of England was horrifically wrong, with it deciding that Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1237 to 1558, which would have easily made her the oldest person ever recorded, if it were true. For those wondering, her reign lasted from 1558 to 1603.
Realizing what a rich mine of alternative information DeepSeek could be, I then asked about which US presidents died in office, and it completely messed up that challenge. It said ten presidents had died while in office, whereas the right answer is eight. It got the names of those eight wrong, included people who died after they left office, and insisted that three presidents died while hunting.
ZettaAI did a better job of the King's question, although not perfect, as it left out Harold, who died at Hastings. But it entirely messed up the dead Presidents, leaving out Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, Warren G. Harding and even John F. Kennedy. Then it included Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, none of whom died in office. Out of eleven U.S. presidents it provided, the only ones it got right were William Henry Harrison and William McKinley.
I’m sure it’s possible to find subjects that these AIs are much better with than Western history, but the point is that if you were a student using these tools for homework exercises, you could be in deep, deep trouble.
To be clear, the effectiveness of these models, or not, isn’t a reflection on the Zettlab D6 Ultra, but the nature of AI technology, and its value to those expecting it to come back with generally correct answers.
When I questioned the ZettAI about how Abraham Lincoln wasn’t in the list of Presidents in one of those who were assassinated, it tried to say that the list of those who died in office didn’t include those who were killed, even though that was not a context I created. Then contradicting itself, it also argued that Lincoln died of Pneumonia, caused by the gunshot, but not directly from the assassination. This appears to be a riff on the concept that guns don’t kill people; complications from gunshot wounds kill people.
In short, if you are expecting something as powerful as datacentre AI in a small box on your desktop, you might need to scale that objective back that thinking somewhat, though as models improve, it might become an invaluable tool.
What I also need to say is that most free AI tools are significantly behind the curve in terms of hallucinations and other issues. It's hard to say if models like ChatGPT 5.1 and Claude 4 will come to this platform, but it would make this experience dramatically better if they did.
Performance: 4 / 5
Zettlab D6 Ultra: Final verdict
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
There are some positive things to say about the D6 Ultra, since, for a NAS platform in the earlier stages of development, ZettOS is already reasonably sophisticated.
Where more questions exist is in the value of AI on hardware like this, because, as nice as a Core Ultra 5 CPU is, it's hardly a data centre. Depending on the size of the dataset you wish to use with the AI, this could be a highly responsive and productive solution, or something painfully slow to access.
I’m aware that even more powerful NASs are coming along that can outperform the D6 Ultra, although if an external GPU were added to this platform, it might be quicker. What’s not a guess is that if you added an RTX 5090 to this machine externally and gave it 96GB of RAM to run its models, this could be an impressive local AI solution, but the system's cost would be a minor part of the total expenditure.
Given the power of datacentre AI solutions, a solution like the D6 Ultra is likely to interest only those who want to use models experimentally or isolate the development of an AI platform from the Internet.
But I have to question how cost-effective this would be in the long term, should the model reach a level of complexity where the NAS struggles to run it interactively to achieve the level of performance you might want.
Should the AI bubble burst and people realise that it's of limited use for many tasks, at least this hardware is sufficient to be an excellent file server and media system.
Should you buy a Zettlab D6 Ultra?
Value
Expensive option, especially with RAM
3.5 / 5
Design
Metal constuction but no tray locks
3.5 / 5
Features
Powerful CPU with plenty PCIe lanes
4 / 5
Software
A work in progress that needs more security features
3.5 /5
Performance
A quick platform with bags of potential
4 / 5
Overall
AI is unconvincing, but ZettOS could be great with some development
4 / 5
Buy it if...
You want to explore AI on a NAS The Zettlab D6 Ultra is AI-agnostic, allowing the deployment of a wide range of LLMs and even use as an AI test environment. It also has the potential to become much more powerful in this respect, using an externally connected GPU.
You have data to deep-dive Using the provided AI tools, you can hand the local AI on the D6 Ultra a large amount of data, in photos, documents, or other file formats, and have the LLM look for relationships and patterns. You can even use it to create AI agents to alert you to things seen in newly added data.
Don't buy it if...
You want proper security At this phase in the development of ZettOS, security doesn’t have the priority that many NAS users expect. While these things are likely to be added, security on ZettOS currently doesn’t support two-factor authentication, WORM volumes, or approved client IP/Mac addresses. At this time, it's purely user/group-level security using passwords.
You need hybrid RAID or Ext4 The RAID models supported by ZettOS are the basic ones most are familiar with, which include JBOD, 0,1, 5, 6 and 10. What this file system can’t cope with is drives of different capacities, and it doesn’t use a familiar file system such as Ext4 or BTRFS. View Deal
The Dell Pro Max Tower T2 is not your usual business PC. It's not going to be the pick for casual users, or gamers, or admin work. And it's worth specifying that to begin with: this is a beast of a machine for professionals who need uncompromising power in engineering, AI, and all-around business performance, and who want a machine that is capable today and upgradable for the future,
Yes, it’s niche, and that’s okay. Dell doesn’t shy away from creating machines for a specific subset of users.
If you’re looking into this machine, there is a wide range in specs and pricing. The entry-level buildout is right around $1,000. But the high specs on my review unit are pushing $13,000. So, it may rank as one of the best workstations I've tested, but it certainly comes at a (hefty) price.
Dell Pro Max Tower T2: Price and Availability
The Dell Pro Max Tower T2 is available from both Dell US and Dell UK in a range of configurations.
The entry configurations are priced at around $1,000 and still include a Core Ultra 7, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an AMD Radeon Pro GPU.
As I mentioned, my buildout is pretty high-tier. My exact buildout is priced at $12,787 and features an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K vPro with 128 GB of RAM, an NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell with 96GB, 4 TB of storage, and a massive 1500W PSU… oh, and a DVDRW drive.
(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )
Dell Pro Max Tower T2: Unboxing and First Impressions
The Dell Pro Max Tower T2 brings me down memory lane; it makes me remember the PCs I grew up on, the one I learned my fascination with computers on, and then I turned it on.
The machine that once reminded me of dial-up and waiting for a simple PDF or low•res photo to fully render is no longer reminiscent of my past at all, and simply reminds me that this is 2026 and this machine means business for today, and tomorrow. That’s exactly how this machine feels. Granted, it‘s no small casing, but for the amount of power packed into this chassis, the power-to-size ratio is wild.
Another thing that quickly surprised me is the port offering. There are great DisplayPorts, USB-A and USB-C ports, a disk drive for crying out loud, and other great ports that make this a spectacular machine all around. What‘s awesome too is that the build quality is spectacular, yes, it is a big machine, but it's a big machine that is built to last, and built to be re-built as new components are released, keeping the desktop workstation around for quite some time to come.
Dell Pro Max Tower T2: Design & Build Quality
(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )
This desktop has a classic tower design with a. 32L Chassis that offers great cooling, space to expand and change out parts in the future, and it fits the mold of what pro-level users are used to, which is a bigger deal than some may think.
For those who are not necessarily enthusiasts but are just pro-users, they may not care about the fancy new doohickeys, gadgets, and gizmos. They want a machine that will work the way they need it to, every time, without fail or downtime, and they want it to work right away. They don‘t want to have to learn a new system or rebuild their setup.
The form factor helps with that, but so does the port location, the simple DisplayPort out, the IEC power connection, not some proprietary cable, and the all-around business-first focus. It’s simple things like this that help business users.
Beyond the design, the build quality is great. It’s rugged enough that you can get work done without worrying about your machine breaking, and it looks and feels professional enough that it never passes as a gaming machine, keeping this strictly business.
The internals of this blast-from-the-past-looking tower are nothing close to those with which I grew up. It’s rocking an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K with 24 cores, up to 5.7GHz boost, and built-in NPU AI Acceleration. It has an NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell with 96GB, plus a total of 4TB of blazing-fast SSD storage, 128GB of RAM, and a power supply with plenty of headroom to add other components in the future.
This computer is fine-tuned down to the component selection for AI models, training, 8K video editing, large-scale rendering, massive database manipulation, CAD, simulations, and more. This machine is a powerhouse. Plain and simple.
Dell Pro Max Tower T2: In use
(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )
I work alongside engineers, those who work with large data warehouses, those who work with AI, those who work in 3D modeling, 4K and 6K video editors, professional photographers, those who run massive visual events, those who run full custom applications, and so on. I was able to work alongside all of those individuals with this computer to see just how powerful the Dell Pro Max T2 Tower truly is.
It is important to note that this is not a gaming PC; those are also highly spec’d, but in different ways. You could upgrade the GPU to a more gaming-focused one to get closer, but right now this machine is built for work, not play.
I'd happily use this machine as my workhorse for serious work. In high-performance roles like data engineering and architecture, tower PCs are common. This machine is spectacular for that. If you already have a monitor and keyboard setup you love, you're just looking for a more powerful engine for your ecosystem. That's exactly what this delivers.
It’s snappy, has great ports, doesn’t slow down, and stays quiet even during benchmarking tests.
The Dell Pro Max Tower T2 is a powerhouse workstation designed for real productivity. It’s not your everyday gaming PC; it’s more than that. Yes, it’s not the most advanced gaming GPU, but it is among the most powerful for raw performance and processing.
For AI, data models, data-intensive work, massive productivity, and beyond, this will handle it. And thanks to the old-school tower form factor, this machine can be upgraded with other components as you desire, without breaking solder joints or cramming parts in.
In short, this isn’t the PC for most, but for those who know they need incredible power in a Windows machine to handle these kinds of tasks, then this may just be the enterprise-grade machine you’ve been dreaming of.
