Daily Archives: July 1, 2025

Synology starts selling overpriced underperforming 1.6 TB SSDs for $535 — self-branded, archaic PCIe 3.0 SSDs the only option to meet ‘certified’ criteria being enforced on newer NAS models

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Synology has begun selling its newest SNV5400 enterprise NAS SSDs, and the asking prices for what you receive are nothing short of shocking. For a 1.6 TB NVMe SSD at PCIe Gen3 speeds, Synology is asking $535 on B&H Photo Video, while many competing devices retail for around $100. The new SNV5400 family, which also includes 400GB and 800GB models, is one of only a few Synology-branded SSD families compatible with certain Synology NAS models due to the company’s new restrictive compatibility requirements.

Synology recently announced its plans to require the use of approved SSDs for certain NAS systems. To date, only Synology-branded SSDs have received the stamp of approval from the company. While previous SSD releases from Synology have remained marginally in line with market rates for SSDs, the SNV5400 family significantly exceeds the comparative pricing of the market.

Synology’s newest drives, which were first seen online at a gobsmacking €620 from one Newegg shop, are priced comfortably above any other similar models in the industry

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The unfortunate thing about the Synology SNV5400 family is that it feels like it arrived several years too late. PCIe 3.0 has largely been left behind, as most storage manufacturers are now transitioning to PCIe 5.0, leaving PCIe 4.0 also in the dust. What’s more, the SNV5420’s endurance is vastly outclassed by its competitors; Western Digital’s WD Red SN700 SSD, another PCIe 3.0 NAS drive, advertises a TBW of 5100TB, nearly double what Synology offers.

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While some loopholes exist for using non-approved drives in newer Synology NAS units (like this one written in German), eventually Synology customers may be forced to pay the hefty Synology tax for their off-the-shelf NAS solutions. Perhaps independent testing reveals some fairy dust in the new units that deserves its hefty upcharge, but we haven’t found any from Synology’s own site just yet.

Source: Synology starts selling overpriced 1.6 TB SSDs for $535 — self-branded, archaic PCIe 3.0 SSDs the only option to meet ‘certified’ criteria | Tom’s Hardware

Your Samsung phone has a secret Wi-Fi menu. Here’s how to find it

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One such example is the “Connectivity Labs” Wi-Fi settings menu. It’s buried deep in the Settings app on your Samsung phone, and it’s something I didn’t know existed until just the other day. Which is a shame, because there’s some really cool stuff in here. Let me show you.

How to find Samsung’s secret Wi-Fi settings

Connectivity Labs toggle on a Samsung phone.

So, where is this hidden Wi-Fi settings menu? Here’s how to find and activate it:

  1. Open the Settings app on your Samsung phone.
  2. Tap Connections.
  3. Tap Wi-Fi.
  4. Tap the three dots in the upper-right corner.
  5. Tap Intelligent Wi-Fi.

From this page, find the Intelligent Wi-Fi button at the bottom and repeatedly tap it. You’ll see a pop-up letting you know that Connectivity Labs will be enabled if you keep tapping, so keep on doing that until you see the new Connectivity Labs option appear below Intelligent Wi-Fi.

It seems that Connectivity Labs was quietly added sometime in 2023, and it recently garnered a fresh batch of attention over the weekend on the r/SamsungGalaxy subreddit.

I’ve confirmed that Connectivity Labs is available on Samsung phones running One UI 7 and the One UI 8 Beta. Given that Connectivity Labs was introduced in 2023, it should also be present on Samsung phones that still have One UI 6.

The best Connectivity Labs features you should try

Samsung Connectivity Labs page.

Once Connectivity Labs is enabled, you’ll find a swath of new settings to play around with. The page starts by showing a graph of your Wi-Fi time and usage over the past week, including which specific bands you were using. It’s neat, but there are far more interesting things to check out.

Scroll past this graph, and you’re met with a laundry list of settings and toggles. You can play with all of them if you want, but I want to highlight a few of my favorites.

The first option on the list, Home Wi-Fi inspection, is particularly cool. Once you select it and tap on your home Wi-Fi network, you’re asked to walk around your house while the feature tests all the different access points and bands of your router, determining if there are any weak signal areas.

There are also some helpful toggles to configure how your phone stays connected to Wi-Fi networks and when it disconnects from them. The Switching to mobile data faster toggle, for example, will stop your phone from holding onto a weak Wi-Fi signal for too long and jump to your mobile data sooner than it typically does — something you may want to enable if you have an unlimited data plan and aren’t worried about your mobile data useage.

Auto reconnect to carrier Wi-Fi is another interesting setting. If you have a carrier like Xfinity Mobile or Spectrum Mobile, your phone probably automatically connects to your carrier’s public Wi-Fi hotspots to supplement your cell coverage. This is enabled by default, but if you don’t want that to happen, you can easily disable it from this menu.

I also quite like the Customize Wi-Fi list settings page. From here, you can enable a filter button on your main Wi-Fi networks page. When you tap it, you can choose to only see secured networks, Wi-Fi 6 connections, etc.

Finally, if you tap Wi-Fi developer options at the bottom of the Connectivity Labs page, you’ll find an entirely new menu of even more Wi-Fi settings to fiddle with.

Wi-Fi information page in Samsung's Connectivity Labs.

You can probably ignore most of these, but the Nearby Wi-Fi information page is quite helpful. It displays a list of all nearby Wi-Fi networks, along with their signal strengths, categorized as Best, Good, Bad, and Worst. If you’re in an area with a lot of public Wi-Fi networks to choose from, this could be a great way to ensure you choose the best one.

Who knew this was here?

Wi-Fi settings toggles in Samsung's Connectivity Labs page.

Had I not stumbled across that recent Reddit thread, I probably never would have known that Connectivity Labs existed. And given the small amount of reporting/discussion there is about Connectivity Labs online, it seems that most people don’t know about it either.

I’m not sure why Samsung has these settings buried so deeply and behind so many sub-menus. There’s genuinely useful stuff here, and while some of the settings are a bit technical, almost anyone can benefit from features like the home Wi-Fi inspection and the Wi-Fi filter menu.

I’d love to see Samsung make some of these settings more obvious, but until that happens, hopefully, this article helped you find them.

Source: Your Samsung phone has a secret Wi-Fi menu. Here’s how to find it

Someone Built a Concept Ad Blocker for Real Life, and I Can’t Wait to Try It

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I use as many ad-blocking programs as possible, but no matter how many I install, real-life advertising is still there, grabbing my attention when I’m just trying to go for a walk. Thankfully, there may be a solution on the horizon. Software engineer Stijn Spanhove recently posted a concept video showing what real-time, real-life ad-blocking looks like on a pair of Snap Spectacles, and I really want it. Check it out:

The idea is that the AI in your smart glasses recognizes advertisements in your visual field and “edits them out’ in real time, sparing you from ever seeing what they want you to see.

While Spanhove’s video shows a red block over the offending ads, you could conceivably cover that Wendy’s ad with anything you want—an abstract painting, a photo of your family, an ad for Arby’s, etc.

Source: Someone Built an Ad Blocker for Real Life, and I Can’t Wait to Try It

Note – it looks like Stijn took everything related to this down. So it’s probably just a concept. But it’s a really cool concept!

Proton joins anti-Apple lawsuit to force App Store changes in the US

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Secure comms biz Proton has joined a lawsuit that alleges Apple’s anticompetitive ways are harming developers, consumers, and privacy.

Proton is a Switzerland-based (for now) provider of encrypted communications services and on Monday filed a legal complaint [PDF] against Apple, claiming the iGiant is abusing its control of iOS and the App Store in ways that reduce competition.

Apple has been fighting legal battles on this front for some time. Most notably, Epic Games sued in 2020 to try and allow itself and other app makers to sell its wares for use on Apple devices through channels other than Apple’s own App Store and payment systems. While Apple mostly won that case, the court said it had to allow third-party developers to inform customers of payment systems other than Apple’s own. (A judge recently questioned whether Apple has complied and pondered whether the company is in contempt of court.)

In Europe, regulators have taken a harder line, forcing the mega-biz to allow sales of iOS apps on third-party app stores.

Proton would like to see that happen in the US and has therefore asked the US District court for Northern California to require Apple to get out of the way and give app developers direct access to customers. The company’s filing suggests making that happen by requiring Apple to allow alternative app stores, expose those stores through its own Apple App Store, plus allowing developers to disable Apple’s in-app payment system and to gain fill access to Apple APIs.

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Secure comms biz Proton has joined a lawsuit that alleges Apple’s anticompetitive ways are harming developers, consumers, and privacy.

Proton is a Switzerland-based (for now) provider of encrypted communications services and on Monday filed a legal complaint [PDF] against Apple, claiming the iGiant is abusing its control of iOS and the App Store in ways that reduce competition.

Apple has been fighting legal battles on this front for some time. Most notably, Epic Games sued in 2020 to try and allow itself and other app makers to sell its wares for use on Apple devices through channels other than Apple’s own App Store and payment systems. While Apple mostly won that case, the court said it had to allow third-party developers to inform customers of payment systems other than Apple’s own. (A judge recently questioned whether Apple has complied and pondered whether the company is in contempt of court.)

In Europe, regulators have taken a harder line, forcing the mega-biz to allow sales of iOS apps on third-party app stores.

Proton would like to see that happen in the US and has therefore asked the US District court for Northern California to require Apple to get out of the way and give app developers direct access to customers. The company’s filing suggests making that happen by requiring Apple to allow alternative app stores, expose those stores through its own Apple App Store, plus allowing developers to disable Apple’s in-app payment system and to gain fill access to Apple APIs.

Rather than suing anew, Proton is joining a group of Korean developers that took Apple to a US court in May [PDF] on similar grounds.

“We believe that Apple’s conduct constitutes further violations of US antitrust law,” Proton said in a blog post.

“Without this case, Apple could get away with behavior in the US that is already outlawed in the European Union. If this were to happen, American consumers, and developers focused on the American market, would have to pay higher prices for fewer choices, and be left at a disadvantage.”

Proton’s complaint covers many of the same issues raised by Epic and other app makers, and adds a novel argument that Apple’s system also harms user privacy. The Swiss company argues that developers of free apps usually harvest user data and sell that to cover their bills. Companies like Proton that don’t collect or sell user data have no choice but to charge subscriptions for revenue. Apple’s pricing model particularly penalizes these companies by taking a cut of annual subscriptions sold on its App Store.

The post also revisits Proton’s 2020 run-in with Apple that saw the iBiz reject an update to Proton’s VPN after the Swiss company pointed out it could be used to “unblock censored web sites.” Apple eventually relented but the episode shows how Apple puts profit before privacy, Proton argued.

“We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit,” it wrote.

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Source: Proton joins anti-Apple lawsuit to force App Store changes • The Register