There’s no question that the Thecus N5200 Pro has some rather useful features and good performance; but as we’ve mentioned in the review, some of the functionality is either a bit lacking or seems to have been put in so that the company could add another tick box to a list of features that someone has come up with. Most of the functionality is useful though, it really comes down to what you want to use the N5200 Pro for and it’s very much a jack of all trades. But in this case, it actually seems to do most things quite well.
The only two things we can really complain about is the dull and slightly awkward to use UI, we’re not overly keen on the drop down menus and some online help when you hover over an option would be useful, or even a small text window to go with each menu that has a brief explanation of the various options would be great. The second thing is the abysmal USB performance when you’re accessing the N5200 Pro from your PC, a feature that might as well have been left out as it doesn’t add anything useful.
Besides this, there’s only really the price tag that will put any potential buyers off, but at between $1,028 and $1,095 AU from over a dozen online retailers in Australia we can’t really complain too much, and it’s even less elsewhere in the world. Compare this to the non-Pro version which is only $100 AU less and it’s not such a bad deal for the extra functionality and much higher specification.
Investing in a NAS is a long term investment, but with the ability to start with a pair of drives and expand this into a total of five or even six if you use the eSATA interface makes the N5200 Pro a good investment. The option to add extra storage space over time is also great as you can expand it as your backup and storage needs grow.
All in all, the Thecus N5200 Pro is a class leading product in a very competitive market and it’s not hard to see why Thecus has such a good reputation in the NAS storage market, although some further refinement wouldn’t go amiss and Thecus needs to continue to be innovative and offer excellent products to keep its position in the market as the competition isn’t going to sit around and wait for Thecus to make the next move.
Right of Reply
We at TweakTown openly invite the companies who provide us with review samples to express their opinion of our content and thoughts. If any company representative of this product wishes to respond, we will publish the response here.
