Just purchased a bare Uconsole, wish me luck. I intend to buy the CM5 yet which version ?.
I’ll go for the max ram yet read once that getting the version with flash can cause issues booting from SD card ?. I’d have thought booting and running apps from the flash would be much faster !, SD card for program/file storage. …
IMHO
Max RAM, Lite version (use SD Card). Get a heatsink and use active cooling. use the HackerGadget mainboard for USB3, PCIE etc. Move to NVME booting if possible.
Take note the need to edit the eeprom of the CM5.
From my understanding go for the non emmc or lite cm5, with whatever ram you need or can afford, with the cm5 emmc version you can’t use the sd card, something to do with using the same lanes, it’s a raspberry pi issue not a uconsole issue, if you search the forum you will find more info 
Also make sure to get a wifi variant.
As said before, eMMC is faster, but to use it you need a separate carrier board because you can’t do that from the included one, and it disables the sd card slot, so even if you get the hackergadgets adapter board for it’s extra features(which includes flashing eMMC iirc) you still can’t use the sd card slot once you’re booting from the even faster NVME
I can’t imagine any application on a uConsole that would benefit from more than 8GB.
I would invest in a Hacker Gadget’s NVMe board instead of more RAM.
Emmc version is pretty good. You can get ~250MB/s seq read on that thing, absolutely fast enough for anything daily. ~100MB/s write is not bad either.
If you want “absolute ridiculous luxurious version”, just go for the cm5 16GB RAM + 64GB EMMC version. Use the new AIOv2 carrier board which allows you to flash firmware, and usb3.0 to access external fast drives if you need. Also the nvme drive can help.
Ok so CM5116000 is the way to go so plenty of ram and the sd card works ? (16gb ram, no Emmc, +wifi)
Now looking at the hackergadget upgrade kit (main board, battery/Nvme, rj45/usb3) yet their site weirdly claims both “pre order” AND delivery 20/1/2026 (in the past lol). What is the score here ?, thoughts re this kit ?
i think the upgrade kit is a must have. Otherwise, you will always feel as if the unit still has room to stretch its wings. the USB3, Gigabit ethernet, NVM is awesome.
I think you might need to drop a PM to @vileer at this point if you need to snag the upgrade kit. Due to some power oversights, things has been hard for hackergadgets even though it is fixable. I would think you should still get it regardless and fix it on your own if necessary. It is my opinion that whatever issues of the kit, it is completely usable and it makes a lot of difference.
PS: i really hope that Hackergadgets keeps doing what they are doing. Without them, the uConsole seriously had its wings clipped.
Power oversight fix ?
while general users might not notice it, if you use a USB device with a high power draw on the internal usb3 port, it might not supply enough power. the solution is to modify the resistor that controls the Amps to the port. its an easy fix.
but if you don’t use any high power device like a power hungry wifi card, it shouldn’t matter.
Just reading the post, seems all new orders will have the current fix applied 
TBH I never liked the SD card solution. Too slow and also too unreliable comparing to the new EMMC. If you’re not reflashing OS constantly it basically has no benefit whatsoever.
As a Uconsole/linux newbie its good to have options though…