Yeah you won't find them for $5 unless you buy in bulk on Alibaba
Aliexpress has this as the best selling one though the chipset is not confirmed https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006924641101.html
Well I take my gamble, wait 2 weeks and see what I'll get
Looks like both those are the same, judging by the review pictures too
I just bought one for $1.07 US with free shipping. I was buying with a new account so I probably got that discount. But even so, before buying I got $2.99 the first time I loaded the page, then $9.89 or thereabouts, and finally $0.99 (which I bought, it had an additional $0.08 in fees for $1.07 total). We’ll see if it shows up and is hackable, but at that price it feels too good to pass up the chance.
Which one did you buy, the red one or the white one? I do want a device that runs openstick, but I don't want more ewaste if it's the wrong one.
EDIT: According to this post[1] above, this listing[2] should be the real thing, as the red variant does say SSID 4G-UFI-XX under the cap.
[1] https://wvthoog.nl/openstick/ [2] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860833351.html