Firefly-RK3288 Development Board in Mass Production, Selling for $140

Firefly-RK3288 development board has been an interesting, yet confusing story, at least to me. We’ve first heard about the Firefly board on July, but I was privately told in September that the board would only be sold in China by a T-Chip sales person, only to see it become available for $189 on Ebay, as well as on Taobao a few days later. But those first boards may have only been engineering sample, or more likely from a limited trial runs, as the company has now announced mass production had started.

Let’s refresh our memory with the specifications:

• SoC – Rockchip 3288 quad core ARM Cortex A12 / A17 up to 1.8 GHz with Mali-T764 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, and OpenCL 1.1
• System Memory – 2G DDR3
• Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot
• Video Output
  • HDMI 2.0 up to 3840×2160@60p
  • VGA out (D-SUB connector)
  • Dual MIPI, Dual LVDS and and EDP signal available via expansion headers
• Audio Output / Input – HDMI, optical S/PDIF, microphone header, and built-in MIC
• Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi with external antenna, and Bluetooth 4.0
• USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG
• Debugging – Serial console
• Expansion Headers – 2x 42-pin headers with access to MIPI, LVDS, EDP, SPI, UART, ADC, GPIO, I2C, I2S…
• Misc – IR receiver, 2x user LED, power, recovery and reset buttons.
• Power Supply – 5V/2A
• Dimensions – 118 x 83 mm

The board is sold with two acrylic plates (bottom and top) with corresponding stands, a Wi-Fi antenna, and a power cable.

It’s now quite cheaper to get the board, as GeekBuying sells it for $139.99 including shipping, and T-Chip also sells it by themselves on Aliexpress for $129.99 + shipping by DHL, which ends up costing $164.37 to Thailand, but at least you should get it in a couple of days, instead of a couple of weeks if you choose the cheaper option.

When it comes to Rockchip RK3288 development board, you basically have two options: Firefly-RK3288, or Radxa Rock 2. Radxa community has been setup in 2013 with the first Rockchip RK3188, and has many followers, but the company has opted for a more professional design for their RK3288 board comprised of a baseboard and a SoM. It has lots of features (including a 3G modem, a Gigabit switch, etc..), making it more expensive. So for hobbyists Firefly-RK3288 is probably the best choice for an RK3288 board, but for more professional usage, especially if you want to design your own product with an RK3288 SoM, the solution by Radxa should be more suited to your needs.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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