Radxa Rock 2 Square is a Rockchip RK3288 Development Board for Hobbyists

When Radxa Rock 2 was first unveiled, it became clear it was not aimed at the hobbyist market, as it includes lot of features such as SATA, 3G modem, dual Gigabit Ethernet, up to 4GB memory and so on, and is likely to cost a few hundred dollars. The company is now working a cheaper baseboard called Radxa Rock 2 Square leveraging the same Radxa Rock 2 SoM used with the full-featured baseboard (now also called Radxa Rock 2 Full), but with less features and at price point that should be more affordable to individuals.

Preliminary Rock 2 square specifications (derived from picture above):

• Processor/Memory/Storage –  Via Rock2 SoM including Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 processor, 2 to 4 GB RAM, and 16GB eMMC.
• External Storage – SATA and micro SD slot
• Video Output – HDMI, LVDS connector
• Audio I/O – HDMI, headphone jack, built-in microphone, and optical S/PDIF
• Connectivity – Ethernet (RJ45) and most probably Wi-Fi (I can’t see the module, but the Wi-Fi antenna connector gives a clue…)
• USB – 3x USB 2.0 host ports + 1x micro USB OTG port
• Debugging – 4-pin UART for debug console
• Expansion Headerss – 40-pin female header for GPIOs, I2C, UART, SPI, etc.., male connector for LVDS displays.
• SoM Connector – 314-pin MXM edge connector
• Misc – Power and reset buttons, status LEDs, IR receiver, RTC + battery slot
• Power Supply – 5V/3A
• Dimensions – N/A

The new low cost baseboard is still being developed, and the company have now manufactured 100 beta boards, 90 of which will soon be send out to customers and developers, so the public launch should occur in a few weeks or months.

You can find more details, including instructions to build Android 4.4 from source, and follow the development progress on Radxa Rock 2 Square product page.

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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