As Raspberry Pi Model B+ price got reduced to $25, some competitors also decided to bring their price down. Shenzhen Xunlong Software, the maker of Orange Pi board, decided to decrease their Orange Pi 2 and Orange Pi 2 Mini boards by $5 to respectively $30 and $25 plus around $2 shipping.
Both boards are based on the same PCB, but the mini version lacks WiFi. Let’s refresh our memory with the specs:
- SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.6 GHz with 256KB L1 cache, 1MB L2 cache, and an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz
- System Memory – 1GB DDR3
- Storage – micro SD card slot (up to 64GB)
- Video Output – HDMI (CEC and HDCP support), AV port
- Audio I/O – HDMI, AV port, on-board microphone
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (Realtek module, not found on mini version)
- USB – 4x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port
- Camera – CSI Interface
- Expansions – 40-pin Raspberry Pi Model A+/B+ (mostly) compatible header with 28 GPIOs, UART, I2C, SPI, PWM, CAN, I2S, SPDIF, LRADC, ADC, LINE-IN, FM-IN, and HP-IN
- Debugging – 3-pin UART header for serial console
- Misc – IR receiver; Power, reset, and u-boot buttons; Power and Ethernet LEDs
- Power Supply – 5V/2A via barrel jack (micro USB OTG cannot be used to power the board).
- Dimensions – 93 x 60 mm
- Weight – 46 grams
You can currently download Android 4.4.2, Lubuntu, Debian server, and Raspbian images for the boards, as well as Linux and Android SDKs. The board has been launched at the end of March, but I can’t find any independent reviews online yet. Feedback on Aliexpress is however mostly positive. The platform is more powerful than Raspberry Pi 2, so from the hardware point of view it should be a better deal, but as usual they won’t be able to match Raspberry Pi’s software and community support.
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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