Shenzhen Xunlong has made yet another Allwinner H3 board. It’s called Orange Pi Plus 2 with basically the same specifications as Orange Pi Plus, but the layout has been modified with a slightly wider board, and the RAM upgraded from 1GB to 2GB.
Orange Pi Plus 2 specifications:
- SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz
- System Memory – 2GB DDR3
- Storage – 8GB eMMC, micro SD card slot, SATA interface (via a USB to SATA chip),
- Video Output – HDMI, AV port
- Audio I/O – HDMI, AV port, on-board microphone
- Connectivity – 10/100/1000M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (Realtek RTL8189ETV)
- 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
- Debugging – 3-pin UART header for serial console
- Misc – IR receiver; Power, recovery, and upgrade buttons
- Power Supply – 5V/2A via barrel jack or micro USB OTG; Power and status LEDs
- Dimensions – 108 x 67 mm (Pi Plus is 108 x 60 mm)
- Weight – 52 grams
Orange Pi Plus 2 and Plus 3 were first mentioned on Orange Pi forums, with Orange Pi Plus 3 being an upcoming Allwinner H64 quad core Cortex A53 board, so Allwinner H64 is not dead finally, despite Nobel64 board never making it to market. Nevertheless, the new boards were not exactly welcomed by the community that complained about the lack of properly working software and documentation, and instead was seeing new boards being churned out by the company. I thought about showing a picture of a brick for the new board, but finally decided against it :).
So that means we now have 5 Orange Pi boards powered by Allwinner H3 processor. One website did a comparison table, which I translated and reproduced here, adding a row for price (without shipping).
| Orange Pi Plus | Orange Pi Plus 2 | Orange Pi 2 | Orange Pi mini 2 | Orange Pi PC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Allwinner H3(4x Cortex-A7 @ 1.2 GHz) | ||||
| RAM | 1GB | 2GB | 1GB | ||
| Flash | eMMC 8GB | No | |||
| microSD slot | Yes | ||||
| SATA port | Yes | No | |||
| LAN | 10/100/1000M | 10/100M | |||
| Wireless LAN | Yes (RTL8189ETV) | No | |||
| USB | 4 ports + 1x micro USB OTG | 3 ports + 1 micro USB OTG | |||
| Buttons | Power, Recovery, Uboot | Power | |||
| IR receiver | Yes | ||||
| Microphone | Yes | ||||
| Dimensions (mm) | 108×60 | 108×67 | 93×60 | 85×55 | |
| Weight (g) | 50g | 52g | 46g | 45g | 38g |
| Price (USD) | $39 | $49 | $30 | $25 | $15 |
So while software support and documentation is far from optimal, if you can get the board working for your applications, it’s hard to beat the price for the features set offered n Orange Pi boards. Orange Pi Plus 2 is available now for $49 plus shipping ($3.26 to my location).
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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