Allwinner H3 SoC has now found its way into many low cost development boards, including several Orange Pi Boards, Banana Pi M2+, NanoPi M1, and Olimex H3-OlinuXino-NANO, and it might be difficult to choose among the list of boards available, so tkaiser has written a buyer’s guide for boards supported by Armbian, with some of the key differentiating factors, and on my side, I thought it might be a good idea to draw a comparison table between the boards.
Since a table with 10 boards would be hard to read, I made two tables: one with boards with 512 MB RAM + Orange Pi PC / PC Plus, and a second table with higher end boards with 1 to 2 GB RAM, and more features. But first let’s talk about Allwinner H3 SoC since it’s common to all boards. It’s a quad core Cortex A7 processor clocked at up to 1.2 GHz (plus if overclocking but this may lead to overheating), with a Mali-400 MP2 GPU, and support for H.264 and H.265 videos up to 4K @ 30 Hz.
With this mind, the first table takes care of the ultra-low cost boards that sell for less than $20, except the Olimex board which has not been released yet, and could cost a little more.
| Orange Pi One | Orange Pi Lite | Nano Pi M1 | Orange Pi PC / Orange Pi PC Plus | H3-Olinuxino-NANO | |
| RAM | 512 MB | 512MB or 1GB | 1GB | 512 MB | |
| Storage | micro SD card slot | micro SD card slot PC Plus adds: 8GB eMMC |
micro SD card slot | ||
| Ethernet | 10/100M | No | 10/100M | ||
| Wireless Connectivity | No | WiFi 802.11 b/g/n | No | PC Plus only: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n | No |
| USB | 1x USB Host port 1x micro USB OTG port |
2x USB 2.0 host ports 1x micro USB OTG port |
3x USB 2.0 host ports 1x micro USB OTG port |
2x USB 2.0 host ports 1x micro USB OTG port |
|
| Video | HDMI | HDMI, 3.5mm AV jack | HDMI | ||
| Audio | HDMI | HDMI, on-board microphone | HDMI, AV, on-board microphone | HDMI | |
| I/Os and other peripherals | 40-pin Raspberry Pi connector CSI interface for camera |
40-pin Raspberry Pi connector CSI interface for camera IR receiver |
40-pin Raspberry Pi connector DVP interface for camera IR receiver |
40-pin Raspberry Pi connector CSI interface for camera IR receiver |
2x 40-pin headers |
| Power | 5V via power barrel 5V via header |
5V via micro USB port, or 4.7 ~ 5.6 V via VDD pin | 5V via power barrel 5V via header |
5V via micro USB port | |
| Dimensions | 69×48 mm | 64×50 mm | 85×55 mm | 50×50 mm | |
| Listed Price | $9.99 | $12 | $11 | Pi PC: $15 Pi PC+: $19.99 |
N/A |
| Shipping | $3.39 | $3.39 | $10 | $3.43 | N/A |
| Total | $13.38 | $15.39 | $21 | Pi PC: $18.43 Pi PC+: $23.42 |
N/A |
Followed by a second table with boards with more memory, fast storage, Gigabit Ethernet, and so on.
| Orange Pi 2 / Orange Pi mini 2 | Orange Pi Plus | Banana Pi M2+ | Orange Pi Plus 2E | Orange Pi Plus 2 | |
| RAM | 1GB | 2GB | |||
| Storage | micro SD card slot | 8GB eMMC flash Micro SD slot SATA (via USB to SATA bridge) |
micro SD card slot 8GB eMMC flash |
16GB eMMC Flash Micro SD slot |
8GB eMMC flash Micro SD slot SATA (via USB to SATA bridge) |
| Ethernet | 10/100M | Gigabit Ethernet | |||
| Wireless Connectivity | 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (except in mini 2) | WiFi 802.11 b/g/n | |||
| USB | 4x USB 2.0 host ports 1x micro USB OTG port |
2x USB 2.0 host ports 1x micro USB OTG port |
3x USB 2.0 host ports 1x micro USB OTG port |
4x USB 2.0 host ports 1x micro USB OTG port |
|
| Video | HDMI and AV | HDMI | HDMI and AV | ||
| Audio | HDMI, AV, on-board microphone | HDMI, AV, on-board microphone | HDMI | HDMI, AV, on-board microphone | |
| I/Os and other peripherals | 40-pin Raspberry Pi connector CSI interface for camera IR receiver |
||||
| Power | 5V via power barrel 5V via header |
5V via power barrel 5V via micro USB port |
5V via power barrel 5V via header |
||
| Dimensions | 93×60 mm | 112 x 60 mm | 65×65 mm | 108×67 mm | |
| Listed Price | Pi 2 – $30 Pi mini 2 – $25 |
$39.00 | $39.90 | $35.00 | $49.00 |
| Shipping | N/A | $3.75 | $0 | $3.57 | $3.26 |
| Total | Not for sale anymore | $42.75 | $39.90 | $38.57 | $52.26 |
Some remarks
- There’s no difference between boards with regards to the 40-pin Raspberry Pi connectors, and only H3-Olinuxino-NANO will have a different pinout, as well as more I/Os. It will also be the only open source hardware board of the list.
- SATA implementation are using a USB 2.0 to SATA bridge since Allwinner H3 does not come with either SATA. PCIe, or USB 3.0 interface, and performance is not different, and in some case lower, than simply connecting a USB hard drive to the board.
- Boards with 4 USB ports + micro USB OTG will share the bandwidth through a USB hub controller, so performance may be impacted, and boards such as Orange Pi Plus 2E with 3 USB ports that do not use a USB hub controller should have better USB throughput.
- Voltage regulator
- SY8106A used on most Orange Pi boards allows for finer tuning of the CPU voltage, and a better control of CPU throttling and heat management
- The GPIO driven voltage regulator on NanoPi M1 and Orange Pi One/Lite only allows for 1.1V and 1.3V voltage selection
- Banana Pi M2+ is set to work at 1.3V only.
- Boards with eMMC flash should provide a significantly better user experience thanks to much faster random I/O compared to most (micro) SD cards
- Memory type matters. It has been found that boards with DDR3 memory tend to overheat much more than boards with DDR3L memory. At the time of writing, Xunlong Orange Pi boards are all based on DDR3L memory, but Banana Pi M2+ and NanoPi M1 boards are fitted with DDR3 memory instead. [Update: It has be discovered that Orange Pi One/Lite are actually using DDR3 memory, and do not overheat, so more investigation is needed to find out what the problem may be]
Please let me know if I should add anything to the table, or corrections need to be made.
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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