9Tripod Pico Pi V2.0 is the third Rockchip RK3588S SBC offering a powerful alternative to Raspberry Pi 4 while keeping the same form factor. It follows the Cool Pi 4 and Radxa ROCK5 Model A single board computers introduced in the last couple of months.
The Pico Pi SBC, not to be confused with the Raspberry Pi Pico :), comes with 1GB to 32GB RAM, 4GB to 128GB eMMC flash, and pretty much the same port layout as the Raspberry Pi 4, except for one of the micro HDMI ports being replaced by a USB Type-C port with support for DisplayPort.
9Tripod Pico Pi V2.0 specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3588S
- CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.2-2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz
- GPU – Arm Mali-G610 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 support
- VPU – 8Kp60 video decoder for H.265/AVS2/VP9/H.264/AV1 codecs, 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder
- AI accelerator – 6 TOPS NPU
- System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB LPDDR4x
- Storage – MicroSD card socket, optional eMMC 5.1 flash module connector to add 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB module
- Video Output
- 1x micro HDMI 2.1 port
- DisplayPort via USB Type-C port (TBC)
- 4-lane MIPI DSI connector
- Camera I/F – MIPI CSI connector (4-lane or 2x 2-lane)
- Audio – 3.5mm earphone jack
- Networking
- Gigabit Ethernet RJ45
- Unnamed dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 module
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 Type-A ports, 2x USB 2.0 Type-A ports, 1x USB Type-C port
- Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible GPIO header
- Debugging – 4-pin debug connector (probably for serial console)
- Misc
- Power, Recovery, Reset, and Boot buttons
- Power LED, user LED
- RTC battery connector
- Power Supply – 5V/3A via USB Type-C port
- Dimensions – 85 x 56mm (Raspberry Pi 4 form factor)
The Pico Pi V2.0 supports Android 12 and Debian 11 operating systems as well as the Yocto Project to build custom Linux distributions. I won’t talk about performance too much since we’ve covered it in other writings, but basically, this SBC will deliver the processing performance of roughly 3 to 4 Raspberry Pi 4 boards depending on the workload, and it also includes a 6 TOPS NPU for AI tasks.
The product page calls it the Pico PC RK3588S instead of the Pico Pi V2.0 on the silkscreen, and comes with some very basic documentation in Chinese, but nothing about software that I could find. We’ve written about 9Tripod products before, and they seem to mostly cater to the mainland China market. I don’t see any major features that would warrant buying the Pico Pi V2.0/Pico PC RK3588S over the Cool Pi 4 or ROCK5 Model A which have documentation in English and images to download.
But if you feel adventurous, the 9Tripod Pico Pi V2.0 SBC is available for sale on Aliexpress for $124.10 to $168.88 depending on the memory and flash module configuration up to 8GB RAM and 32GB flash. The 16GB RAM models are out of stock, and 32GB RAM seems like a pipe dream since nobody has ever sold a Rockchip RK3588(s) with that amount of RAM.
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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