Banana Pi BPI-M7 SBC is powered by a Rockchip RK3588 SoC and comes with a low profile design that reminds me of boards from Khadas such as the Khadas Edge2 or VIM4 SBCs but with a few extra ports thanks to the larger form factor.
The Banana Pi BPI-M7 single board computer is equipped with up to 32GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash and features an M.2 2280 socket for one NVMe SSD, three display interfaces (HDMI, USB-C, MIPI DSI), two camera connectors, dual 2.5GbE, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion.
Banana Pi BPI-M7 specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with
- System Memory – 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB LPDDR4x
- Storage
- 64GB or 128GB eMMC flash
- M.2 Key-M 2280 (PCIe 3.0 x4) socket for NVMe SSD
- MicroSD card slot
- Video Output
- 1x HDMI 2.1 port up to 8Kp60
- 1x USB-C port with DisplayPort Alt mode up to 8Kp30
- 1x MIPI DSI port up to 4Kp60
- Camera I/F – 2x MIPI CSI camera connectors
- Audio – Speaker connector
- Networking
- 2x 2.5 GbE RJ45 ports
- WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 via AP6275S module
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB Type-C port
- Expansion
- 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible header
- M.2 Key-M 2280 (PCIe 3.0 x4) socket
- Misc – Power push button, Reset and MaskROM buttons, 2x LEDs, Fan header, 2-pin RTC battery header
- Power Supply – Via USB-C PD port
- Dimensions – 92 x 62 mm allegedly following the Pico-ITX form factor but that’s supposed to be 100 x 72 mm…
Banana Pi officially provides Debian 11 and Android 12 images based on Linux 5.10 for the board as well as support for the Buildroot build system. Third-party images from Armbian (Ubuntu 20.04 Ubuntu 22.04) and Kylin OS are also said to be available. But note that the wiki does not provide any link for images at the time of writing despite the board being for sale…
What we do get are links to the kernel and u-boot repositories on GitHub. Note those are hosted under the ArmSom account, and the Banana Pi BPi-M7 is also known as the ArmSom Sige7 and the company does provide some work-in-progress documentation and links to firmware images and development tools on Google Drive.
Banana Pi has now started taking orders for the BPI-M7 for $165 plus shipping on Aliexpress in 8GB/64GB configuration. It’s not the first Rockchip RK3588 from the company – see BPI-RK3588 and BPI-W3 – and one can hope software support is better than in the past since Rockchip RK3588 has been around for a few years.
Updated: This post was initially published on November 22, 2023 and updated following the launch of the Banana Pi BPI-M7 on Aliexpress
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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