Last December, we wrote about the Rockchip RK3566-powered Radxa Zero 3W WiFi 6 SBC and noted that the Radxa Zero 3E with gigabit Ethernet and optional PoE supports would be coming soon with about the same dimensions as the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. “Soon” is now as the Radxa Zero 3E is now available on Aliexpress or Amazon with RAM capacities from 1GB to 8GB LPDDR4.
The small SBC also comes with optional eMMC flash up to 64GB, a microSD card slot for storage, a micro HDMI video output port, a MIPI CSI connector compatible with Raspberry Pi Camera V1 and V2, two USB-C ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion.
Radxa Zero 3E specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3566
- CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.6 GHz
- GPU – Arm Mali G52-2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0
- NPU – 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator
- VPU – 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoding, 1080p100f H.265/H.264 video encoding
- System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4
- Storage
Optional 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC 5.1 flash(Note: flash module is only available on the Radxa Zero 3W board, not the 3E variant)
- MicroSD card slot (SDR104 capable)
- Video Output – Micro HDMI port up to 1080p60 (Not sure why 4Kp60 is not listed since the processor supports it)
- Camera – 4-lane MIPI CSI connector with support for Raspberry Pi Camera V1.3 (OV5647) and Raspberry Pi Camera V2 (IMX219).
- Networking – Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port via RTL8211F-CG transceiver; optional PoE support through HAT expansion board
- USB – 1x USB 3.0 Type-C host port, 1x USB 2.0 Type-C OTG port
- Expansion – Optional 40-pin color-coded GPIO header with up to 28x GPIO, 5x UART, 1x SPI, 2x I2C, PCM/I2S, 6x PWM, 5V, 3.3V, and GND
- Misc – MaskROM button
- Power Supply
- 5V/2A (recommended) via USB-C OTG port
- Optional PoE support
- Dimensions – 65 x 30mm (72 x 30mm when taking the RJ45 jack into account)
Radxa officially supports an image with Debian 11 using XFCE desktop environment, but Ubuntu XFCE and Ubuntu CLI images are also available and “provided as-is except for critical issues”. You’ll find schematics, OS images, and other resources to get started on the documentation website.
Radxa just launched its Aliexpress store and the Radxa Zero 3E is in stock with either 2GB or 4GB RAM there for respectively $20.97 and $30.97 plus shipping, while the 1GB RAM version is in stock on Amazon for $16. Sadly the Radxa 3E PoE HAT is not sold on either platform, but you can still get it from Arace for $9.99, or wait a few more weeks…
Thanks to Willy for the reminder.
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.
Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress
