As expected, FriendlyELEC has now launched NanoPi M4 board, a lower cost version of NanoPC-T4 Rockchip RK3399 SBC, and mostly following Raspberry Pi form factor.
How much you may ask? That would be $65 plus shipping for the 2GBRAM version, and $95 for the 4GB RAM version, which means it sells in the same ballpark as RockPro64 board.
NanoPi M4 board specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU with support OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 6decoding
- System Memory – Dual-channel 4GB LPDDR3-1866, or dual-channel 2GB DDR3-1866
- Storage – eMMC module socket, micro SD card slot
- Video Output
- HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDCP 1.4/2.2 support
- 4-Lane MIPI-DSI connector
- Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, HDMI digital audio output, microphone header
- Camera – one or two 4-lane MIPI-CSI connector (one multiplexed with MIPI-DSI), dual ISP up to 13MP
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 with 2x u.FL antenna connectors
- USB – 4x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB 2.0 type-C port with OTG mode and power input
- Expansion
- 40-pin GPIO header with 3x 3V/1.8V I2C, up to 1x 3V UART, 1x 3V SPI, 1x SPDIF_TX, up to 8x 3V GPIOs, 1x 1.8V 8-channel I2S
- 24-pin extension port with 2x USB 2.0 interface, PCIe x2, 1x PWM
- Debugging – 4-pin UART header (3V 1.5Mbps)
- Misc – Power key, power LED, user LED, 2-pin header for RTC battery
- Power Supply – 5V/3A via USB-C port; RK808-D PMIC
- Dimensions – 85 mm x 56 mm (8-layer PCB)
- Temperature Range – 0 to 80
FriendlyELEC provides Android 7.1, Lubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Desktop 18.04 64-bit, Lubuntu 16.04 32-bit, and Ubuntu Core 18.04 64-bit image for the board, as well as fairly good documentation – as usual – on the Wiki.
If you want to get an idea of the stability and performance of the Android 7.1 firmware reading NanoPC-T4 Android review would be a good indication, and as we’ve just seen in Firefly-RK3399 review, cooling is really important to get the most out of Rockchip RK3399 board.
That’s why beside the board you should definitely add the $6.99 heatsink which cover the full area of the board (see above). Other accessories which you can tick during your order include a USB Type-C to USB-A male 2.0 cable (useful for firmware updates), an 8GB eMMC Module ($9.90) for better performance, a micro SD to eMMC adapter to flash firmware to the eMMC module, a 2.0MP USB camera module, a 13.2MP MIPI camera module ($25.00), a USB 1602 LCD Module, and/or for some hard-to- understand reasons, a mini USB WiFi dongle.
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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