Building a NanoPi M4V2 based All-in-One Linux PC running Armbian (Ubuntu/Debian)

Armbian Ubuntu All-in-One PC

At the end of my review of “RPI All-in-One” PC with Raspberry Pi 4, I noted the system also appeared to be compatible with NanoPi M4V2 single board computer. I’ve now tried it out, and assembling the board inside the 10.1-inch display is even easier than I initially thought. That means I now have a NanoPi M4V2 All-in-One PC running Ubuntu Hirsute or Debian Buster with XFCE desktop environment from Armbian, and most features work including the display and wireless connectivity, but I still have an issue with the touchscreen function. Here are the steps I followed initially: Download Armbian Buster XFCE image from Armbian and flash it to a microSD card with tools like USBimager. Insert the microSD card in the board Install the USB Type-C and HDMI-A adapters in the display. Insert the USB Type-C and HDMI port of the NanoPi M4V2 SBC into the adapters Install the […]

MOREFINE M6 – An ultra-thin Jasper Lake mini PC (Crowdfunding)

MOREFINE M6

We’ve seen a fair amount of Jasper Lake mini PCs, and even reviewed one with Beelink U59. MOREFINE M6 stands out due to its size and thickness, being about the size of two smartphones stacked together. The features are also promising with an Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core processor coupled with up to 16 GB RAM, up to 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, as well as dual 4K video output through HDMI and USB-C ports, a 2.5GbE ports WiFi 6 & Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and three USB 3.1 ports. MOREFINE M6 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 2.9GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics 605; 10W TDP System Memory – 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4 Storage – 512GB or 1TB M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD, or 256GB M.2 SATA SSD Video Output 1x HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 1x DisplayPort Alt Mode via USB-C port up to […]

Radxa E25 carrier board, 2.5GbE switch, and WiFi 6 router

Radxa E25 2.5GbE switch-Xiaomi AX6000 WiFi 6 router

I’ve just received an early sample of Radxa E25 dual 2.5 GbE carrier board for Radxa CM3 Plus (RK3568) system-on-module, a 2.5GbE TP-Link switch, and Xiaomi AX6000 WiFi 6 + 2.5GbE router. Here’s the back story before looking into the devices. I’ll soon have to review UP Xtreme i11 mini PC with a 2.5GbE port, and after writing about the upcoming ROCK5 Model B SBC with both 2.5GbE and WiFI 6/6E, I realized I should really get some hardware to test 2.5GHz and WiFi 6. So I started to ask what could be the best options for a $200 budget. While thinking about it, I remember Radxa was working on the Radxa E23 board with 2.5GbE, and adding a WiFi 6 USB dongle might be an option. But they told me Radxa E25 would be a better option with two 2.5GbE ports and support for WiFi 6, although that one […]

WCH CH32V307 RISC-V development board features 8 UART ports controlled over Ethernet

CH32V307 RISC-V development board 8x UART

CH32V307V-EVT-R1 is a development board based on WCH CH32V307 RISC-V microcontroller with an Ethernet port, an USB Type-C port, and eight UART interfaces accessible through headers. As we noted in our article about CH583 Bluetooth 5.3 RISC-V microcontroller, WCH (Jiangsu Qin Heng) has started to share resources like datasheets and code samples through Github. They’ve done the same again for CH32V307 with schematics (PDF only), a datasheet in English, and firmware either bare metal or based on RT-Thread OS to control the eight serial interfaces over Ethernet. Let’s check CH32V305 and CH32V307 MCU specifications first: MCU core – WCH designed RISC-V4F 32-bit RISC-V core up to 144MHz FPU – Single-cycle multiplication and hardware division, hardware float point unit (FPU) ; Memory – Up to 64KB SRAM Storage – Up to 256KB Flash Networking – Gigabit Ethernet MAC, 10 Mbps PHY USB – 1x USB 2.0 OTG full-speed interface,  1x USB […]

MECOOL HomePlus – A 2-in-1 smart speaker and 4K TV box with DVB Tuner

MECOOL KA1

We’ve reviewed MECOOL devices in the past, such as their hybrid set-top boxes with DVB-T2 and/or DVB-S2 tuners. But MECOOL HomePlus (aka MECOOL KA1) packs even more features as it serves as both a 4K Android set-top box with a DVB tuner and a smart speaker compatible with Google Assitant. Based on Amlogic S905X4 Arm Cortex-A55 processor, and equipped with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage, MECOOL HomePlus runs a Google-certified Android TV 11 OS with far-field voice and hands-free TV control. MECOOL HomePlus (KA1) specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X4 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with Arm G31 MP2 GPU RAM – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash Video Output – HDMI 2.1 port with HDCP 2.2 Video Codes – 4K AV1, VP9, H.265, H.264 Audio Built-in two linear microphone array 2x 5W RMS speakers Tuner – RF antenna input for DVB T/T2/C tuner (optional) Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port Dual-band […]

10.1-inch RPI All-in-One PC review with Raspberry Pi 4

10.1-inch Raspberry Pi PC portrait mode

A couple of months ago I received “RPI All-in-One”, a 10.1-inch touchscreen display for Raspberry Pi boards, listed the specifications, checked out the package content, installed a Raspberry Pi 4 inside the display before booting my new all-in-one (AiO) PC successfully. I’ve now had time to spend more time with the PC/display and see how it performs under various conditions. I also tested HDMI and USB-C input features with a laptop and mini PC. Fan or fanless operation? After updating Raspberry Pi OS, I ran sbc-bench.sh script together with rpi-monitor to see how the Raspberry Pi 4 with 1GB RAM would perform under load with the (noisy) fan enabled.

  No throttling was detected, and the temperature never exceeded 56°C in a room with an ambient temperature of 26°C. I then disconnect the fan, but it turns out the fan can also be easily disabled in the OSD menu […]

Samsung Exynos 2200 SoC features Xclipse 920 GPU with AMD RDNA 2 architecture

Samsung Exynos 2200

Samsung has just unveiled the Exynos 2200 Armv9 SoC equipped with Samsung Xplipse 920 GPU based on AMD RDNA architecture and promising console quality graphics on mobile devices. Manufactured with a 4nm process, the octa-core processor also features Arm Cortex-X2, Cortex-A710, and Cortex-A510 cores, a 5G modem for up to 7.35 Gbps downlink, 8K video encoding and decoding, as well as support for LPDDR5 memory and UFS 3.1 storage. Exynos 2200 specifications: CPU 1x Arm Cortex-X2 3x Arm Cortex-A710 4x Arm Cortex-A510 GPU – Samsung Xclipse 920 GPU built with AMD RDNA 2 technology enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing (RT) and variable rate shading (VRS), a first on mobile according to Samsung VPU Video decode – 8Kp60 10-bit HEVC (H.265), 8Kp30 10-bit VP9, AV1 Video encode – 8Kp30 10-bit HEVC(H.265), VP9 AI – AI Engine with Dual-core NPU and DSP up to 52 TOPS (TBC) Memory – LPDDR5 Storage – UFS […]

PineNote Developer Edition mainline Linux e-Reader is now available for $399

Pine64 PineNote

Pine64 community has been on a tear in 2022, with the launch of the PineNote Developer Edition Linux e-reader following the availability of the PinePhone keyboard case and PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition Linux smartphone in the last 2-3 weeks. So far a limited number of PineNote prototypes had been sent to developers, but it’s now possible to order the PineNote Developer Edition for $399 directly on the Pine64 store. As its name implies, the e-Reader is not ready for end-users, but recent progress with mainline Linux makes it suitable for developers and enthusiasts who want to play around with the device knowing much more work is needed to make it a usable device. The specifications remain the same as in the initial PineNote announcement: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 EE GPU, 0.8 TOPS NPU (AI accelerator) System Memory – 4GB of LPDDR4 […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC