Rockchip RK3399 powered Rock Pi 4 SBC was introduced at the end of 2018 and followed nearly exactly Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor just with a more powerful processor, GPU, as well as more memory depending on which model you purchase. But in June 2019, the Raspberry Pi foundation launched Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with a much faster processor and many of the same ports as its predecessor except for support for two HDMI displays via micro HDMI ports. Radxa has now followed suit with Rock Pi 4C which offers two modern video outputs, but with a twist as the upcoming SBC combines one micro HDMI port with one mini DP port. Rock Pi 4C was introduced at the XDC 2019 conference where open-source graphics developers meet, and Radxa was a “supporter”. The company explains Rock Pi 4B uses RK3399’s USB type-C controller for the two USB 3.0 […]
Atomic Pi x86 SBC Meets Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 in $99 Neural Computing DevKit (Crowdfunding)
IoT Team launched the $34 Atomic Pi SBC powered by an Intel Atom x5-Z8350 processor via a Kickstarter campaign last December. At the time, it only ships to the US, and looked too good to be true. But the thing is real coming from a failed robotics project, and the low-cost x86 board went back for sale via Amazon and other channels with worldwide availability last spring. The price has even gone a bit lower as you’ll find it for $32.95 on Amazon. Note that it requires some technical skills to get started and with 16GB eMMC flash it only supports Liux distributions such as Ubuntu 18.04, and installing Windows 10 is possible, but you’ll be seriously limited. Atomic Pi is back in the news, as IoT Team has now launched another Kickstarter campaign for the board, except it’s not sold standalone, but instead as part of a $99 neural […]
TechNexion XORE is a tiny NXP i.MX 8M Mini LGA System-on-Module
There are several ways to design a system-on-module to carrier board interface, and the most common solutions are edge connectors (e.g. SO-DIMM), board-to-board connectors (placed under the module), and castellated holes where the board is soldered directly to the baseboard. Another less common method is to design an LGA (Land Grid Array) module, which also have to be soldered straight unto the carrier board, but enables much more compact system-on-modules, and that’s exacty what TechNexion has done with their XORE family of LGA system-on-module currently powered by the 14-nm NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor. XORE-IMX8M-Mini Module TechNexion XORE module specifications: SoC (one of the other) NXP i.MX8M Mini Solo single Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.8 GHz + M4 processor, Vivante GC7000Lite 3D GPU NXP i.MX8M Mini Dual 2x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.8 GHz + M4 processor, Vivante GC7000Lite 3D GPU NXP i.MX8M Mini Quad 4x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.8 GHz + M4 […]
Beelink J45 Mini PC Review – Windows 10 Works as Expected, but Linux is Unstable
[Update December 14, 2019: We’ve now found out that Ubuntu 18.04 can work fine on Beelink J45, but the Realtek Ethernet driver needs to be manually installed] Beelink has added a new mini PC to their ‘Gemini’ range (X45 and X55) namely the Beelink J45 (aka Beelink Gemini J45). What is rather unusual about the naming of this mini PC is that it uses the slightly older Intel Apollo Lake Pentium J4205 CPU which is a quad-core 4-thread 1.50 GHz processor boosting to 2.60 GHz with Intel’s HD Graphics 505. The J45 is another ‘NUC’ style mini PC and physically consists of a 115 x 102 x 43 mm (4.53 x 4.02 x 1.69 inches) box case with a front panel that includes the power button, a headphone jack and a couple of USB 3.0 ports and then on the rear, two more USB 3.0 ports, two HDMI (1.4)ports up […]
NPi i.MX6ULL (Not So) Industrial-grade Linux SBC Starts at $39
[Update: I was initially informed the temperature range of the board was -40°C to +105°C, but Seeed Studio issues a correction explaining the Core module itself is rated -20℃ ~ 80℃ temperature range, and they haven’t tested the breakout board at all so we just don’t know. That means the board is not industrial-grade at all. I’ve left the rest of the post mostly unchanged] We’ve covered several NXP i.MX boards in recent days, but here’s another NXP board courtesy of Seeed Studio with NPi i.MX6ULL industrial-grade Linux SBC powered by a low power NXP i.MX6ULL Arm Cortex A7 processor. The board also comes with 512MB RAM, either an 8GB eMMC flash or 256MB NAND flash for storage, features two Fast Ethernet ports, and various I/Os including two 40-pin GPIO expansion headers. NPi i.MX6ULL board specifications: Core Module SoC – NXP MCIMX6Y2CVM08AB single Cortex-A7 core @ up to 800 MHz […]
CHUWI GBOX Pro Review – Intel Atom x7-E3950 mini PC Tested with Windows 10 & Ubuntu 18.04
CHUWI has released a new mini PC called the GBox Pro. This is a passively cooled mini PC that uses the slightly older Apollo Lake Intel Atom x7-E3950 CPU which is a quad core 4-thread 1.60 GHz processor boosting to 2.00 GHz with Intel’s HD Graphics 505. The GBox Pro is somewhat physically larger than typical recent mini PCs and consists of a 189 x 139 x 39 mm (7.44 x 5.47 x 1.54 inches) rectangular case with a front panel that includes the power button, micro SD slot, a couple of USB 3.0 ports and a Type-C USB port and then on the rear, a headphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit ethernet port, an HDMI (2.0) port and a VGA interface. The full specifications include: The GBox Pro comes with 64GB of eMMC with pre-installed Windows 10 Home (version 1809 OS build 17763.316) together with 4GB of […]
$70 NanoPi M4V2 SBC Gets 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, Power & Recovery Buttons
FriendlyELEC NanoPi M4 is a Rockchip RK3399 single board computer that follows Raspberry Pi 3 form factor, and was launched in a year ago for $65 with 2GB RAM, and $95 with 4GB RAM. Raspberry Pi 4 introduction brought some more competition, and helped the prices drop to $50 and $75 respectively. But now the company has launched a revision 2 of the board, NanoPi M4V2 that replaces LPDDR3 memory with faster LPDDR4 memory, adds power & recovery buttons, and the audio jack now also support microphone input. It’s only available with 4GB LPDDR4 memory, and the price is lower at $70. The rest of the specifications are mostly identical: 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 […]
FriendlyELEC ZeroPi is a Tiny Allwinner H3 SBC with Gigabit Ethernet & USB, an Optional SPI Flash
Several years ago, FriendlyELEC launched NanoPi NEO board with Allwinner H3 quad-core Cortex-A7 processor followed by NanoPi NEO2 upgrading to the Allwinner H5 64-bit Arm Cortex-A53 processor. Both boards target low-cost headless applications with I/O headers, USB and Ethernet, but while the NEO2 comes with Gigabit Ethernet, NEO SBC only features 10/100M Ethernet. The company has now been working on a new family of boards called ZeroPi that’s very similar to NanoPi NEO boards, but they do not come with any I/O headers, and the first ZeroPi board features Allwinner H3 processor, and Gigabit Ethernet. ZeroPi specifications with highlights in bold or stricken-through showing differences against NanoPi NEO: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad-core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an Arm Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 256 or 512 MB DDR3 Storage – MicroSD card slot, unmounted SPI flash Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet via Realtek RTL8211E PHY USB – 1x […]