Posted on

Giveaway Week – RockPi 4C SBC

The first, but not last, SBC of Giveaway Week 2020 is RockPi 4C single board computer equipped with a Rockchip RK3399 processor coupled with 4GB RAM, and featuring HDMI and DisplayPort for dual 4K monitor setups, as well as Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI 5, Bluetooth, USB 3.0/2.0 ports, etc… The board closely follows Raspberry Pi 4 form factor, so without thinking too much about it I thought I could just use it with CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 laptop. However due to small mechanical differences, and a different position of the processor impacting cooling, I quickly realized this would not work. Since I did not have time to review yet another RK3399 SBC, I thought I might as well as give it away, as I’m sure somebody will find a good use for it. Note the board does not come with any accessories, so you’ll have to get a MicroSD card, USB-C […]

Posted on

Station P1 & M1 fanless mini PCs run media or desktop-optimized Android OS

T-Chip has recently introduced two fanless “Geek” mini PCs under their Firefly brand with Station P1 & M1 respectively powered by Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, and RK3328 quad-core processor. Both mini PCs can run Firefly’s Station OS in either desktop or media mode, as well as Android or Ubuntu. There are also some community efforts to port Armbian and LibreELEC to the devices. Station P1 specifications Specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with two Cortex A72 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores, Mali-T860 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, VPU with support for  4K H.265 10-bit 60fps video decoding, multi-channel 1080p video decoding and encoding System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 dual-channel 64-bit RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash (16GB/64GB/128GB Optional), onboard 16MB SPI flash, MicroSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0a up to 4Kp60, HDCP 1.4/2.2 DisplayPort 1.2 up to 4Kp60 […]

Advertisement
Posted on

Rivet Networks launches Killer E3100 2.5GbE USB adapter

Gigabit Ethernet has reigned supreme in the home for a long time, but this year, we’ve started to see 2.5 Gbps Ethernet (2.5GbE) solutions with ODROID-H2+ SBC with 2.5GbE ports, the first consumer-grade 2.5 Gbps Ethernet switch, as well as some NAS, mini PCs, and SoM‘s features the faster Ethernet interface. But if you’ve decided to upgrade your local network to 2.5 Gbps it’s not exactly cost-effective to replace all your computers, boards, etc..  So USB dongles can help here, and Rivet Networks has launched Killer E3100 USB-C 3.1 to RJ-45 2.5Gbps Ethernet adapter sold on Amazon for $49.99. Killer E3100 2.5GbE USB adapter technical specifications: Ethernet 10/100/1000Mbps/2.5Gbps Ethernet Compatible with 2.5GBASE-T Alliance PHY Specification Supports 2.5 Gbps with Cat 5e and above Supports jumbo frame to 16K bytes Supports Wake Up Frame or Magic Packet Automatic speed reduction on faulty cable Supports 2.5G Lite (1G data rate) mode USB […]

Posted on

CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Education Laptop Review

I started my review of CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Learning Kit a while ago and at the time I showed content from the kit and its first boot. I’ve now spent more time with this very special Raspberry Pi 4 laptop and will focus this review on the education part, namely CrowPi2 software, but will also look at thermal cooling under stress with and without a fan, and try to install another Raspberry Pi compatible board inside the laptop shell. CrowPi2 Education Software It’s quite important to read the user manual before getting started as there are a few non-intuitive steps you may have to take. First I assume the wireless keyboard would just connect after pressing the power button, but it did not. The user manual explains the RF dongle is inside the mouse, and once you connect it you’ll be able to use the keyboard that has some […]

Posted on

Perfetto Profiler Now Supports Mali GPU Hardware Counters via Panfrost

Perfetto is an open-source system profiler, app tracer, and trace analyzer for Linux, Android & Chrome platforms, and user-space apps. The program can already visualize CPU and memory usage, as well as power consumption.  GPU support is more limited with the program only capable of sampling the GPU frequency when the driver outputs that information via ftrace. When Perfetto is also extendable thanks to a Tracing C++ SDK that “allows userspace applications to emit trace events and add more app-specific context to a Perfetto trace”. Collabora made use of the tracing SDK to add support for Mali Midgard GPU performance profiling in gfx-pps project using the Mali GPU hardware counters exposed via Panfrost open-source Mali GPU driver. After following the installation instructions, you’ll be able to run the following executables for tracing and profiling: tracedtracing service. traced_probes OS probes service. perfetto command-line tool for recording traces. producer-gpuproviding the Panfrost data […]

Posted on

Snapdragon 626 Powered Rugged Tablet Comes with NFC, RFID and Barcode Readers

Estone Technology has launched another rugged tablet with UA-80 IP-67 waterproof rated, and MIL-STD-810G compliant rugged Android tablet powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 mobile platform driving an 8″ capacitive touchscreen display. The tablet is equipped with up to 8GB RAM, up to 128GB storage, and comes with HF(NFC) and UHF RFID readers and an optional barcode reader for healthcare, construction, retail, oil and gas, and logistics use cases. Estone UA-80 tablet specifications: SoC – Qualcomm MSM8953 Pro (Snapdragon 626) octa core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 2.2GHz with Adreno 506 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.1 + AEP System Memory – 4GB LPDDR3 (Option: 8GB LPDDR3) Storage – 32GB eMMC flash (Option: 64GB, 128GB) Display – 8″ sunlight-readable IPS LCD with 1200 x 800 resolution, 450 nit brightness, 10-point touch, and chemically hardened cover glass Audio – Built-In microphone and 8 Ohm/1W speaker, 3.5mm 4-pole audio jack with […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on

Beelink GS-King X Review with Android 9 – Video & Audio Playback, NAS/File Server Function, and Benchmarks

Last month I received Beelink GS-King X for review and started with an unboxing and teardown to check out the hardware. I’ve now had time to test the device with Android 9 including the file server function, a key selling point since of the device since it supports up to two 3.5″ SATA drives internally. A Tedious and Frustrating Start Eventually, I managed to boot the TV box and access the launcher, but it was no pleasure cruise. The first time, I connected the power, there was nothing at all, with the LED turned off, and no noise from the device. I thought the device was dead. The company asked me to check the power supply, and indeed a quick check with a multimeter confirmed it was dead despite the blue LED (on the power supply) implying the contrary. Nevermind, bad things happen, and the company sent me a new […]

Posted on

Rock Pi 4C SBC with 4GB RAM, HDMI and DisplayPort Launched for $59 and up

Last October, Radxa unveiled Rock Pi 4C SBC as an update to the company’s Rock Pi 4 SBC, with the same Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 4GB RAM, but instead of providing one HDMI output only, Rock Pi 4C board offers two video output just like Raspberry Pi 4 board, but with a twist, since it combines a micro HDMI port with a Mini DisplayPort connector. It’s all good except for one small detail. So far, it was not possible to purchase the board. The good news is that Radxa has now announced the availability of the board for just $59 on AllNetChina. You can also buy Rock Pi 4C on other platforms, but the price is much higher at $109.99 on Amazon, and $99.99 on Aliexpress. Rock Pi 4C specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up […]

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products