Posted on

$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 […]

Posted on

NanoPi M4 SBC Metal Case Comes with an NVMe SSD Adapter and Cooling Fan

There are several single board computers that come with NVMe SSD either directly like on ODROID-H2 SBC or indirectly via an expansion board such as M2X extender board for Khadas VIM3.  But if you’d like an enclosure for your system it either further adds to the cost, or you need to develop the case yourself. If you’d like an SBC that takes an NVMe SSD in a fairly compact enclosure and at a affordable price (under $100 excluding the SSD),  NanoPi M4 metal case kit looks to be a good option and sells for $28 with SSD adapter and fan, or just $26 if you already own the SSD adapter. As a reminder, NanoPi M4 is a Rockchip RK3399 SBC that mostly follows Raspberry Pi form factor comes with 2GB or 4GB RAM with price starting at $50. See NanoPi M4 specifications for more details. One selling point of this […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on

Raspberry Pi 4 ICE Tower CPU Cooling Fan Tested

Most of us know the Raspberry Pi 4 can get pretty hot, and a heatsink is required if you intend to get the maximum performance out of your board under heavy loads and/or high ambient room temperature. Some even designed a large fansink for Raspberry Pi 4 to prevent the board from throttling. It’s actually a bit over the top, but Seeed Studio sent me a sample of their “ICE Tower CPU cooling fan”, so I’ve had the chance to test it. ICE Tower Cooling Fan Unboxing & Assembly with Raspberry Pi 4 The package tells us it’s made by 52Pi and design specifically for Raspberry Pi 4B/3B+/3B SBC’s. It’s probably not that useful for the last two. The package contains the heatsink with fan attached, screw sets, a screwdrivers, mounting brackets for Raspberry Pi 3/3B+ and  RPi 4, as well as a useful user manual. Raspberry Pi 3 and […]

Posted on

N-Fuse Launches Raspberry Pi 3B+ LoRaWAN Gateway with PoE Support

Raspberry Pi is everywhere, and this small size single-board computer has reshaped technology and STEM education. The launch of the recent Raspberry Pi 4 is evident in the success and continuous growth. The Raspberry Pi 3B+ has seen so much success in several maker’s projects, while not the most powerful SBC in the market, but undoubtedly one of the most popular. I once put together an AI-powered mobile robot using just a Raspberry Pi 3B+, an RPLidar A2, and Raspberry Camera which was way capable of so many things. Another exciting Raspberry Pi end product is the “PoE enabled Raspberry Pi 3B+ based LoRaWAN Gateway” from n-fuse. The PoE enabled Raspberry Pi 3B+ based LoRaWAN Gateway as called by n-fuse is a LoRaWAN gateway based on the Raspberry Pi 3B+, the LRWCCx-MPCIE Concentrator, and the SBCPoE RPI Hat. It supports both the Europe 868Mhz and America 915Mhz frequency (you have […]

Posted on

ModBerry M500 Industrial Computer Gets Upgraded to Raspberry Pi 4

We first wrote about Modberry M500 industrial computer when it was upgraded from Raspberry Pi 3 to Raspberry Pi 3 B+, and added PoE support. With the launch of Raspberry Pi 4 model B, it should come as no surprise that Techbase has now announced Modberry M500 would be available with the latest board from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Modberry M500 RPI 4 preliminary specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2711B0 quad-core Arm Cortex-A72 processor @ 1.5 GHz with VideoCore VI GPU System Memory – 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 4GB eMMC flash (TBC), and/or 8GB micro SD card Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60Hz and 3.5mm jack for CVBS (composite + stereo audio) Connectivity True Gigabit Ethernet, up to 2x optional 10/100M Ethernet ports Dual band 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 LE Optional Zigbee, LTE/3G, GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth cards USB – […]

Posted on

New Raspberry Pi 4 VLI Firmware Lowers Temperature by 3-5°C

The other day I tested Raspberry Pi 4 with an heatsink since previous multi-threaded benchmarks clearly made the board throttle when running those without any cooling solution. The guys at the Raspberry Pi Foundation somehow noticed my post, and I received an email from Eben Upton explaining a new Raspberry Pi 4 VLI firmware had “some thermal optimizations that are not installed by default on early production units.” I did not understand VLI at first, but eventually understood this referred to the firmware for VIA VL805 PCIe USB 3.0 controller on the board. The Raspberry Pi Foundation provided me with a test version of the firmware, which they’ll release in the next few days, or weeks after testing is completed. Now if you’re going to test a platform that will throttle due to overheating, it’s very important you do so at constant room temperature. I work in a office where […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on

NanoPi M4 RK3399 SBC Price Drops to $50 and Up

The launch of Raspberry Pi 4 SBC has generated lots of interest, especially with the extra performance and low $35 price tag that has made most alternatives suddenly less interesting. However, Raspberry Pi 4 benchmarks show it’s not quite the fastest board around, and for example, Rockchip RK3399 platforms are still quite faster, sometimes as much as twice as fast. They do cost much more though, often more than twice, and so far one of the cheapest RK3399 boards was NanoPi M4 going for $65. FriendlyELEC has now decided, certainly in response to Raspberry Pi 4 offering, to lower the price to $50 for the 2GB RAM version which compares to $45 with Raspberry Pi 4 2GB, as well as $75 for the 4GB RAM version (was $95). NanoPi M4 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up […]

Posted on

Khadas VIM3 SBC Launched with Amlogic A311D Processor, 5 TOPS NPU

We’ve previously written about Khadas VIM3 Amlogic S922X development board and revealed the price tag for VIM3 Basic ($69.99) and VIM3 Pro ($99.99) with a launch date announced for June 24. As time has passed, this has become “fake news” except for the launch date, as Khadas VIM3 SBC has indeed launched but for $99.99 (Basic) and $139.99 (Pro). What’s going on? Why the large price increase? That’s because Khadas team has decided to provide a more powerful platform to the community, and replace Amlogic S922X processor with Amlogic A311D processor boasting higher clock speeds and a 5.0 TOPS NPU. Another version may also become available later on with the soon-to-be-released Amlogic S922X-B processor whose Cortex-A73 cores are clocked at up to 2.2 GHz, instead of 1.7 GHz for the original Amlogic S922X processor that will be referred to Amlogic S922X-A in the future. New Khadas VIM3 SBC specifications: SoC […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC