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Rockchip PX30 Processor Powers Android 8.1 Car Infotainment Systems

Rockchip RK3326 and RK3308 are the first Arm Cortex A35 processors from the company, and are designed for smart AI solutions such as smart speakers and smart displays. It turns out RK3326 processor has a sibling called Rockchip PX30 with most of the same features, but with dual VOP (Video Output Processor) support to handle up to two independent displays, as well as an Ethernet MAC and a USB host block. Rockchip RK30 key features and specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 GPU – Mali-G31 MP2 GPU Memory I/F – DDR4/DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR3/LPDDR2 Storage I/F – MLC NAND, eMMC 4.51, Serial Nor FLASH Video 1080p H.265/H.264/VC-1/MPEG/VP8 video decoder 1080p H.264/VP8 video encoder Display Interfaces – MIPI-DSI/LVDS/RGB interface, dual VOP Audio I/F – 1x8ch I2S/TDM, 1x8ch PDM, 2x2ch I2S Camera I/F – MIPI CSI and DVP; built-in 8MP ISP Networking – 10/100M Ethernet Other Peripherals – SDIO3.0, USB2.0 HOST & OTG, 4x I2C, […]

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Linux 4.18 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architecture

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 4.18: One week late(r) and here we are – 4.18 is out there. It was a very calm week, and arguably I could just have released on schedule last week, but we did have some minor updates. Mostly networking, but some vfs race fixes (mentioned in the rc8 announment as “pending”) and a couple of driver fixes (scsi, networking, i2c). Some other minor random things (arm crypto fix, parisc memory ordering fix). Shortlog appended for the (few) details. Some of these I was almost ready to just delay to until the next merge window, but they were marked for stable anyway, so it would just have caused more backporting. The vfs fixes are for old races that  are really hard to hit (which is obviously why they are old and weren’t noticed earlier). Some of them _have_ been seen in real […]

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NanoPC-T4 Review with Android 7.1 Firmware

NanoPC-T4 is one of the many Rockchip RK3399 SBCs now available, and as we’ve seen in the “unboxing review” the company sent me two samples. So far, I’ve been reviewing RK3399 boards with Linux distributions in posts such as “Checking Out Debian and Linux SDK for VideoStrong VS-RD-RK3399 Board” and more recently “AIO-3399J Development Board Review with Ubuntu 16.04“. But in this NanoPC-T4 review, I’ll switch to Android, specifically Android 7.1, as I’ll soon try Android 8.1 on Firefly-RK3399 which might make for an interesting comparison between the two versions of the OS, before switching to Linux with Pine64 RockPro64 board which I received yesterday. First Boot with NanoPC-T4 Development Board I had already assembled  the board in the first part of the review, so I just added the two WiFi antennas, the optional USB to serial debug board, and connected various accessories and cables from left to right: USB […]

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Checking out DevCheck System Info App for Android on NanoPC-T4 Development Board

There are already  a few ways to get system information in Android. The most obvious is just going into the Settings menu, another solution more detailed but less convenient is to access the terminal via adb or an app and run some commands, and finally you can also install apps such as CPU-Z. I’ve been made aware of a new system info app recently called DevCheck, and decided to try it on an Android development board, namely NanoPC-T4 RK3399 SBC. Those apps are often mainly tested on smartphones, so running them on TV boxes or boards do not always yield perfect results. We’ll see. The dashboard section looks good as the app correctly detects six cores and show difference frequencies for each. The hardware part appears to show two clusters one supporting frequencies between 408 MHz and 1416 MHz (Cortex-A53 cores) and another between 408 MHz and 1800 MHz (Cortex-A72 […]

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AIO-3399J Development Board Review with Ubuntu 16.04

Regular readers will know that Firefly team sent  me several of their Rockchip boards for evaluation, and I started with a review of ROC-RK3328-CC development board powered by Rockchip RK3328 processor. This time, I went with the high-end AIO-3399J board comprised of a features-packed baseboard and a Rockchip RK3399 system-on-module. Just like with the previous review, I’ve decided to focus on Linux support, in this case Xunbuntu 16.04, and I’ll do an Android review on the company releases Android 8.1 for Firefly-RK3399 board. First Boot with AIO-3399J Board Before booting the board, I inserted the heatsink, and connected the provided WiFi antennas. I also connected some devices and cables, including a mouse,  the male to male USB cable to the top USB 3.0 (OTG) port for firmware update, a HDMI cable to my TV, and Ethernet cable, as well as the serial debug board. The final step was to connect […]

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Alfawise A8 RK3229 Android 8.1 TV Box Sold for $29.99 (Promo)

We started to see some Android 8.1 “Oreo” TV boxes a few months ago with MX10 model powered by Rockchip RK3328 processor, but if you don’t mind having a TV box with a 32-bit Arm processor, you can now get an Android 8.1 TV box for a much cheaper price, as GearBest now has a flash sale for Alfawise A8 TV box based on Rockchip RK3229 with a respectable 2GB RAM and 16GB flash, and selling for $29.99 shipped. Alfawise A8 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core Arm Cortex A7 processor @ 1.5 GHz with  ARM Mali-400MP2 System Memory – 2GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, full size SD slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K2K @ 60 fps & AV port (composite video) Audio – HDMI audio output, AV port (stereo audio), and coaxial S/PDIF output Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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FriendlyELEC NanoPC-T4 Board Kit Unboxing and Assembly

FriendlyELEC introduced NanoPC-T4 RK3399 SBC (Single Board Computer) last May for $129. The board comes with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, dual-band WiFi module and an M.2 socket with NVME (PCIe) SSD support. The company has now sent me the device with accessories for review / evaluation. In this post, I’ll check out all items received, and show how to assemble all components. NanoPC-T4 Board Kit Unboxing Let’s getting started, and open the package… I received two identical kits with two NanoPC-T4 boards, acrylic enclosure with spacers, screws and nuts, 12V/2A power supply, heatsink, and an RC-100 IR remote control. In theory, I also expected two WiFi antennas per kit since that’s part fo the kit in their website, but I did not see any. The remote control is an optional item. [Update: Ooops. I found the antennas inside the package for NanoPC-T4 board.] I’ve […]

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Firefly Baidu Face Recognition Kit Comes with Monocular, Binocular, or Structured Light Camera

Firefly AIO-3399J industrial board comprised of a Rockchip RK3399 SoM and a baseboard offering plenty of I/O & connectivity options has been bundled with various  other accessories including a 10.1″ touchscreen display, and cameras to create a development platform for Baidu AI offline (aka “at the edge”) face recognition technology. The development kit is available in different variants with either a monocular camera, a binocular camera, or a structured-light camera. There’s also a deluxe kit with WiFi and a stand. Baidu Face Recognition Kit key specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with dual core ARM Cortex A72 up to 2.0 GHz and quad core Cortex A53 processor, ARM Mali-T860 MP4 GPU with OpenGL 1.1 to 3.1 support, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL and DX 11 support System Memory – 2GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash, micro SD card slot Display – 10.1″ 1280×800 capacitive touch display Connectivity – […]

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