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NanoPi R6S Review – Part 1: Unboxing, Teardown, OpenWrt 22.03, and iperf3

NanoPi R6S is a Rockchip RK3588S powered device that can not only work as a router with two 2.5GbE ports, but also as a mini PC with HDMI and USB ports, and an Edge AI computer thanks to the 6 TOPS NPU found in the processor. FriendlyElec has just sent me two samples of the NanoPi R6S for review. Today, I’ll start with an unboxing, a teardown, and install OpenWrt 22.03 to run some iperf3 benchmarks. I’ll try other features with either Debian or Ubuntu Desktop in a few weeks. NanoPi R6S unboxing The router/mini PC ships with 6 rubber feet (3M), and nothing else. The front panel comes with four LEDs for the system and Ethernet ports, a USB 2.0 port and a USB 3.0 port, as well as an IR receiver “window” (under the USB 3.0 port). The rear panel includes a USB Type-C port that supports 5V […]

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UP 4000 x86 SBC review with Ubuntu 22.04

The UP 4000 is a credit-card / Raspberry Pi-sized single board computer based on an Intel Apollo Lake processor. AAEON sent me the model with an Intel Atom x7-E3950 quad-core processor, 4GB RAM, and a 64GB eMMC flash, and in the first part of the review, I installed Ubuntu 22.04 since the board would initially only boot to the UEFI shell out of the box. I’ve now spent more time with the board, and in this article, I will report my experience with the UP 4000 SBC running Ubuntu 22.04 checking out features, performance, video playback, power consumption, and so on. Ubuntu 22.04 System info Let’s check out some information after I’ve upgraded the system to the latest packages:

Everything looks good with an Intel Atom E3950 processor detected together with 3.68GB RAM and a 56.53GB rootfs EXT-4 partition. UP 4000 features testing There may also be some issues […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Khadas Edge2 review with Android 12

We’ve already reviewed Khadas Edge2 Pro with Ubuntu 22.04, and I’ve now had time to test the ultra-thin Rockchip RK3588S SBC with Android 12, so I’ll report my experience checking out the features, running some benchmarks, playing videos and games, etc… Flashing Android 12 to Khadas Edge2 board Our board was running Ubuntu 22.04, so in order to enter OOWOW firmware system, I had to keep pressing the function key (middle), then shortly press the reset button, before releasing the function key and entering the OOWOW interface. We can see the Android 11 image from the list we saw last month is gone for good, and a new Android 12 image dated September 20, 2022 is available. I selected that one, and OOWOW downloaded the files and flashed it to the board. Within five minutes, Android 12 was up and running on the board. As somebody who had spent several […]

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Linux 6.0 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.0 has just been released by Linus Torvalds: So, as is hopefully clear to everybody, the major version number change is more about me running out of fingers and toes than it is about any big fundamental changes. But of course there’s a lot of various changes in 6.0 – we’ve got over 15k non-merge commits in there in total, after all, and as such 6.0 is one of the bigger releases at least in numbers of commits in a while. The shortlog of changes below is only the last week since 6.0-rc7. A little bit of everything, although the diffstat is dominated by drm (mostly amd new chip support) and networking drivers. And this obviously means that tomorrow I’ll open the merge window for 6.1. Which – unlike 6.0 – has a number of fairly core new things lined up. But for now, please do give this most […]

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ELLO LC1 – A 2mm thin DIY “computer” based on Microchip PIC18 8-bit MCU

We often write about business card or credit card-sized boards, but it’s only true for 2D dimensions, as most boards are over a centimeter thick, with possibly the thinnest we’ve covered being the Khadas Edge2 SBC that’s just 7mm thick. So Kn/vD took it upon himself to build a DIY computer that was really about the size of a credit card, and came up with the ELLO LC1 based on a Microchip PIC18 8-bit microcontroller, featuring an integrated display and keyboard, and powered by a coin-cell battery. It’s just 2mm thin. ELLO LC1 specifications: MCU – Microchip PIC18 (PIC18F47Q83-I/PT) 8-bit microcontroller with 13KB RAM and 128KB flash, out of which 64KB are reserved as user file storage Display – 20×4 character text panel (Display Visions EADOGM204N) Keyboard – 48x touch panels on the PCB Expansion – 12-pin unpopulated header for debugging (ICSP) and GPIO expansion Misc – Power button Power […]

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Geniatech unveils SMARC 2.1 compliant Rockchip RK3568 system-on-module

We’ve seen Rockchip RK3568 system-on-modules before, but the Geniatech SOM-3568-SMARC core board is the first to comply with the SMARC 2.1 standard with a 314-pin MXM connector exposing the many I/Os from the quad-core Cortex-A55 processor. The module comes with up to 8GB RAM, 128GB eMMC flash, integrates a WiFi and Bluetooth module as well as two Gigabit Ethernet transceivers, and is designed to be used in advanced NVRs, cloud terminals, industrial automation, IoT applications, digital signage, and more. Geniatech SOM-3568-SMARC specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1, 1 TOPS NPU for AI acceleration, 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoding, and 1080p100 H.265/H.264 video encoding; 22nm process System Memory – 2GB, 4GB or 8GB DDR4 Storage – 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC 5.1 flash Networking 2x RTL8211F Gigabit Ethernet PHY WT6354 wireless module […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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UP 4000 x86 SBC review – Part 1: Unboxing and first boot

AAEON UP 4000 is a compact Apollo Lake single board computer that’s about the size of a business card or a Raspberry Pi designed for automation, robotics, digital signage, and other space-constrained applications that may benefit from an x86 processor. The company already published some Phoronix benchmarks comparing the UP 4000 SBC against Raspberry Pi 4, NVIDIA Jetson Nano, and the original UP board, but since nothing beats third-party evaluation, AAEON sent a review sample to CNX Software for additional testing. UP 4000 SBC unboxing There are several variants of the board, and I received the UP-APL03X7F-A10-0464 SKU with 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC flash, and an Intel Atom x7-E3950 quad-core processor. The package includes the board together with a multilingual safety manual that explains you should not immerse the board underwater and should avoid walking on it :). A 12V/5A power supply was also included separately. The power cord was […]

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Khadas VIM1S low-profile SBC features Amlogic S905Y4 quad-core Cortex-A35 SoC

Khadas VIM1S is an upcoming low-profile single board computer powered by an Amlogic S905Y4 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor that’s meant to provide an upgrade to the Amlogic S905X-powered Khadas VIM SBC introduced in 2016, and since then renamed to Khadas VIM1. Khadas has been teasing two new SBCs: the low-end Khadas VIM1S with S905Y4 SoC, and the most powerful Khadas Edge2 board equipped with a Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor. I have received both as you can clearly see from the photo above :), but I’m only allowed to write about information available publicly at this time, so today I’ll introduce the Khadas VIM1S which looks just like the VIM1 board. Khadas VIM1S specifications with highlights in bold showing the differences against the VIM1 Pro model: SoC – Amlogic S905Y4 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 @ up to 2.0 GHz (real frequency) with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU @ up to 850 MHz MCU – […]

Boardcon EM3562 Rockchip RK3562 SBC with 8 analog camera inputs