Posted on

BeagleBone Black Gets 4GB Flash, a Price Increase, and Better Availability

The BeagleBone Black has been launched about a year ago, and this low cost ARM Linux board has become pretty popular with hobbyists, robotics courses at universities, and even people making products. The downside is that it has been difficult for CircuitCo, the manufacturer, to keep producing enough boards to match the demand while keeping the price at a low $45 with very little margin, and there are currently about 150,000 boards on distributor back-orders. To improve availability, Beagleboard.org has announced Revision C of the BeagleBone Black with a 4 GB eMMC, which may be easier to source over time than the original 2 GB eMMC, and that will sell for about $5 to $15 more than the previous version, or between $50 and $60. The rest of the hardware specifications remain identical. There’s also a change on the software side, as the board will be pre-loaded with Debian, instead […]

Posted on

Intel Announces its First “Bay Trail” Fanless NUC Kit

Intel already announced a Bay Trail NUC selling for $140 earlier this year, but despite the low power dissipation (7.5W TDP) of the Intel N2820 processor, it requires a fan for cooling. The company has now unveiled its first fanless mini PC with Intel NUC Kit DE3815TYKHE powered by Intel Atom E3815 Bay Trail-I processor with 5W TDP. This NUC is destined for industrial and enterprise solutions such as digital signage, point-of-sales, kiosks, and thin clients. Here are the specs of this tiny x86 computer: SoC – Intel Atom E3815 single core processor @ 1.46GHz single core with 512KB cache and 5W TDP, coupled with Intel HD Graphics up to 400 MHz. System Memory – Up 8 GB 1.35V, 1333/1600 MHz (down clocked to 1066 MHz) DDR3L SO-DIMM Storage – 4-GB eMMC, support for one internal 2.5″ SATA HDD or SDD (up to 9.5mm thick) Video Output: 1x HDMI 1.4a 1x […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
Posted on

Review of M8 Android Kitkat TV Box Powered by Amlogic S802 SoC

A few days ago, I wrote an Unboxing and Specs post about the M8, an Android TV Box powered by Amlogic S802 quad core Cortex A9 processor. The review took a little as I was waiting for a new firmware. I’ve now upgraded this S802 Box, and been able to complete a review. As usual , I’ll start by giving my first impressions, have a look at the user interface and settings, test different king of video files, evaluate Wi-Fi performance, and try to cover most hardware features including Bluetooth, external storage, USB webcam, and so on. The overall user’s experience, is very similar to Tronsmart Vega S89, but there are some notable differences I’ll go through during the review. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions Shenzhen Tomato sent me a sample unit which they call TM8 (Tomato M8?), but I’ll just refer to the device as M8 in the […]

Posted on

Rockchip RK3288 based Android and Chromium OS Tablets and TV Boxes (Video)

After the first RK3288 Android TV boxes started to be promoted on Alibaba, and the first RK3288 board was shown, Rockchip is currently showing their quad core Cortex A17 processor in reference designs, tablets, and TV boxes running Android or Chromium OS at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair. Charbax interviewed the company, and the first demo was a development board connected to an LCD display running Chromium OS, which is said to handle 30 tabs without issues. Rockchip RK3288 is now advertised as being a quad core Cortex A17 with a Mali-T764 GPU, but when Rockchip representative was asked, he strangely denied to comment on whether it was a Cortex A12 or A17, as both are very similar. He also said the GPU was a Mali-T760MP4… If this seems all confusing that’s because it is… Some interesting things are H.265/HEVC support for 4K2K videos, and HDMI 2.0 for 4K @ […]

Posted on

Review of Tronsmart Vega S89 Elite Amlogic S802 TV Box

Tronsmart Vega S89 is an Android TV Box based on Amlogic quad-core Cortex A9 processor. You can refer to Tronsmart Vega S89 specs for more technical details, and check out my Tronsmart Vega S89 Unboxing post for pictures of the device and the board. As a reminder, there are two models of the device: Tronsmart Vega S89 with 16GB flash and dual-band Wi-Fi (AP6330 module), and Tronsmart Vega S89 Elite with 8GB flash and 2.4 WiFi (AP6220 module). I’ve been sent the Elite version, but both versions should have similar performance. I’ll start by giving my first impressions, going through the user interface and settings, then I’ll switch to video and audio tests, Wi-Fi performance, and perform some other tests for Bluetooth, gaming, external storage, USB webcam, etc.. trying to cover most of the hardware features available on this device. First Boot, Settings, and First Impressions Vega S89 (Elite) comes […]

Posted on

Samsung Gear 2 Smartwatches are Powered by Exynos 3250 SoC

When Samsung announced their Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches running Tizen, they only vaguely mentioned a dual core processor running at 1 GHz powered the devices. SamMobile reports the two watches should be powered by a new processor called Exynos 3250 with two cores and clocked at 1 GHz as initially announced. Ifixit also made a tear down of the Gear 2 watch, and at first, it seems Exynos 3250 is nowhere to be seen, but it turns out it’s probably combined with a DRAM (and Flash?) package named KMF5X0005M, and shown inside a red square in the picture above. Samsung Galaxy Gear, the company’s first smartwatch, was a modified version of Exynos 4212 dual core processor, but using only one core and downclocked to 800 MHz. SamMobile thinks the Gear 2 can use a dual core processor @ 1 GHz, due to battery life gains achieved by […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
Posted on

Tronsmart Vega S89 (Elite) Android 4.4 Media Player Unboxing

Last review, I wrote an unboxing post about M8, an Android TV Box powered by Amlogic S802 quad core Cortex A9r4 processor with a Mali-450MP6 GPU. I’m still waiting for the firmware to test this device. In the meantime, Geekbuying sent me Tronsmart Vega S89 (Click for full specs), another Android Kitkat TV box powered by S802. There are actually two versions: Tronsmart Vega S89 (16 GB Flash, dual band Wi-Fi), and Tronsmart Vega S89 Elite (8GB Flash, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi) which is the model I received. I’ll write an unboxing post today with the device and the board, and test the firmware in the next few days. Tronsmart Vega S89 (Elite) Unboxing Geekbuying sent me the sample via DHL which I received in the package below. There are quite a few accessories included with the board. From left to right: IR remote control (2x AAA batteries not included), HDMI […]

Posted on

Raspberry Pi Compute Module is a $30 Raspberry Pi Compatible System-on-Module

Albeit the initial goal of the Raspberry Pi board was to address computer science education, it has become extremely popular with hobbyists, has made its way in many different kinds of hardware, and is now clearly the number 1 low cost ARM Linux development board. The Raspberry Pi foundation has then decided to design and sell a system-on-module called Raspberry Pi Compute that people can use in actual products. Since the module will be mostly software compatible with the original Raspberry Pi board, the specs are similar: SoC – Broadcom BCM2835 ARM 11 processor @ 700 MHz with Videocore IV GPU System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB eMMC Flash SoM Connector – DDR2 200-pins SODIMM Dimensions – 67.6x30mm board which fits into a standard DDR2 SODIMM connector The main difference is they’ve replaced the SD card slot found in the board, by an eMMC module which is more […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications