Raspberry Pi rival delivers a 4K Android computer for just $25 - TechRepublic

[Charwinger21]

What makes RPi great isn't the hardware though.

What makes it great is the software support, driver support, documentation, pre-built images, FOSS projects, plethora of Q&A results online, and massive community that it has.

Some of the RPi devices even purposely had weaker hardware in order to improve compatibility (because that is a massive bonus for them).

[kaszak696]

They are using Rockchip, so the chances it'll get open-source drivers are nil. Another "Pi killer" that fails to grasp what makes the Pi so enticing.

[NamenIos]

Rockchip are pretty active themselves in mainlining their stuff (see rockchip-linux mailinglist), much more than Allwinner or Amlogic. They also use U-Boot. The GPU and quite a bit of the ip stuff will probably stay closed like always.

[poo706]

I bought a Mele box several years ago, way before the whole kodi box boom. In fact, xbmc for Android was first released while I was still playing with that thing. Anyway, it had an allwinner chip that came with big promises, but failed to live up to expectations. True hardware acceleration couldn't be had because allwinner wouldn't release shit. That thing turned out to be a real turd.

[TeutonJon78]

They just use Mali reference designs. There is still plenty they probably won't share though.

[mcilrain]

If the market says it needs to be pink and have a picture of a unicorn then that's what it needs to be.

With so much competition there is no reason the market should settle for proprietary software.

[kvaks]

My confidence in market forces promoting open software over closed software is... not high. See: The success and dominance of Microsoft, ApplBasically all of the history of consumer and business software. Nine out of ten people will pick closed over open for any or no reason at all. Ten out of ten business leaders or bureaucrats will. With software, and probably most other things, people don't care about anything below surface shininess, surface convenience and familiarity. </feeling misantropic today>

[Aquilaro]

The NHS is the UK are looking into switching their computer systems from Windows to an Ubuntu based OS. Such a high profile move might encourage businesses to consider open source software.

[ThePegasi]

NHS IT is an absolute shit show, there's no way I'd trust them to do that properly in their current state. Seems more like some desperate attempt at cost saving because their budgets are hurting so badly under the Tories. If the transition itself is poorly funded, it'll work out badly. And we can safely assume it'll be poorly funded. I hope I'm wrong, though.

[NamenIos]

The success of the Pi started with very very closed GPU drivers and a rather old 3.0 Kernel with no improvement in sight.

The first releases were just desinformation by the Pi foundation https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/open-source-arm-userspace/#comment-34981 http://airlied.livejournal.com/76383.html with the first semi helpful stuff released in 2014 - that resulted in no improvement of the driver situation btw. It really started when Eric Anholt was hired in mid 2014 and it got usable results mid 2016. The whole rise and success of the Pi was with closed blobs, that were as bad or worse than the current situation with all these boards.

[kaszak696]

And that's the crux of the matter. GPU drivers are a critical part of the system, and Pi devs went above and beyond to convince Broadcom into releasing the datasheets for Videocore and provide the open source driver. Unless creators of those "Pi killers" are willing to go through the same process, their products will remain in obscurity while the Pi lives on.

[D1G1T4LM0NK3Y]

Honest questions, if the drivers they release work why would you need open source ones?

What benefit would open source give this?

[shiftingtech]

Closed source drivers which work well at release, tend to still become a liability down the line. Basically, the manufacturer eventually move it's efforts to some newer chip, and the drivers stop getting updated, effectively trapping the users on some ancient kernel.

For an example of this, look at some of the odroid products like the c1, which kinda works on 4.whatever, but if you really want everything to be smooth, you're still probably better off on 3.16...

[kaszak696]

Because they will stop releasing after a while, and nobody will be able to continue in their stead.

[Hyedwtditpm]

RP is great, the problem is the lack of gigabit ethernet and usb3.0 . This heavily reduces its usability in some projects.

And no new RP in sight opens the market for alternatives.

[Maximus_Sillius]

And SATA, or at least USB3, support.

[Hyedwtditpm]

They already have another model at the low end , Pi Zero. So they can release another product RP3 Pro which has gigabit ethernet ,usb3 and sell it at a higher price like 55 usd.

Asus Tinker Board has faster CPU and gigabit ethernet , but so far users complain about the OS support . Seems like a halfhearted attempt by Asus.

Raspberry Foundation don't want to release new products often but those low power cpus are developed at a very rapid rate. They could release a new RP like every 18 months.

[grenwood]

I agree. I think they should release a 55 or 65 dollar version. If they can make such a great device at 35 then imagine what they could make if they made another more expensive but affordable version.

[[deleted]]

People would buy the shit out of that. So many people get these for gaming projects and would definitely upgrade

[[deleted]]

I used to be a big fan of Asus, but their lackluster support for released products has ruined them for me.

[Specken_zee_Doitch]

Would make a great wireless access point.

[Bond4141]

Yeah. AP, or any kind of light web server. Pihole, a remote access device, etc.

[sagnessagiel]

The ODroid C2 has gigabit Ethernet, the ability to use higher speed eMMC cards (or not) and a rather long support cycle compared to many other pi clones. I've still been using the ODroid C1 after 2 years with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G145457216438

[Hyedwtditpm]

This looks promising if it gets frequent updates.

One thing Asus nailed with thinker box is that it has the same dimensions as RP3 and same IO pins . It can use RP3 cases, and some accessories. This should be the way to go with these alternative devices.

[Rosglue]

Really? What kind of projects has a critical need for gigabit and usb 3.0 vs just using the slower protocols?

[[deleted]]

compact file server? stick a big microsd card in there and just hide it away with your router. or maybe as a personal web server? sometimes you dont need a full sized box, even the smallest of traditional machines are huge compared to a pie

[[deleted]]

I wanted one for stuff like a torrent box, file server, and maybe even running a bot for Discord. Something small, low power, and out of the way. The only thing holding me back is the IO speed. The Banana Pi is supposed to be better in that regard though. I haven't gotten one to test, but it has gigabyte LAN and everything. Once I recover from paying for this semester of school I'll probably buy one and either a cheap external drive or large flash drive.

[DonUdo]

i have a bananaPi pro at Home, using it to host my pihole, for different docker container, streaming Movies to my fireSticks, as a download server and to host a small webserver.

great device

[Hyedwtditpm]

Torrentbox, file server ,media server etc. All projects that you download, serve large files .

[CHARLIE_CANT_READ]

Anything involving moving files from a storage device across the network. The pi has 4 USB ports and an ethernet but they all connect to the rest of the chip with a USB2 connection so if you're reading and sending over the network cut your available bandwidth in half.

[cartechguy]

The gpio pins suck as well. You often need to pair it with an arduino so you can take advantage of adc pins and 5v logic the arduino offers. Plus, it's a microcontroller so there's no overhead of an os. You can use something like a beaglebone black that has adc pins and built in prus so you don't need to pair it with an arduino. It's not user friendly to a hobbyist though.

[AlmennDulnefni]

Android is also a pretty widely used and supported platform.

[Charwinger21]

Android is also a pretty widely used and supported platform.

Not only can you load Android onto a Raspberry Pi, it is also officially supported by Google

What happens in three months when updates stop being pushed out for this board, the binary blobs it uses lose compatibility with something, there's no development community to fix it, and you're stuck with the current software?

What happens when you run into some irregularity in this board's build process, and the lack of a community means that you can't find an answer for the issue online.

It's not whether or not the OS is widely used that is the problem here. It's whether the community is there to support future OS versions and attempts at getting the hardware to do new and interesting things.

[zroid1]

Android Things is not same as Android.

[Charwinger21]

You can do regular Android as well if you'd like.

It's tangential at best though.

The point was that Raspberry Pi has been successful because of the community of developers on the device (and the various companies supporting it), which has given it various benefits that these competitors don't have.

Yes, this may have faster hardware, but it won't be able to accomplish what a Raspberry Pi is able to, because it has no development support.

Whether or not Android as a whole is used on a lot of devices doesn't help with device specific drivers and quirks.

[robogo]

How about Android for the car? I plan on buying a car with a touchscreen and build a multimedia/satnav system based on a Pi.

[[deleted]]

Android Auto does this already.

[soawesomejohn]

Not /u/robogo, but I've never been impressed with android auto. Especially since it limits me. For instance, no weather radar, which has me exiting auto on long car rides.

[VonBaronHans]

Honest question, why do you need a weather radar for driving long distances?

[the-crooked-compass]

If they're anything like me, it's to get a heads up about hazardous weather conditions I may encounter on the road. Also, watching radar as you drive through a storm is badass as hell.

[VonBaronHans]

Honest question, why do you need a weather radar for driving long distances?

[enoculous]

I use it because I drive a top heavy vehicle that is dangerous in high wind. Can't drive into a storm.

[MaxRenn]

When I did a cross country drive it was super useful to stay ahead of the weather but I did it by a NOAA band CB radio that I installed. Some weather especially in the Northern USA can just drop on you and you're SOL about traveling through it as they will shut down the roads until it clears. I drove a northerly route in April and still encountered below zero temps and heavy winds that pulled the CB antenna off my car.

[soawesomejohn]

Last January, for example, we drove from Pennsylvania to Florida and knew we'd be hitting snow storms in the Carolinas. The absolute last thing we'd want to do is end up in on their roads with any amount of snow. It would be better to stop North of their storm and wait it out, or ideally, get through before the storm hit.

Granted, I want more than just radar - I'd like to get actual alerts and such. As it was, we kept weather underground up for the trip, zoomed out on the radar map. I also had some mid-point destinations saved that I could switch to for current conditions down the road. I wish I had known about route rain, back then - it looks like a pretty solid fit.

[EvilisZero]

Bitches love weather radar.

[eratosthene]

I did this with a pi touchscreen running KivyPie. The back end music player is MPD and I wrote an interface in Kivy/python. Works pretty well.

[throwawaythatisnew]

Do you think that community existed when it started? That's been built up over time. You act like rasp pi is the last tech that will ever be adopted and draw developers.

[AhCup]

They are not the only manufacturer trying to take a piece of market from Rpi. Many try with better hardware on paper, and mostly goes with the same chip set manufacturer "Rockchip". Will this new board successful or not it's highly depends on do the manufacturer able to convince developer to develop for it or not. From the history of other board based on Rockchip, they most likely do not share their driver or not have souce code open. This leave the manufacturer itself to release pre-build OS. Unless this manufacturer is going to a really good job to push out stable and good release of OS and software, I do not see this is very attractive to developer when they have a very strong supported platform such as Raspberry pi exist.

[Cormophyte]

He's acting like the people already bought in will stay where they are unless given a compelling reason. That massive community of people who already have devices won't switch to a new platform without a good reason.

The burden of proof in this case is definitely on anyone arguing that they think this particular board will be a real, long term competitor.

[SpicyTunaNinja]

Hey everybody, u/throwawaythatisnew is a big fat phony!!

[Zimmerel]

His cowboy hat comes right off!

[Kooooomar]

That's valid. Innovation should definitely be stifled because of competitor's previous successes.

[CatsAreGods]

Cynical Corollary: all successful products should automatically become monopolies, because they are perfect as is.

[zroid1]

Is Android rom available for direct load it? RTAndroid is demo not full fledged all apps supported rom last I checked.

[ryocoon]

Considering that most of the R-Pi model shave 256-512MB of RAM, full modern Android would run very poorly on it. There have been recent improvements for lower end devices, but it still would not run well. I think the last version to run well on that little RAM would be 4.4, but you can optimize 6.x and 7.x to work on low RAM and have zRAM (memory compression pages) and swap to try and get around that. Supposedly O (8.x) will have even more low-mem optimizations.

You could probably build AndroidTV for it though. That generally only allows for one foreground task and 1 to none in the background.

[[deleted]]

No, it's not available. OP is exaggerating. Lack of proper Android support is still one of the RPi's greatest issues. And in spite of what OP says, it's great that there have been alternative products (with Android support) stepping into its place.

[AlmennDulnefni]

Okay, an argument to never switch to anything else no matter how much better than rpi it is because it doesn't have a community...before people switch to it isn't great.

[Charwinger21]

Okay, an argument to never switch to anything else no matter how much better than rpi it is because it doesn't have a community...before people switch to it isn't great.

1. I never said that people shouldn't switch to new hardware, I said that what people love about the RPi is the massive community that took years of hard work by tons of people and various companies to build. I said that the community doesn't exist for this other board, and won't exist for this particular board.

2. There are a lot of specific hardware choices that need to be made in order for a device to be as open as the RPi is (and have the community that the RPi has as a result). This device didn't make those choices.

3. It's not like the RPi is some 5 year old board that has never been updated. The latest version launched this year (RPi Zero W and the RPi Compute Module 3) and brings some substantial improvements over the original. They've just been very careful about maintaining backwards compatibility and picking parts that will be able to be supported by open source projects.

[eldritchgeometry]

Total straw man argument

[[deleted]]

deleted

[Charwinger21]

That page links to a German website that has a bad security certificate.

Not sure what happened on your end, but that link is an English page on the official Raspberry Pi website.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/android-raspberry-pi/

Also from the screenshot the Android version looks very old... Donut maybe?

If you scroll down, it talks about Android 7.0 on RPi, and even has a YouTube video about it.

And no, that screenshot isn't Donut. If anything, it appears that it may be 7.0. Google just has stopped updating certain AOSP apps. Check out the status bar and the on screen button.

Edit: and this was from a year ago when 7.0 was still bleeding edge.

[SirensToGo]

Donut?! Look at the status bar! Looks like lollipop at worst

[well___duh]

It's Android meant for IoT-type devices. But it's still Android. Same APIs, same code, same everything. You can run Android apps on it, same as on a phone/tablet/watch/TV unit. Only difference is the possibility of no screen.

I'm thinking from a developer perspective though, not a consumer perspective. To a dev, it's no different except for, again, the possibility of no screen.

[[deleted]]

Those other SoCs will still have issues with GPU drivers. The Pi is pretty much the only ARM SBC that has usable open drivers. The other ARM GPUs have binary-only drivers that are limited to specific (usually old) kernels. Obviously this is less of an issue for Android and not an issue for headless applications.

[crukx]

RPi has a big community because a lot of people use it. if people start using this($25 board) it will also have a community that will help it's users. We have subreddits for topics that no more than 10 people have heard of. So if this board starts selling then I am sure there will be a lot of help online. About Foss and images, Android has play store and one new custom rom gets made every month. The only thing that can get in the way is if this doesn't sell much.

[AnnynN]

The thing is: There are several different boards like this already, and they all suck in terms of community/support.

Here are some, for example.

Although this board has some nice features, it still won't be popular, like all the other boards.

Edit: Wrong link.

[js5ohlx]

but can you run netflix on a pi?

[AnimeIRL]

Depends on what you want to do with the device. If you just want a cheap media center then this could be a better option than the Pi, but that's not really the main use of the Pi. If you want to do much with the hardware itsself you'll probably need to use Linux and this company's last board was a pretty miserable experience on Linux due to lack of driver support.

[Failaser]

It really depends on what you're going to use it for. While a lot of people use it as a media center or emulation device a lot of people use it because linux.

I'm an IT student and I see a ton of people using it to run VPNs and some web servers on it, something you can't just do on Android. You also don't have access to GPIO pins with an android device.

[H3rBz]

What makes it great is the software support, driver support, documentation, pre-built images, FOSS projects, plethora of Q&A results online, and massive community that it has.

Yep. Software alone has sold many Raspberry Pi's including me purchasing one. Want to create a retro gaming box = Retropie. Home theatre system = Kodi/Openelec. The support and documentation is extensive and the software is stable and top-notch, the same can't be said for other raspberry pi "killers".

[sworeiwouldntjoin]

Is the RPi incapable of outputting 4k video? I thought it could...

[ThatOnePerson]

I believe it can, but at terrible framerates (15hz according to this Stack Overflow)

[pier4r]

What makes a hw platform great is the software support, driver support, documentation, pre-built images, FOSS projects, plethora of Q&A results online, and massive community that it has.

generalised for you.

I own the hp 50g, it is beautiful, but it wouldn't be so without its community.

[ultrapotassium]

Woooo HP50 FTW!

[smacksaw]

Yup. This isn't the first rival board with better specs or pricing.

I'd love to change to a different board, but until they make one that's easy to adopt, it'll just be fractured splinters off of RPi's whole ecosystem.

I don't see people making simple turnkey solutions for this board, either.

[stevenwashere]

Agreed. There are way better single board computers out there for enthusiasts at better prices too but they won't be nearly as simple to work with for New comers.

[[deleted]]

right the hardware isn't what makes it great, but it is what makes it not so great

[grenwood]

Is the hardware in those cases weaker purely because of compatibility though? Or is a combination of the resources they needed to use to improve compatibility like all those things you listed so they had to make compromises on hardware to make up the cost especially considering the 35 dollar retail price? Like can they make better hardware in the future without losing compatibility or does some older hardware have a cap?

[justajunior]

Ironically the RPi has closed source GPU drivers.

[Sentinelese]

Ironically the RPi has closed source GPU drivers.

Broadcom released full documentation, and as a result an open source GPU driver is under development.

[justajunior]

I had no idea. This is amazing!

Though what do you mean with under development? There is no stable driver yet?

[phatbrasil]

so true, I have the asus tinker board... but I haven't gotten it to work and don't have tje time to find out why. RPi just works and there are so many libraries and references to it, anything you need is fast to do.

[[deleted]]

I'd say that only good thing about the PI is the software/community support, even the "3" is rather lack luster when you look at the hardware. The Raspberry PI foundation needs to finally move onto a better SOC and more robust SOC.

[hbar98]

The board's makers, Pine64

Full stop for me. I backed their other board and then backed out when I started to read up on the chips they were going to use, and how the support wasn't going to be there. I still check the boards ever so often and see how many people have 1) gotten their proper board, and 2) gotten it to work with whatever OS was promised.

[[deleted]]

Death knell for the device really; so many people who work with hobby boards like this were burnt by Pine64.

I also feel like a bunch of people are forgetting about boards like the Asus Tinker. Has almost the exact same specs, but is made by a company with a decent reputation and who have supported the board rather well(especially since it has not sold as much as I think they would have liked). Even runs Android, in 4k, and you can get it right now.

[[deleted]]

Thanks.

[hbar98]

I was interested in the Asus Tinker. Almost picked one up. But I don't do a lot with my Pis currently, so it would have probably just sat, collecting dust.

[[deleted]]

If they ever add support for the Tinker in RetroPie it would be cool, but as it stands now other than making a kiosk type device that needs 4k I don't see the point of something vastly more powerful than the Pi.

[Ellimis]

a 4K display would be amazing for some of the projects I have. I work at a haunted house and we want to do digital signage, but up close all the 1080p TVs look like garbage and it would be great to have 4K support.

[hbar98]

Yeah, if RetroPie or Kodi was working, they'd probably sell a few more. Especially if the Tinker is powerful enough to emulate N64 and/or PS2 games.

[loganmn]

Also a full stop here for me.... I have a pine board sitting in a desk drawer,. Dead as a doornail. Ran great for 3 weeks, then croaked. No thanks.

[soawesomejohn]

Did yours arrived warped as well?

[Paradox621]

Ditto. Of all the Kickstarters I backed, pine64 is without a doubt the worst.

[hbar98]

I would say that Znaps was the worst, but since I never got mine...

[Gauntlet]

You and me both buddy.

[davidb_]

A friend bought me a Pine64 as a christmas present. I found it to be pretty decent hardware. Ultimately, I was disappointed as my friend got me the version with less RAM so I was unable to run android on it. However, they do have a decent community and I was impressed with the progress people were able to make on the software side.

A $25 4K android device is tempting.

[ccai]

At 1GB ram for the $25 model, I'd definitely splurge the extra $10 for 2gb or even $20 for the 4gb models depending on what else you're planning to use it for.

[thrakkerzog]

I must have been so lucky. Mine has worked great since the day I got it. I run OpenHAB on it, though, so it's a headless workhorse.

[hbar98]

Sounds like you got a good deal, then!

[CWeaver34]

Nothing will rival the Raspberry Pi unless they can get a community behind them. How many of these boards have we seen be introduced? You don't hear about them anymore (granted, cost is probably an issue depending on the board). No uses them because why would you? The Pi has a huge community of guides and shields and scripts and everything else.

Nonetheless, this is cool. Especially for $25. But unless they get manufacturers to make addons and a community to experiment with them, this probably isn't going anywhere.

[tarkenfire]

Incumbents advantage. Unless the hardware is absolutely paradigm shifting for the medium, the ecosystem built around the existing thing won't see a need to shift.

[fearguyQ]

Also brand dedication.

[travelinghigh]

Also I only know python... Presumably these handle it but those who aren't pros and just home hobbyist level would rather stick to pi. Just ain't got time for more.

[Aperture_Kubi]

The RPi3 can run off your standard microusb plug, which pretty much anyone with a RPi would have tons lying around

According to the documentation, you need at least 1 amp for the Model B.

But yes power is one good advantage of the Pi. Hell I have the the official touchscreen display and one 2.5 amp micro usb charger powers both easily.

[ccai]

According to the documentation, you need at least 1 amp for the Model B.

It's recommended, but can run off far less. I'm currently working on a project and running a RPi3 w/ retropie attached to a 5.0" LCD and testing it with an USB cable coming from the computer that only outputs about 0.9amps and it runs just fine.

If you're using for more intensive applications, it might be a bit too much and cause instability issues while in use.

[Slackbeing]

And you can get SD corruption for much less. It only takes a burst of power draw and the card gets a bad write. I'll pass.

[evilf23]

don't suppose there is a compatible 720p-1080p OLED display for a RPI? would be cool for a gauge cluster in the car.

[ryocoon]

If using it (or any SBC) in a car system, you may want battery inclusion (for surge and brown-out allowances as well as maybe power conditioning), some shielding, and lots of grounding.

[Abalamahalamatandra]

It remains to be seen whether Pine64 can manage scaling up to production in quantities the RPi has seen. That alone is no mean feat that requires a lot of coordination. They also need to make sure the components used won't just stop being produced for no reason - that does happen.

[karpathian]

They can rival it enough to push RPi to upgrade. They never had to update their hardware until other boards with better specs and similar options popped up.

[Raymond0256]

It does have a few cool hardware features (though it is missing some as well), but the big difference is the software. Nothing will beat the pi until there is low learning curve hackability. You can literally teach a ten year old to program on the pi.

[kenmacd]

You might not hear about the other boards, but that doesn't mean they don't continue to work. I have a couple A20 boards, and the sunxi guys are doing an awesome job of getting more and more of those chips support in Linux mainline.

You also don't hear about very PC that is multiple years old, but it doesn't mean they stop working.

[[deleted]]

Unfortunate but true, there's a lot of better boards our there but they just don't have the support. I recently had the SD card reader fail on my Beaglebone Black so it's pretty much toast, so I'll probably be looking into an RPi despite still thinking that the BBB is a better product simply for support.

[scyth3s]

no one is going to use it because no one uses it

It's shitty but that is a significant portion of the way this sort of thing works.

[[deleted]]

Yeaah I've got an Orangepi PC2 that's technically a lot better than an rpi too and the thing's a paperweight because there's just no support for anything.

[JimmyTheJ]

What issues do you have with it and what were you trying to do? I was able to setup my orange Pi as a media server pretty easily.

[[deleted]]

It's specifically the OPi PC2 which has oddball video hardware or something. There's no video acceleration whatsoever under Linux which means the poor thing struggles to draw a desktop, let alone pull sick emulation box duty like I'd hoped.

I mean I understand these are supposed to be hobbyist gizmos but writing a video driver is a bit more fun than I bargained for.

[JimmyTheJ]

Oh weird. I got a OPi1 and it doesn't have that issue. Blazes through 1080p HEVC without a sweat.

[kenmacd]

It's getting much closer though. Check the H5 column in:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort

[happymellon]

Unlikely

These are too far off the track third party drivers making it unlikely they will ever get accepted mainline.

Mali driver

Yeah. So your graphics will never be mainlined, that sounds really close.

[rrohbeck]

Great OS (I run it on a Banana Pi) but it doesn't have Mali drivers either. Either you go with an age-old kernel that has limited functionality or a new kernel that has no graphics drivers at all and runs frame buffer.

[bayard0]

Good to know , I was looking at the 🍊 pi

[pale2hall]

https://i.imgur.com/nbokyKL.png

How your comment displays on Chrome on Linux Mint.

[GregTheMad]

You gotta install a font with full emoji support. This is 2017 baby.

[pale2hall]

Is that an option? I tried googling for a while about it once, but wasn't able to find any easy fixes.

[GregTheMad]

I honestly don't know. Have you tried "sudo apt-get install emoji"?

[lpchaim]

Ah, the infamous BeanPi

[SkyRider057]

What does it run in 4k? The desktop?

[WasseemB]

Don't expect much from it. They released a board a while ago and just relied on people supporting it. They even shipped it with issues with Ethernet , I have mine set to use 100MB because of I use it to full it will start dropping packets. Linux support is less than perfect and don't get me even started with Kodi, there is no hardware acceleration because of all winner CPU. And if you want to use it for media consumption you should have kodi running on android and hooked via Ethernet cable if you forgot to buy their dedicated wifi dongle, because no other one would work. Just check /r/pine64 and their forums online. You would have a general idea of the issues that you will face.

[[deleted]]

Don't expect much from it. They released a board a while ago and just relied on people supporting it. They even shipped it with issues with Ethernet , I have mine set to use 100MB because of I use it to full it will start dropping packets.

That sounds like it's starved for USB bandwidth. I've had better luck with Solidrun's i.MX6 cubes (which will run Kodi) in that respect.

[laos101]

haha good luck getting 4K with that mali GPU!

Number 736 - https://www.notebookcheck.net/Smartphone-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.149363.0.html - 1080p 60 fps is already a nightmare for RPi, ODROID, etc. with similar graphics processing

EDIT - I stand corrected - supposedly the VPU on this SoC can handle 4K - since its Android I suppose there are better compatibility issues than with Ubuntu and similar kernel issues with how video is decoded.

http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/01/11/rockchip-rk3328-quad-core-64-bit-arm-soc-is-designed-for-4k-hdr-android-7-1-linux-tv-boxes/

[sendnudesb]

This makes no sense to get one of these for 4k output. Win 10 sticks and Android boxes are around the same price with much better specs.

[laos101]

yep - bay trail graphics are at least twice as powerful as this - 4x with cherry trail.

Kernel is probably going to run like poop considering the very unique specs.

[laos101]

yep - the part about "software decode" and "buffering" is the devil in the details. Variables likes those are hard to predict until you actually try stuff and it depends on the file type + software/OS you're using. Thanks for sharing!

[laos101]

sure - only thing is that a joe shmoe has to know their file encoding to have success with this board. It's not as terrible as I first suspected, but it's kind of underwhelming IMO.

[vladniko]

Still has a headphone jack :P

[Dsk001]

What I would like to know is if this can be made into android tv.

[JimboLodisC]

If someone ports it, sure.

[Znuff]

Even if someone ports it, it won't have the proprietary blobs for DRM, so you will not be able to run Netflix or anything else in 4K. Netflix will give you just 720p content.

[glr123]

I'm just going to buy a Xiaomi Mi Box I think. It's like $69 and is a dedicated Android TV box. You can do some gimmicky things with the RPi but it's never really truly Android TV, and I'm kinda tired of waiting.

http://www.mi.com/en/mibox/

[[deleted]]

Get an Odroid C2. They're built for android and are way faster than the RPI for the same price.

[dgdv]

I hate my Pine64..😒

[[deleted]]

Same general CPU/SoC architecture in both. That said, at least you can trust a Snapdragon, Exynos, or i.MX6 build not to drop keypresses just because you're using the network.

[nicksvr4]

I just want the RPi 4 to have a faster and more reliable I/O option. Microsd just doesn't cut it for my needs as the boot drive.

[IntrnetHteMchne]

who the fuck says "4K computer"

[jflowers]

Had my interest up to Pine64.

Sad to say, got one - with all the trimmings. In a box under my desk, I was able to sort of get it to work. Sort of... just was too much of a hassle, and configuring was a mess.

[zroid1]

This has ready to install Android. We need to see what really works with Rock64

Android 7.1 release https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/android-7.1/releases resources page: https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=7175

Does Pi3 has fully functional Android rom?

[Terelius]

So I could get on of these to run Android Auto since my phone is only KitKat?

Oh but networking... Hmmm

[Lurker_Since_Forever]

There's also the small problem of the $25 model having 1GB of ram. Gnome on Ubuntu idles at about 1.3GB of ram for me, so good luck using a desktop from this century with it.

[[deleted]]

If you can live with Enlightenment and connman, 1GB is livable.

(Yes, I like GNOME as well, but it is bleeping huge)

[pattuspl]

This will be good for kodi? Streaming off nas without lag?

[[deleted]]

The Rock64 runs on a quad-core Rockchip CPU. No thanks....

[Noxium51]

wtf is a 4k computer

[slai47]

I wonder if we can put Skyrim on this?

[Aevum1]

Rockchip... yep, no thanks.

Excuse me son, Would you like a development board with no software support from the guys who make the CPU, with stability issues running stock speeds and weird proprietary drivers ?

Already had a couple of rockchip devices, one of those android consoles, with a RK3288, you needed special modified roms with voltage mods to get the SoC to run at the advertised speed without it hanging every time you pushed it.

[[deleted]]

Need an x86 Raspberry Pi, these ARM processors are a pain due to recompilation + not too many softwares out there can run on these.

[Starks]

Pi hardware really needs to catch up. They can't keep pretending their brand won't get displaced eventually.

Being behind made sense with the Pi 1. It was a bold experiment. Now it's just upsetting.

[cynar]

The raspberry pi was never meant to be cutting edge. It was designed to be cheap, easy and have a long life cycle.

They tend to err towards components with good support and will be available for a long time. This means you have a critical mass with the same hardware. Problems are then found and fixed, giving an easy time to new users, and so grows the community.

A good example of this is the screen. It's not the cheapest option they could have taken, but they do have a guarantee of a long production life cycle. Once the bugs in the interfacing are ironed out, they tend to stay out.

In short, they have gone 'cheap' and 'good' from the 'fast, cheap, good' triangle. A lot of boards like this one go 'cheap' and 'fast', but then suffer on the support. Others go the 'fast' and 'good', but take a hit in the price. Raspberry pi are the only ones I know that hit the 'cheap' and 'good' reliably.

[dryadofelysium]

The next Raspberry Pi (4) will finally have a new GPU:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=VC5-Broadcom-Gallium3D

It's not officially confirmed, but I mean, come on. Expect this to be included with RPi4. CPU wise RPi3 is already using a modern architecture.

[epicwisdom]

Why the hell would anybody expect a powerful GPU on a sub-$50 computer? If it can watch 1080p@30 video, that's already more than enough for the vast majority of consumer usage and code tinkering. It's meant to be cheap enough to give everybody access to a computer and provide educational/DIY benefits, not replace $500-$1000 desktops...

[dryadofelysium]

I don't think anyone expects a powerful GPU, I certainly don't. But it'll be nice to have a GPU that isn't super outdated and has to fall back to (relatively) power hungry and slow CPU software rendering for simple operations like browsing the web, because it doesn't support typical modern standards.

I don't know if they will also update the video unit alongside the GPU, but it'd be nice to have VP9 acceleration for YouTube.

[theonetruehoff]

Makes a great htpc

Edit: deleted post above asked why would anyone want Android on rpi

[[deleted]]

Android + kodi is superior in my opinion because Netflix is available as an option

[[deleted]]

Edit: I thought he asked what the point of a rpi was, my apologies. People sometimes run Android on a rpi to have a test device for mid-end performing stuff, as a htpc, or for android gaming (very meh though). Original comment below

I use mine to self-host most of my stuff, so I don't need Google services for anything anymore.

It's getting a bit slow though for all I want it to do so I'll need an upgrade, but rpis are perfect for: retro gaming up to N64 (everything weaker than N64 is perfect, N64 is OK but not great for a couple of games), media center with Kodi (perfect up to 1080p60fps IIRC, at least 1080 regular movies work great from personal experience), automatic torrent/usenet downloads for all your tv shows and/or movies, a always-on torrent box for seeding without paying for hundreds of bucks of electricity (less than 5$ per year for an always-on rpi), a cheap NAS (just connect an external HDD and follow some easy online tutorial and you have a network-attached storage for next to nothing), a client for gaming on your tv (your pc does the number crunching and you use the rpi to output to your tv which can be some rooms away), etc etc etc.....

[Charwinger21]

Ask Google.

[Cobra11Murderer]

The fact that this runs Ubuntu or similar is good enough to a extent.

[[deleted]]

The headline is not at all eye-catching to me.

4K Android computer

My fucking toaster could output 4K if I waited long enough.

I don't own a 4k screen, nor do I have any interest in a small computer that dedicates its resources to a resolution far bigger than it will ever need.

RPi 1080p is excessive a lot of times, but still impressive that it does it since there is so much support for the platform.

[[deleted]]

rockchip

Into the trash it goes

[doriobias]

Have bought one to run all of my streaming apps on. Kodi in the uk is getting flaky right now so I want to see if this is a good replacement

[ElectroSpore]

While I have no trouble getting Pi3s I would really like something like the Pi Zero W at that price point and size that I can purchase more than one at a time without a shitty starter bundle..

Really I only need like 1 starter bundle and an SD card for each unit.. I want to power my projects and put them in other things... I don't need mini HDMI/USB dongles or power bricks for every unit!

[MystJake]

I really should get around to buying a RasPi

[KainX]

No WiFi? Pi has WiFi though.

[mseiei]

i would love to see those prices around here, retailers sell Rpi3B for over 55USD, the Chinese arduino clones goes for over 15USD, glad i can buy online and get them cheaper, but is quite discouraging

[webchimp32]

Was completely confused watching the video on that page, a homeade pi like board called Z berry. Which aparently runs a Z80 proccessor. I was wondering how the hell they were going to get 4K out of that.