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The Cabin >> Raspberry and Other Pies >> More Orange Pi 0 info
http://www.hondosackett.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1490067196

Message started by Fernando on Mar 20^th, 2017, 11:33pm

Title: More Orange Pi 0 info
Post by Fernando on Mar 20^th, 2017, 11:33pm

Lost the link, but I seen the O-Pi 0 + 2 advertised at AliExpress for $23.99. Let that sink in for a while. That makes it as costly as their mid-priced board like the O-Pi PC. It is more the majority of O-Pi's boards which ranges from $15 to $25. But perhaps the page was taken down and it will be repriced. We can only hope, right?

Also, though the O-Pi 0 (256MB) is going for $6.99 and the O-Pi 0 (512MB is going for $8.99 {no price change here}, the expansion board that gives it video and other functions price has dropped to $1.99 {down from $3.99}. Thing is, shipping kills this price, almost $6. Shipping has always been an issue with AliExpress...

BUT (!!!) interesting move on their part. If you buy an O-Pi 0 with the Expansion board, the shipping for both goes down. To about $5 for both. So, the O-Pi 0 (256MB) with the Expansion board is $8.88 and the O-Pi (512MB) with the expansion board is $10.88 with $5 more for shipping. There are other "Sets" (as they call them) that lower the cost of shipping.

Title: Price Update On O-Pi 0 + 2! And a New Banana Pi?
Post by Fernando on Mar 28^th, 2017, 12:16am

AliExpress just got the O-Pi 0 + 2, and is selling them for $19.90 with $3.35 shipping, for a total of $23.25. Depending on the original price being $23.99 without shipping, its just a few pennies short in savings. With shipping, the price would have been $26. But still...

This is more expensive than some of their mid-priced boards. But for a tiny board, that does a lot, I'm up in the air about this.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Orange-Pi-Zero-Plus-2-H5-Quad-core-Bluetooth-mini-PC-Beyond-Raspberry-Pi-2-Wholesale/1553371_32801249806.html

Interesting though, The Banana Pi (Chinese branch) is coming back and released the Banana Pi M2+. The B-Pi M2 is a update on its B-Pi M1 (which I have 2 of) and fixes a few things in the Bios and uses a quad CPU (The M1 uses a Dual CPU).

The B-Pi M2+ how ever is tiny like the O-Pi 0 / 0 + 2. But how they designed it brings more out of the board. The O-Pi 0 (all versions) have the older R-Pi 26 pin GPIO, the B-Pi M2+ has the newer 40 pin GPIO by extending the GPIO past the mounting holes of the board. This makes it a tiny bit wider than the O-Pi 0 but for more GPIO, it is worth it.

The problem is it's price: $33. But you get with it?

H3 Quad Core CPU (32/64 bit, standard on most low to mid priced boards)
the Mali 400 GPU running at 600MHZ (everyone else runs it at 400MHz)
1GB of RAM, shared with the GPU
10/100/1000 Ethernet
802.11 b/g/n Wifi; but no Bluetooth
SD Card Slot, SATA Hard drive port (supports up to 2TB) and 8GB Flash RAM
2 USB Ports and 1 USB-OTG mini port
HDMI
and 40 Pin GPIO.

It's basically a B-Pi M1/M2 shrunk down in size with FlashRAM added and the SATA Drive improved from 1TB to 2TB. It is a lot more board for $10 more than the price of the O-PI 0 + 2.

Only thing unclear is the CPU Speed but if things are equal across the board with other H3 CPU board, I'm guessing its a 1.2GHz GPU with a max overclock speed of 1.6GHz. In short, it would require heat sinks.

In the past I love Banana Pi, but since both Lemaker and the Chinese gov't fought about its development and forced the creation of the Orange Pi in China, community and software support is very lacking for the B-Pi's in general. I'm just lucky to get things going with my B-Pies years ago. But with the release of the new Banana Pies, means that B-Pi is coming back. Except for the CPU, the B-Pi M2+ is geared to a high end system with its hard drive SATA port. Thing is, it can not boot from the hard drive but use it as a storage device.

Here is AliExpress' webpage on the B-Pi M2:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/H3-Quad-Core-MiNi-A7-SoC-BPI-M2-Plus-Banana-Pi-M2-development-board/1000001991550.html

Title: Re: More Orange Pi 0 info
Post by Hondo I. Sackett on Mar 28^th, 2017, 12:27am

Thanks for the update!