The C.H.I.P...
 
...Another Raspberry Pi Clone that was suppose to rock the SoC world with its ultra Low Price of $9 for a complete system based made in the USA. They had a 'GoFundMe' campaign back in November '15, and I put in a small donation of $10 then. Nothing more. They put me on their Donor/recipient list to get a free C.H.I.P. when it comes out, which I was unaware of. I just got an email that I would be getting a 'free' C.H.I.P. within the next month. Delays in manufacture delayed the project.
 
The C.H.I.P. is more like a Beagle Bone Black/Green than a Raspberry Pi. And do not let that $9 price fool you, as the board does not have a video out and thus an adapter board for it costs more than the C.H.I.P. itself. See: https://getchip.com/pages/store
 
Currently they are accepting orders for The C.H.I.P., there will be a delay in delivery, as they have to fulfill donor's orders first. I suspect that I will be getting mine around mid Summer as I am going to have to order a video board for it as well.
 
Being more like the Beagle Bone Black/Green, it is Raspberry Pi Compatible in software. It uses the same CPU as most Android Pads - the AllWinner CPU, similar to the Raspberry Pi's Aztec (?needs verifying) CPU. The difference is that This AllWinner CPU (he R8) uses the Mali 400 GPU, which is different from the one used in the Raspberry Pi. It should be compatible though; like in the PC World where one can swap video cards with nVida, ATI and Intel video cards and still use the same software 98% on the said PC of the time.
 
The C.H.I.P. does not have an SD Slot, though one may be in the works in the future. It does have 4GB of Flash memory where the OS gets programmed into. Furthering this, they put in their on Linux System into that 4GB so you do not have too. The problem with that is that is it not Raspbian Linux that the other SoCs use. One can put in Raspbian but one has to obtain their special Flash Memory Programmer to do this with.
 
The Allwinner R8 (as I just researched) used the A7A/A8 Arm "Cortex" Single Core CPU. The Raspberry Pi uses the same Arm Cortex A7/A8 CPU so software wise it should be the same between the systems. Again, the only difference is the use of the Mali 400 GPU it shares the CPU Case with. The Mali-400 used in the The C.H.I.P. is a Dual Core GPU (similar to the Dual Core GPU used on the Raspberry Pi).  
 
But The C.H.I.P. is more like something in between a Raspberry Pi Model A and Model B; it only has 2 USB Ports but with 512MB of RAM. That is just enough to get projects going like on the R-Pi's Model A and Model B. But it does have wireless Wifi and BlueTooth so you can use wireless Networks and devices (like Keyboard and Mice) with The C.H.I.P. Thing is, you need a wired KB and Mouse to set up the wireless first. It does have composite video out; not VGA or HDMI without the adapter board.
 
I'll write up a review when I get the C.H.I.P. delivered sometime next month.

I ordered a VGA Monitor Module for The C.H.I.P. Though it is $10, shipping and other costs pushed it up to $16. So much for this being a "Cheap System."
 
Both The C.H.I.P. and its VGA Module are on Slow Boats from Hong Kong. So they are going to take a while to get here. 2 Weeks from what I'm guessing at best. In the past when I bought things from Hong Kong on ebay, it took 6 weeks to 3 months because it had to go through customs and there were major problems with that. I'm guessing that they have a special Customs pass to go through quickly since it is a US company but using a Hong Kong manufacturer to make the boards.
 
Unfortunately, I have seen on their forum that a few C.H.I.P. boards arrived dead - unable to power up for some reason or another. Hopefully it is just isolated incidences and I will get one that works fine. I do not want to wait 1/2 a year for sending the C.H.I.P. to Hong Kong and get a new one in its place.