I had a second hand Tandy and a Mac Plus in the mid 90s. The Mac Plus was probably the more powerful machine, fully populated with 4 megs of RAM, with an 8 MHz 68000 CPU. The mini PC that runs stuff like pi-hole on my network right now has a quad core intel chip that runs fanless in the GHz, and 8 gigs of RAM on a single stick. The smart phone most people have in their pocket is many magnitudes more powerful than everything NASA had put together at the time when we sent people to the moon. People play cruddy facebook games on a tiny device that can put corporate super computers from the 80s to shame. We put math coprocessors in modern CPUs that can do work that would have required entire rooms filled with machinery at one point, and we list them as an insignificant detail in the footnotes of the spec sheets. You watch cat videos on something the Pentagon would have been jealous of at one point.
13 year old me with his commodore 64 in 1984....We started out with single board computers as serious machines, now we're back to SBCs (raspberry pi etc) as tinker toys and 1,000 times more powerful.
More mind blow. Deep Blue was the first super computer to beat a world champion at chess. It could manage just under 12 gflops in speed. The pi 4 can do just about 13 gflops.
Quad-core SBC?! It's only a matter of time until these SBCs can play Cyberpunk 2077 on integrated graphics! On a more serious note, this video, like the ones before on this channel, has only made me appreciate computer technology even more.
I think Intel have held back computing for too long. They created MMX and all the other pointless stuff, bloating the x86 architecture (which was already a bit of an ugly duckling). Then they create the x86 replacement (Itanium) which was a load of rubbish.
The problem is most game developers are bribed to make things for high end gaming PC's. The other problem is a OS monopoly that brought you Virus 10 doesn't want that either. I have only found an SBC to be a controller, or an average media player as long as Google widevine isn't required to stream. Some websites think my RPI needs an Android app to stream. Those are just my peaves with Arm and thinking a good viable game needs more system resources than is realistic. I think some of the best looking games were for older systems because they showed creativity had to make resource management count. I still think Dungeon Keeper was ahead of its time along with other games of that era. Today it is MMO micro transactions, or finger fidgeting on a Idiot Phone to waste your life on. People that appreciate gaming need to turn the hands of time back to quality with less wasted resources.
@@6581punk Extending x86 architecture was basically the only way for Intel to move forward while maintaining binary compatibility with older models. Sadly, the two times that Intel's engineers tried to get a clean break through, they were hampered by their own management's greed.
@@AppleReviews Nah! Have Apple sold a single chip of their own design A series processor used in iphone or ipad? None. Thus, they will not sell M1 series of chips either
This is a good SBC for its price, but what makes the Raspberry Pi outstand its competitors is the strong community. The only SBC that I'm thinking to buy to replace my RPI3 is the Asus Tinker Board. Much more powerful and it comes from a famous company. Thanks.
You do want to run software on these things, maybe set up a home web server or use as a streaming player connected to a TV. I would have 0 confidence of this being able to do any of that well and a few years from now it would be out of date and unsupported.
Plus I don't want to get too political here, but the Raspberry Pi stuff is made here in the UK and a lot of these other boards are sort of copies made in China. They may offer more power and different facilities, but it seems whatever the Raspberry folks do gets mimicked. I use an ODroid N2 myself, they're South Korean and it doesn't resemble a Raspberry Pi.
The message I'm getting about these Pi-alternatives is that the hardware is often competent but they lack the huge community support that Raspberry enjoys, so unless you have specific hardware needs (like, an external wifi antennae for instance) maybe you're better off using the OG.
Just got one in the mail. I figured a proper Raspberry pi was still at least 6 months away. I really dislike having only one physical USB port. I figured I'd review this video before setting it up. I am thankful this is still available and not marked up 5x.
I have a few of the original orangepi zeroes and love them. They're not always easy to get working for a particular application, but it can be fun finding out how to make them work. I think great value considering what's on-board. It is a real pity that the company is still less than great at putting software out for their products, though.
I really enjoy his channel. Especially the " here we are, there we are ". Lol, it never gets old. I have this board for emulation and with proper cooling and a fan, it can become a little beast.
I do like the click ejecting micro SD card slot. I find the non-clicking harder to get at from inside a case and the when they click you know it is installed properly.
Makes it a heck of a lot easier to mount in confined spaces such as 3D printers or under a TV cabinet too. We had an original RPi under our back room TV for years, and the main problem when it wasn't working was someone had knocked the USB cable out yet again while moving something else next to it.
I was about to add to my comment, "they should ditch the ethernet for more usb ports" but the gpio option is probably even better :).. nice form factor too at a decent price.. can't think what I'd use it for though..
Please don't forget there is also Armbian in developement. I run the Orange Pi4. and in the beginning there was not a lot working or supported. But now it works great and also the wifi and bluetooth work. Overclock 2GHz works stable.
As usual, thorough coverage of the important matters. It looks as though the spacing of the mounting holes in the Orange is not quite the same as on the Raspberry board? The manufacturers of SBCs, &c really need to consider standardising to benefit the ecosystem of case and fan-mounting makers, (and potential purchasers). The x86 world did that with things like the successively smaller ITX board series, which made the EC "Upgrading" series practical.
A little computer, the possibility to have a backup computer for Word processing, little calculation and quick programming, and a controller for Iot projects for 25 Euro, with a improved documentation. For me is very good.
One thing I would like for you to cover is how to setup a pihole. I am aware there are millions of tutorials on how to do such a thing, but none of them go in depth. The problem I am currently having is figuring out how to set it up on my router, I am able to curl the file, open the setup etc, but when I select the static IP address to make my server I have issues. So perhaps an episode involving networking or the likes. I just know you are huge on SBCs, and because this is a project that was designed specifically for the SBCs I think it would be great if you covered it!
You have to take a look for the Rock Pi S model too, it's my favorite. Already using for my projects and I would say clearly it's amazing and best. I'm using with onboard SLC Nand Flash option. When I make some stress test then just saw there's no heating problem. It's was 100% for each core and temperature was still ~41-45 degree. You don't need any cooling parts like IceTower or like that. In summary it does not heat like official Pi SBCs.
Yes the Rock Pi S looks a nice board. I've yet to review a headless system here -- but it may be my first! Always good to get feedback on different SBCs.
The software has improved (as of march 2023). The Debian version is quite mature. Though, Chromium that comes in the distribution has no acceleration BUT if you purge it and reinstall chromium, you get the version with acceleration. You can watch videos at 360 resolution quite well... Even from a headless mode via Nomachines...
To paraphrase William Shakespeare - "Mr Barnatt is as Constant as the North Star" :-) A very nice comparison, and a very nice board - we're spoilt for choice these days indeed!
If it had USB 3 it would of been 'all winner' for a NAS application. It's a missed opportunity. There was also enough space on board to space out HDMI and DC input connectors. Not well thought through PCB layout.
I'm desperately waiting for SBCs to come with a minimum of one USB 3.1 Gen 2 port (it drives me so insane that they didn't just go 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3...It is like it is possible to ever run out of numbers. I think they did it to liquidate their 3.0 stock when consumers thought 3.1 Gen 1 meant something other than 3.0?).
If you want a low cost NAS I highly recommend finding an old laptop, particularly one with a broken screen or whatever wrong with it, can be found at a similar cost to these cheap SBCs or often even free/thrown away by people who view them as worthless, but there are quite a few benefits like direct sata connection, of course you can't use the larger 3.5mm drives without some hackery but otherwise they can often hold one or two drives, possibly an M.2 for high speed storage or to boot from and sometimes they'll even have USB 3.0 ports.
@@intrax2tv Sure and that is very cool board but my reasoning for going with a laptop is to reuse/recycle old PCs plus you get high-end SBC performance/flexibility at a fraction of the cost, for example I found a thinkpad with an i5-4300u for $20, similar performance to the Celeron J4115 and if you wanted a full on NAS you can get mini pci-e to full 4x extensions or expansion boards that have up to 4 sata ports. Personally, I just wanted to get off dropbox/google drive, so a single drive Nextcloud was perfect for me and well worth the $20 (Technically I bought a 16GB m.2 for $6 and another ~$6 for a cheap charger but still.. It was well under $50)
That was the reason I ve chosen the Pi4 combined with a SSD on the USB 3 port as host for OpenmediaVault. The rest of the Pi4 like 4k video, quadcore CPU and 4 GB RAM is pure overkill for this application 😁
They just launched a cheap Orange PI Zero 2 W with 1 to 4GB ram and the H618, that looks interesting to what it can do. Specially WIFI5 performance. I do not expect much due to the SDIO interface.
Thanks for being clear about the software and support issues. I loved the Orange Pi Zero when it came out, but at this point half the hardware isn't supported, and kernel updates usually break the system. It's really a shame, because it's a great piece of hardware.
Hello from Earth 2 and welcome to another episode of ComplicatingComputers.com! I am Sirhc Warrio. As usual, we will cover whatever piece of computer kit I can slip under my shirt at the store. To my left I have an exciting cardboard box. Left! Let's see, I'll need to use Mr Machete to open. Oh no! There are just packing peanuts inside! But that's Ok. Through the magic of film making I'll make it into a Jellyfish computer with 1 Petabyte of storage running Domino OS and 64.5 Hypothreads. You don't understand these terms? Well, as fans of the show know, I always say - that's what Google is for! Anyways, I really like this system!
My first SBC was a Nascom 1 back in the 70's. Not far off a foot square, Z80, 1K RAM, dozens of TTL chips. No OS, used Z80 assembler. I've still got it, must get it out one day, although not sure what to display video on. This was before even CGA graphics!
nice as a museum piece. My first SBC was a C64 :) Come to speak of it, most computers were single board in the 70s and 80s! SoC(system on a chip) came much later (2000s)
I totally agree about the software support. I bought a few Orange Pi devices a few years ago and found the same. Good, cheap hardware but a very restricted range of software. As far as the tight squeeze of the connectors, it is possible to shave off some of the plastic to fit them in the space. Just don't cut off too much!
Seems to be a nice piece of hardware. Good to see, that the took care of documentation at last. My experience with an orange pi was more than disappointing. Not because of the hardware but the lack / void of documentation.
Nice review Christopher! I am working through all your PI Zero type board reviews. One thing that would help me on these reviews would be power usage numbers, I am frequently running these off battery, maybe solar as well and knowing their typical power consumption when idling and going flat out would help, I would be most interested in power usage when running headless. Say hello to Mr. Scissors for me.
Got my USB 3.0 PCIe card in this week, but not fitted it quite yet, now I’m back to thinking if I need another SBC. I think I need to find a use case first though. Thanks again for another great video 👌🏻 ✂️
It's great watching Chris's vids using the new speed controls CZcams have introduced at the bottom of the screen. Up to 1.5 and he doesn't sound a little bit squeaky. At 0.8 there's a touch of Paul Robson though. Informative video as per usual. Thanks.
Software support is key to any system. Superior hardware is not enough. The Pi, to me, is more about the community around it than the board itself. As long as the hardware is reasonably competitive, the support is the real difference maker. Chromium on the Pi has been heavily worked over to support the system. I bought a Pi 4 in the Summer of 2019. When I first got it, the thing had many issues. Over the next few months I got one update after another and the board's performance improved in leaps and bounds. Too many of these other boards get a few updates and then the manufacturer moves on to something else.
Unusual packing and unusual wireless antenna. Small form factor, but quite interesting set hardware on this tiny SBC. Cheers to this interesting video Chris, it was a nice change to see Mr. Scissors making a cameo.
Great video. Watching this on my Pi 4, to me the software support is probably the most important aspect to user addoption. All the specs in the world are for naught if you can't run a range of OS's, software etc. Furthermore, my impression is that the Pi foundation (or the community) have optimised the Pi's software really well. I don't know if that translates in some cases to the wider ARM linux SBC's, but in many comparisons I've seen, the Pi seems to beat out sometimes more powerfull competitors despite having fewer resources?
@@ExplainingComputers It seems sucess breeds sucess - The Raspberry Pi as a package works well, which breeds a large community and wide eco-system. I think it's hard for some of the other SBC's to create a compelling enough package to beat the R-Pi.
Před rokem
@@steven1000000000 I never thought about these until recent Great Raspberry shortage... not even they are expensive as hell to get (if any) and with only expensive bundles that noone really needs, Raspberry foundation is turning its back to community. They prioritize selling to manufacturers rather than users. I would not have anything to it if these kits were sold without RPI board itself, and getting it from lets say official raspberry website with limited amount to purchase. This is what competition is using now... similar price, availability ,performance and features that RPI ignores, like ability to add external antenna, physical LAN connectors, or DC barrel jack (when we will get rid of stupid USBC finally!?). Software will always get better overtime... even RPI is getting updates every few weeks.
@ Whilst I definitely would have gone with the Raspberry Pi a year ago, I know all too well that they are almost impossible to get nowadays. So, I'd definitely consider some of the alternatives thesedays. Plus, performance has moved on and some of the newer boards have even better performance. Did the Pi Foundation turn their back on the community...? I don't know... Given that the company is a charity with educational goals, I trust that there's just "supply issues" rather than them purely trying to make as much money as possible... As to what type of device to buy, I think that it depends on the project - If someone has to have the "Pi form factor" for something like a robotics project or need the GPIO interface, then maybe an Orange Pi, Rock Pi (or one of the other alternatives) could be an option. But if it's more for desktop, or mini-server, then there are some older second hand x86 micro PC's from Lenovo/DELL/HP such as the Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P, Dell Optiplex 3050 Micro PC, or a ton of other similar devices which offer a very interesting alternative. They do use a little more power than a Pi but have a lot more processing power, have wider X86 software support, are more easily upgraded than an SBC, are cheaper than scalped prices of a Pi and most importantly, are easily available.
Před rokem
@@steven1000000000 I agree, these X86 micro PCs are great for performance tools, eg. get something like mini ITX form factor and world opens to you... but energy wise, they are power hogs. It is questionable if the energy bill will pay itself over the price of cheaper HW, but sooner or later it will be more noticeable. Thats why i like Pis and small SBCs, they requre like 2-3W (lets say 20W max) compared to bigger options... and running them 24/7 as a small file servers, adblockers, data loggers or whatnot even from battery backup is easier.
So the specs on the OrangePi page says it has hardware video decoding of all the modern codecs up to 4K -- I was surprised the CZcams test performed that badly unless something is not coded right with the web player/Chromium.
The hardware indeed has the decoding support. But the available OS, like the available OS on almost all SBCs, certainly does not have the support to use that hardware for video decoding. Taking stock chips and building SBC hardware with them is not that difficult. Providing decent software support is another matter entirely.
I'm currently looking for a SBC so I can stream live events via a browser on a non-smart TV. Thankfully thorough another great video from Chris, I know this isn't for me
If you don't know, you have delay enabled in your sound settings. I don't know what you use to convert your videos, but it doesn't sound very... professional😅 But we do appreciate your extensive knowledge about these SBC's
No, I don't have a delay enabled in my sound settings. You must be experiencing a CZcams playback issue. There is no "conversion" going on here -- everything is shot ProRes and edited in Premiere Pro.
I've just got this board. Don't have an appropriate HDMI cable for it at the moment, and I'll have to rearrange my multi-monitor wiring. I'll try to get a graphics driver for it (either PanFrost or something else), because I've paid for the whole SoC, and not just the four AArch64 cores.
I'd give this board a try, but like was mentioned, only for IoT projects with Python. But hopefully the Python/gpio support for it is up to par. Thanks for another great video.
The hardware is definitely able to smoothly play high quality video. We just need to wait several years for some knowledgeable volunteer contributors to get the software ready... For some reason, board or chip manufacturers don't want to help with that.
I want to use Octoprint with my 3D printer for controlling prints and running a camera. And considering that even a Raspberri Pi 3 costs twice as much now as the ~50 Euro an Orange Pi Zero 2 with 1gb costs, not even to talk about the 200+ Euro for a Raspi 4, this looks like a very interesting alternative.
You are right!!! Chris, I like this little Orange Pi? But today 68%+ of computer/android users; used it more than basic Debian? By watching some type of movies or Zoom. And Video quality is a must, And Ram? Just maybe they can fix this or come out with a newer model. Which will be a greater improvement?
Another thing I think should be mentioned is the boards encoder, which is better than most boards as they cap at 1080p30 and this can do 4K25 or 1060p60, which I would assume would allow 720p120 video recording too.
I just bought an Orange Pi Zero 2 with the expansion board with 2 extra USB 2.0 (around 47USD for the whole kit with power supply, heat sink, microSD card and heatsink). I'm going to try and set up a RAID 1 NAS with some spare external HDDs I have laying around here, I know USB 2.0 isn't ideal, but hopefully it will work, I don't need anything blazing fast anyway. I'm hoping to be able to even set up jellyfin with this small boi, we'll see.
SBCs can make a very effective laptop these days. It's remarkable how far we've come with such tiny, low electrical power ARM computers. The power consumption of even a ten year old laptop can be terrifying in comparison.
3:30 "As you can see, there is no heatsink attached, and for most applications one should not be needed" - this is an extremely optimistic statement. I have a similar Orange Pi Zero LTS (no heatsink), and its CPU temperatures are around 50 C with near-zero load: System load: 0.23 0.05 0.02 Up time: 4:03 CPU temp: 48°C Any load on the CPU causes the temperatures to rocket up to 80+ °C, and the CPU starts throttling. So you will not be able to use it for, say, playing 4K video without a heatsink.
So odd. I would love to be a fly on the wall when the creators of these marvels of electronics decide what goes on it, what is sacrificed. Fascinating 🤔 🤯
Tip for the future, 1280x720 (1366x768) was commonly known as HD. 1920x1080 was Full HD. At least, this is how they were marketed years ago. I'm pretty sure the Pi 3 A+ is 1080p but that might have some thinking it was 720p.
One more time, a good lesson on single board and ... thanks for English lesson too. I learn a lot on computers and I discover new words ("somewhat" and others). 😋
Hello, are you going to review the Orange Pi Zero 3? I am particularly interested in seeing how the 4GB RAM model performs compared to the 1GB Orange Pi Zero 2. The SoC seems to be exactly the same as the one in the old Zero 2 in terms of both CPU and GPU performance and that's not particularly great for the next few years because of the rising amount of bloat in the new applications, but I guess it's nice to have a refreshed board with potentially good software support out of the box, for Orange Pi standards. 4GB in particular make it a lot more intriguing because one may load up the board with lots of software at once, attach a big passive heatsink and just let it run with all 4 cores fully saturated and forget about it.
Ambivalence sounds about right. I've wasted too much time trying to get an earlier Orange Pi up and running to be all that interested until they really fix the software support issues. The extensive manuals seem a good step in the right direction though. The performance boost and small cost savings just don't make up the difference over better-supported SBCs unless you were operating lots of them or absolutely needed a particular set of ports.
If it's too close in terms of price and performance as the Pi 3B+, then support is what makes the real difference... I'm intrigued that the Orange Pi has a 4K HDMI port, as it clearly can't output 4K video. Although it could probably be used for a text-based interface.
17-year-old me with his PIII 700mhz and 512mb of RAM would lose his mind if he knew how far technology was going to advance.
In 2002 I still used Pentium I 166mhz with 24mb, this little computer would blown my mind
My 6502 with 1k memory...
I had a second hand Tandy and a Mac Plus in the mid 90s. The Mac Plus was probably the more powerful machine, fully populated with 4 megs of RAM, with an 8 MHz 68000 CPU.
The mini PC that runs stuff like pi-hole on my network right now has a quad core intel chip that runs fanless in the GHz, and 8 gigs of RAM on a single stick.
The smart phone most people have in their pocket is many magnitudes more powerful than everything NASA had put together at the time when we sent people to the moon. People play cruddy facebook games on a tiny device that can put corporate super computers from the 80s to shame.
We put math coprocessors in modern CPUs that can do work that would have required entire rooms filled with machinery at one point, and we list them as an insignificant detail in the footnotes of the spec sheets.
You watch cat videos on something the Pentagon would have been jealous of at one point.
13 year old me with his commodore 64 in 1984....We started out with single board computers as serious machines, now we're back to SBCs (raspberry pi etc) as tinker toys and 1,000 times more powerful.
More mind blow. Deep Blue was the first super computer to beat a world champion at chess. It could manage just under 12 gflops in speed. The pi 4 can do just about 13 gflops.
Good to know that the official British Standard number of days which defines "very" has been established as seven.
Nice to see Mr Scissors back! My favorite part of Sundays
He doesn't get enough work, so was a little out of practice today and it showed.
He always returns . . .
He always makes the final cut with the Davinci software.
@@ExplainingComputers Does he have a very broad cockney accent?
🤯
Just Remember that your Content is Awesome... keep creating more. You are the robot I'm rooting for in this life.
Thank you so much 😀
9:47 the dark screen '...Oh, we got a bit worried ...it looks like it's a coalmine where all the lights turned off...'
I haven't used an Orange Pi in ages, however I'm very much glad to see that newer versions have been released!
Quad-core SBC?! It's only a matter of time until these SBCs can play Cyberpunk 2077 on integrated graphics! On a more serious note, this video, like the ones before on this channel, has only made me appreciate computer technology even more.
I think Intel have held back computing for too long. They created MMX and all the other pointless stuff, bloating the x86 architecture (which was already a bit of an ugly duckling). Then they create the x86 replacement (Itanium) which was a load of rubbish.
@@6581punk its a shitty way to think. Intel hasnt held anyone back. You could always have gone with AMD.
The problem is most game developers are bribed to make things for high end gaming PC's. The other problem is a OS monopoly that brought you Virus 10 doesn't want that either. I have only found an SBC to be a controller, or an average media player as long as Google widevine isn't required to stream. Some websites think my RPI needs an Android app to stream. Those are just my peaves with Arm and thinking a good viable game needs more system resources than is realistic. I think some of the best looking games were for older systems because they showed creativity had to make resource management count. I still think Dungeon Keeper was ahead of its time along with other games of that era. Today it is MMO micro transactions, or finger fidgeting on a Idiot Phone to waste your life on.
People that appreciate gaming need to turn the hands of time back to quality with less wasted resources.
@@6581punk Extending x86 architecture was basically the only way for Intel to move forward while maintaining binary compatibility with older models. Sadly, the two times that Intel's engineers tried to get a clean break through, they were hampered by their own management's greed.
@@AppleReviews Nah! Have Apple sold a single chip of their own design A series processor used in iphone or ipad? None. Thus, they will not sell M1 series of chips either
This is a good SBC for its price, but what makes the Raspberry Pi outstand its competitors is the strong community. The only SBC that I'm thinking to buy to replace my RPI3 is the Asus Tinker Board. Much more powerful and it comes from a famous company. Thanks.
You do want to run software on these things, maybe set up a home web server or use as a streaming player connected to a TV. I would have 0 confidence of this being able to do any of that well and a few years from now it would be out of date and unsupported.
Plus I don't want to get too political here, but the Raspberry Pi stuff is made here in the UK and a lot of these other boards are sort of copies made in China. They may offer more power and different facilities, but it seems whatever the Raspberry folks do gets mimicked. I use an ODroid N2 myself, they're South Korean and it doesn't resemble a Raspberry Pi.
Yeah, I purchased an Odroid-XU4 a couple years back and stopped using it almost immediately. Nearly ZERO community support.
I would go with Tinkerboard 2
@@Matrxmonky odroid not having community?? are you mad?? I don't like odroids but it have tons of community.
The message I'm getting about these Pi-alternatives is that the hardware is often competent but they lack the huge community support that Raspberry enjoys, so unless you have specific hardware needs (like, an external wifi antennae for instance) maybe you're better off using the OG.
Just got one in the mail. I figured a proper Raspberry pi was still at least 6 months away. I really dislike having only one physical USB port. I figured I'd review this video before setting it up. I am thankful this is still available and not marked up 5x.
Good luck with your new SBC. :)
@@ExplainingComputersChris, you ever gonna review Orange pi 0 2W? A different form factor than the Orange pi 0 2! Plus a heck of a lot more memory!
I have a few of the original orangepi zeroes and love them. They're not always easy to get working for a particular application, but it can be fun finding out how to make them work. I think great value considering what's on-board. It is a real pity that the company is still less than great at putting software out for their products, though.
I really enjoy his channel. Especially the " here we are, there we are ". Lol, it never gets old. I have this board for emulation and with proper cooling and a fan, it can become a little beast.
I wish I was 12 again and this was the only computer I had. The amount of fun and use you would get out of it would be immense.
When I was 12, the wheel was dodgy new technology.
@@DallasMike424 bruh.gif
When I was 12, Sputnik hadn't flown yet and the monolithic op amp was still 6 years out.
When I invent immortality, you're on my top ten list of candidates
Very happy to see that software and documentation support is improved on OrangePi! 👍
I like how it’s got a 80s instructional video vibe
Truly an interesting little board and so relieved Mister Scissors came to our aid. Looking forward to your next video!
Greetings Perry.
@@ExplainingComputers Greetings back at you!!!!!!!
The tension before "...a closer look" always gets me. Love this channel you've got here.
I'm sure he laughed reading your comment. Same here.
"Citrus-focused desktop"
LOL
They always go with fruit, but none are brave enough to call their products a 🍋
I do like the click ejecting micro SD card slot. I find the non-clicking harder to get at from inside a case and the when they click you know it is installed properly.
I totally agree.
I've used Stanley the Knife a few times to remove extra plastic so that USB connectors would fit nicely.
Don't forget Stanley's brothers, "Black" and "Decker".
(They are all one company, you know) 😀😀😀😀
Love the IO placement, only having the cords on one side makes for good aesthetics.
Touche!
Makes it a heck of a lot easier to mount in confined spaces such as 3D printers or under a TV cabinet too.
We had an original RPi under our back room TV for years, and the main problem when it wasn't working was someone had knocked the USB cable out yet again while moving something else next to it.
I'd love to see a SBC with R9 5950X
I have a 5900x and the radeon app says every day I should upgrade to the 5950X for better gaming performance, lol :)
I was about to add to my comment, "they should ditch the ethernet for more usb ports" but the gpio option is probably even better :).. nice form factor too at a decent price.. can't think what I'd use it for though..
Please don't forget there is also Armbian in developement. I run the Orange Pi4. and in the beginning there was not a lot working or supported. But now it works great and also the wifi and bluetooth work. Overclock 2GHz works stable.
As usual, thorough coverage of the important matters.
It looks as though the spacing of the mounting holes in the Orange is not quite the same as on the Raspberry board?
The manufacturers of SBCs, &c really need to consider standardising to benefit the ecosystem of case and fan-mounting makers, (and potential purchasers). The x86 world did that with things like the successively smaller ITX board series, which made the EC "Upgrading" series practical.
A little computer, the possibility to have a backup computer for Word processing, little calculation and quick programming, and a controller for Iot projects for 25 Euro, with a improved documentation.
For me is very good.
This looks like the perfect mix of size, price, and power to use for projects that need just a little bit more than a microcontroller can provide.
yeah it's exactly what I needed
good to see documentation has improved
One thing I would like for you to cover is how to setup a pihole. I am aware there are millions of tutorials on how to do such a thing, but none of them go in depth. The problem I am currently having is figuring out how to set it up on my router, I am able to curl the file, open the setup etc, but when I select the static IP address to make my server I have issues. So perhaps an episode involving networking or the likes. I just know you are huge on SBCs, and because this is a project that was designed specifically for the SBCs I think it would be great if you covered it!
You have to take a look for the Rock Pi S model too, it's my favorite. Already using for my projects and I would say clearly it's amazing and best. I'm using with onboard SLC Nand Flash option. When I make some stress test then just saw there's no heating problem. It's was 100% for each core and temperature was still ~41-45 degree. You don't need any cooling parts like IceTower or like that. In summary it does not heat like official Pi SBCs.
Yes the Rock Pi S looks a nice board. I've yet to review a headless system here -- but it may be my first! Always good to get feedback on different SBCs.
@Jim McIntosh Headless means it's not connected to a monitor (or keyboard / mouse), it's only accessed from the network.
The software has improved (as of march 2023). The Debian version is quite mature. Though, Chromium that comes in the distribution has no acceleration BUT if you purge it and reinstall chromium, you get the version with acceleration. You can watch videos at 360 resolution quite well... Even from a headless mode via Nomachines...
To paraphrase William Shakespeare - "Mr Barnatt is as Constant as the North Star" :-)
A very nice comparison, and a very nice board - we're spoilt for choice these days indeed!
Was waiting this video, my Orange Pi Zero is on the way, can't wait to start playing with it.
Hope you enjoy it!
@@ExplainingComputers Of course, great as always.
Another fantastic video Chris. I'm looking forward to the next part of the old pc upgrade too!
Oh , nice video about the orange Pi , loved the mr.scissors cameo
If it had USB 3 it would of been 'all winner' for a NAS application. It's a missed opportunity. There was also enough space on board to space out HDMI and DC input connectors. Not well thought through PCB layout.
I'm desperately waiting for SBCs to come with a minimum of one USB 3.1 Gen 2 port (it drives me so insane that they didn't just go 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3...It is like it is possible to ever run out of numbers. I think they did it to liquidate their 3.0 stock when consumers thought 3.1 Gen 1 meant something other than 3.0?).
If you want a low cost NAS I highly recommend finding an old laptop, particularly one with a broken screen or whatever wrong with it, can be found at a similar cost to these cheap SBCs or often even free/thrown away by people who view them as worthless, but there are quite a few benefits like direct sata connection, of course you can't use the larger 3.5mm drives without some hackery but otherwise they can often hold one or two drives, possibly an M.2 for high speed storage or to boot from and sometimes they'll even have USB 3.0 ports.
@@vgamesx1 use odroid h2+ ... Awesome hbc for a nas !
@@intrax2tv Sure and that is very cool board but my reasoning for going with a laptop is to reuse/recycle old PCs plus you get high-end SBC performance/flexibility at a fraction of the cost, for example I found a thinkpad with an i5-4300u for $20, similar performance to the Celeron J4115 and if you wanted a full on NAS you can get mini pci-e to full 4x extensions or expansion boards that have up to 4 sata ports.
Personally, I just wanted to get off dropbox/google drive, so a single drive Nextcloud was perfect for me and well worth the $20 (Technically I bought a 16GB m.2 for $6 and another ~$6 for a cheap charger but still.. It was well under $50)
That was the reason I ve chosen the Pi4 combined with a SSD on the USB 3 port as host for OpenmediaVault. The rest of the Pi4 like 4k video, quadcore CPU and 4 GB RAM is pure overkill for this application 😁
They just launched a cheap Orange PI Zero 2 W with 1 to 4GB ram and the H618, that looks interesting to what it can do. Specially WIFI5 performance. I do not expect much due to the SDIO interface.
Not first today, but always on my mind. Greetings Chris!
Greetings! Glad you are here as usual! :)
Thanks for being clear about the software and support issues. I loved the Orange Pi Zero when it came out, but at this point half the hardware isn't supported, and kernel updates usually break the system. It's really a shame, because it's a great piece of hardware.
Thanks Chris for another review of the ever expanding SBC universe. Stay well!
Hello from Earth 2 and welcome to another episode of ComplicatingComputers.com! I am Sirhc Warrio. As usual, we will cover whatever piece of computer kit I can slip under my shirt at the store. To my left I have an exciting cardboard box. Left! Let's see, I'll need to use Mr Machete to open. Oh no! There are just packing peanuts inside!
But that's Ok. Through the magic of film making I'll make it into a Jellyfish computer with 1 Petabyte of storage running Domino OS and 64.5 Hypothreads. You don't understand these terms? Well, as fans of the show know, I always say - that's what Google is for! Anyways, I really like this system!
My first SBC was a Nascom 1 back in the 70's. Not far off a foot square, Z80, 1K RAM, dozens of TTL chips. No OS, used Z80 assembler. I've still got it, must get it out one day, although not sure what to display video on. This was before even CGA graphics!
nice as a museum piece. My first SBC was a C64 :)
Come to speak of it, most computers were single board in the 70s and 80s!
SoC(system on a chip) came much later (2000s)
Thumbs up for Mr.Sissors
Hi, GPU is supported now with Linux 5.16. The company has updated the doc and os image.
:)
That ethernet connector is VERY useful! I have used these with ethernet cable to have a much more stable connection.
I totally agree about the software support. I bought a few Orange Pi devices a few years ago and found the same. Good, cheap hardware but a very restricted range of software.
As far as the tight squeeze of the connectors, it is possible to shave off some of the plastic to fit them in the space. Just don't cut off too much!
Seems to be a nice piece of hardware. Good to see, that the took care of documentation at last.
My experience with an orange pi was more than disappointing. Not because of the hardware but the lack / void of documentation.
I bought one of these on a whim several months ago, have yet to put it to use. At least I know what it can do now.
Can't wait for the next model the Orange Pi Zero 2 Ultra Tuscan Orange Grapefruit².
Nice review Christopher! I am working through all your PI Zero type board reviews. One thing that would help me on these reviews would be power usage numbers, I am frequently running these off battery, maybe solar as well and knowing their typical power consumption when idling and going flat out would help, I would be most interested in power usage when running headless. Say hello to Mr. Scissors for me.
Awesome video for an awesome Sunday. Thanks. 👍
Still the same issues with orange pi sbc nice hardware poor support sigh take care professor Chris and thanks for your time reviewing it
Looking forward to get this to replace my RPi Zero W as my PiHole server!
The Ethernet port got me.
Beautiful price, form factor and features.
Another amazing video. Thank you 🌷
Got my USB 3.0 PCIe card in this week, but not fitted it quite yet, now I’m back to thinking if I need another SBC.
I think I need to find a use case first though.
Thanks again for another great video 👌🏻
✂️
Good luck fitting the card. :)
It's great watching Chris's vids using the new speed controls CZcams have introduced at the bottom of the screen. Up to 1.5 and he doesn't sound a little bit squeaky. At 0.8 there's a touch of Paul Robson though. Informative video as per usual. Thanks.
I imagine on your kitchen table there is a bowl of SBCs. A literal fruit bowl of PCBs. 😊
Software support is key to any system. Superior hardware is not enough. The Pi, to me, is more about the community around it than the board itself. As long as the hardware is reasonably competitive, the support is the real difference maker. Chromium on the Pi has been heavily worked over to support the system. I bought a Pi 4 in the Summer of 2019. When I first got it, the thing had many issues. Over the next few months I got one update after another and the board's performance improved in leaps and bounds. Too many of these other boards get a few updates and then the manufacturer moves on to something else.
You are looking healthier Sir Chris! 👍🙂
Well this is great to hear! Thanks.
Unusual packing and unusual wireless antenna.
Small form factor, but quite interesting set hardware on this tiny SBC.
Cheers to this interesting video Chris, it was a nice change to see Mr. Scissors making a cameo.
I’ve been waiting for this review! THANK YOU KIND SIR!!
My pleasure!
Mr. Scissors to the rescue!
Congratulations! A great CZcams channel for viewing interesting and informative computer related topics!
Great video. Watching this on my Pi 4, to me the software support is probably the most important aspect to user addoption. All the specs in the world are for naught if you can't run a range of OS's, software etc. Furthermore, my impression is that the Pi foundation (or the community) have optimised the Pi's software really well. I don't know if that translates in some cases to the wider ARM linux SBC's, but in many comparisons I've seen, the Pi seems to beat out sometimes more powerfull competitors despite having fewer resources?
You are totally right that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has put masses of resources into software development for the Pi, and great benefits result.
@@ExplainingComputers It seems sucess breeds sucess - The Raspberry Pi as a package works well, which breeds a large community and wide eco-system. I think it's hard for some of the other SBC's to create a compelling enough package to beat the R-Pi.
@@steven1000000000 I never thought about these until recent Great Raspberry shortage... not even they are expensive as hell to get (if any) and with only expensive bundles that noone really needs, Raspberry foundation is turning its back to community. They prioritize selling to manufacturers rather than users. I would not have anything to it if these kits were sold without RPI board itself, and getting it from lets say official raspberry website with limited amount to purchase. This is what competition is using now... similar price, availability ,performance and features that RPI ignores, like ability to add external antenna, physical LAN connectors, or DC barrel jack (when we will get rid of stupid USBC finally!?). Software will always get better overtime... even RPI is getting updates every few weeks.
@ Whilst I definitely would have gone with the Raspberry Pi a year ago, I know all too well that they are almost impossible to get nowadays. So, I'd definitely consider some of the alternatives thesedays. Plus, performance has moved on and some of the newer boards have even better performance. Did the Pi Foundation turn their back on the community...? I don't know... Given that the company is a charity with educational goals, I trust that there's just "supply issues" rather than them purely trying to make as much money as possible... As to what type of device to buy, I think that it depends on the project - If someone has to have the "Pi form factor" for something like a robotics project or need the GPIO interface, then maybe an Orange Pi, Rock Pi (or one of the other alternatives) could be an option. But if it's more for desktop, or mini-server, then there are some older second hand x86 micro PC's from Lenovo/DELL/HP such as the Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P, Dell Optiplex 3050 Micro PC, or a ton of other similar devices which offer a very interesting alternative. They do use a little more power than a Pi but have a lot more processing power, have wider X86 software support, are more easily upgraded than an SBC, are cheaper than scalped prices of a Pi and most importantly, are easily available.
@@steven1000000000 I agree, these X86 micro PCs are great for performance tools, eg. get something like mini ITX form factor and world opens to you... but energy wise, they are power hogs. It is questionable if the energy bill will pay itself over the price of cheaper HW, but sooner or later it will be more noticeable. Thats why i like Pis and small SBCs, they requre like 2-3W (lets say 20W max) compared to bigger options... and running them 24/7 as a small file servers, adblockers, data loggers or whatnot even from battery backup is easier.
I like this unit. I am considering it for a potential Voron build.
love the retro vibe
So the specs on the OrangePi page says it has hardware video decoding of all the modern codecs up to 4K -- I was surprised the CZcams test performed that badly unless something is not coded right with the web player/Chromium.
The hardware indeed has the decoding support. But the available OS, like the available OS on almost all SBCs, certainly does not have the support to use that hardware for video decoding. Taking stock chips and building SBC hardware with them is not that difficult. Providing decent software support is another matter entirely.
@@ExplainingComputers Are there any boards that are decent at youtube?
I'm currently looking for a SBC so I can stream live events via a browser on a non-smart TV. Thankfully thorough another great video from Chris, I know this isn't for me
If you don't know, you have delay enabled in your sound settings. I don't know what you use to convert your videos, but it doesn't sound very... professional😅
But we do appreciate your extensive knowledge about these SBC's
No, I don't have a delay enabled in my sound settings. You must be experiencing a CZcams playback issue. There is no "conversion" going on here -- everything is shot ProRes and edited in Premiere Pro.
I've just got this board. Don't have an appropriate HDMI cable for it at the moment, and I'll have to rearrange my multi-monitor wiring.
I'll try to get a graphics driver for it (either PanFrost or something else), because I've paid for the whole SoC, and not just the four AArch64 cores.
Maybe would be a great distro for someone with an old ARCHIMEDES Desktop PC.
I'd give this board a try, but like was mentioned, only for IoT projects with Python. But hopefully the Python/gpio support for it is up to par. Thanks for another great video.
Hi Steve. :)
The most beautifully british tech channel !!
The hardware is definitely able to smoothly play high quality video. We just need to wait several years for some knowledgeable volunteer contributors to get the software ready... For some reason, board or chip manufacturers don't want to help with that.
sooo excited to see this video and soooo disappointed in the board , great video as usual , Orange Pi sort your stuff out PLEASE !!
They are getting better . . . the hardware is excellent.
@@ExplainingComputers i have 2 of their orange pi zero h2 512mb sat in my single board pc box waiting for something to do
@@familyplans3788 this soc is far better than H2
@@pilabs3206 yes but its the software that lets it down
When I saw the ethernet port I was wondering if this board had power over Ethernet.
not sure about this board but the 512mb orange pi zero h2 does support poe but it is set to off as default so i would assume this one does support it
I am still intrigued if it has.
I’m curious as well!
No POE
@@sbc_tinkerer - thanks for the info!
I want to use Octoprint with my 3D printer for controlling prints and running a camera. And considering that even a Raspberri Pi 3 costs twice as much now as the ~50 Euro an Orange Pi Zero 2 with 1gb costs, not even to talk about the 200+ Euro for a Raspi 4, this looks like a very interesting alternative.
There's an Armbian release for this board which I've been running for 2 months. Powered through the router's usb & running Pihole!
These videos are so informative. Your channel is superb!
Giggity! My fav time of the week, when a new EC.com video appears in my feed
You are right!!! Chris, I like this little Orange Pi? But today 68%+ of computer/android users; used it more than basic Debian? By watching some type of movies or Zoom. And Video quality is a must, And Ram? Just maybe they can fix this or come out with a newer model. Which will be a greater improvement?
I just bought one because of this review.
Good luck with your new hardware. It's a nice little SBC.
@@ExplainingComputers And thank you so much for the review. BTW, I'm going to be using it as a stratum-1 time source.
Another thing I think should be mentioned is the boards encoder, which is better than most boards as they cap at 1080p30 and this can do 4K25 or 1060p60, which I would assume would allow 720p120 video recording too.
Woah didn't expect that performance
I like your videos. More about actual content than flash. Thanks.
I just bought an Orange Pi Zero 2 with the expansion board with 2 extra USB 2.0 (around 47USD for the whole kit with power supply, heat sink, microSD card and heatsink). I'm going to try and set up a RAID 1 NAS with some spare external HDDs I have laying around here, I know USB 2.0 isn't ideal, but hopefully it will work, I don't need anything blazing fast anyway. I'm hoping to be able to even set up jellyfin with this small boi, we'll see.
16:32. I thought you said torture 😂. I nearly fell out of my seat.
:O
you gotta love sundays bc of this man 😀
A few vids aho we saw that its possible to install linux on a toster now we know it can be installed on something smaller than a keyboard numpad
SBCs can make a very effective laptop these days. It's remarkable how far we've come with such tiny, low electrical power ARM computers. The power consumption of even a ten year old laptop can be terrifying in comparison.
And will the RPi laptop or even RPi Chromebook be next? I hope so.
3:30 "As you can see, there is no heatsink attached, and for most applications one should not be needed" - this is an extremely optimistic statement. I have a similar Orange Pi Zero LTS (no heatsink), and its CPU temperatures are around 50 C with near-zero load:
System load: 0.23 0.05 0.02 Up time: 4:03
CPU temp: 48°C
Any load on the CPU causes the temperatures to rocket up to 80+ °C, and the CPU starts throttling. So you will not be able to use it for, say, playing 4K video without a heatsink.
So odd.
I would love to be a fly on the wall when the creators of these marvels of electronics decide what goes on it, what is sacrificed.
Fascinating 🤔
🤯
Connection with Zero Two is intentional? :D
The openWRT option is appealing to me.
The only thing missing is a usb3 port to also use it as a NAS.
Tip for the future, 1280x720 (1366x768) was commonly known as HD. 1920x1080 was Full HD. At least, this is how they were marketed years ago. I'm pretty sure the Pi 3 A+ is 1080p but that might have some thinking it was 720p.
One more time, a good lesson on single board and ... thanks for English lesson too. I learn a lot on computers and I discover new words ("somewhat" and others). 😋
For the PhoenixCard you might wanna click on the GoogleDrive logo instead of the link itself.
Hello, are you going to review the Orange Pi Zero 3? I am particularly interested in seeing how the 4GB RAM model performs compared to the 1GB Orange Pi Zero 2. The SoC seems to be exactly the same as the one in the old Zero 2 in terms of both CPU and GPU performance and that's not particularly great for the next few years because of the rising amount of bloat in the new applications, but I guess it's nice to have a refreshed board with potentially good software support out of the box, for Orange Pi standards. 4GB in particular make it a lot more intriguing because one may load up the board with lots of software at once, attach a big passive heatsink and just let it run with all 4 cores fully saturated and forget about it.
Ambivalence sounds about right. I've wasted too much time trying to get an earlier Orange Pi up and running to be all that interested until they really fix the software support issues. The extensive manuals seem a good step in the right direction though. The performance boost and small cost savings just don't make up the difference over better-supported SBCs unless you were operating lots of them or absolutely needed a particular set of ports.
If it's too close in terms of price and performance as the Pi 3B+, then support is what makes the real difference...
I'm intrigued that the Orange Pi has a 4K HDMI port, as it clearly can't output 4K video. Although it could probably be used for a text-based interface.
🍊 for my Sunday!
Hi Leslie.