FriendlyARM recently launched its NanoPi Neo Plus2 developer board, which competes against the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
The Neo Plus2 board boasts slightly better specifications than the Pi 3, with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of eMMC storage.
The newer board is also smaller than the Pi 3 and has a recommended retail price $10 cheaper than its competitor.
Both boards include GPIO pins for interfacing with hardware and IoT applications, and both devices are powered by a single microUSB port.
While the Pi offers greater community support and choice of software, the NanoPi aims to usurp it as a perfect fit for IoT devices.
The NanoPi Neo Plus2 also works with UbuntuCore 16.04 and supports a NAS Dock using Debian.
The specifications of the boards are detailed below.
| Board | Raspberry Pi 3 Model B | NanoPi Neo Plus2 |
|---|---|---|
| SoC | Quad-Core Cortex A53 | Quad-Core Cortex A53 |
| RAM | 1GB LPDDR2 | 1GB DDR3 |
| Storage | microSD | 8GB eMMC |
| Connectivity | 100Mbps Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 | 1Gbps Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 |
| I/O | 3.5mm audio, 4x USB 2.0, microUSB, microSD, HDMI, GPIO | 2x USB 2.0, microSD, microUSB, GPIO |
| GPIO | 40 pins, UART, SPI, I²C | 36 pins, UART, SPI, I²C |
| Power Supply | DC 5V | DC 5V |
| Dimensions | 86 x 57 mm | 40 x 52 mm |
| Price | $35 | $25 |
NanoPi Neo Plus2
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
This article first appeared on MyBroadband and is republished with permission.
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It’s a nice board, but the missing output feels like a deal breaker. If it had just HDMI I would screw it into the VESA mount of my TV and run OpenELEC (or Kodi, Plex, XBMC whatever your flavour is)