Korean company Hardkernel offers a line of tablets aimed at developers. While they tend to have some great hardware, they also tend to carry high price tags. Now the company is offering a new developer board which costs just $129.

Last year’s Hardkernel ODROID-A was one of the first tablets to ship with a Samsung Exynos 4210 dual core CPU. It cost $749 at the time. Now the company sells an $850 ODROID-Q tablet with a Samsung Exynos 4412 quad-core CPU.

But developers can also opt for a significantly cheaper developer board called the ODROID-X.

Hardkernel ODROID-X

The Hardkernel ODROID-X has a 1.4 GHz Exynos 4412 quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, Mali 400 graphics, 6 USB 2.0 ports, 10/1000Mbps Ethernet, and mic and headphone jacks. There’s also a full-sized SDHC card slot.

It features 1GB of RAM and runs Google Android 4.0.4.

Optional accessories include a WiFi chip and antenna, LCD, Bluetoth, HDMI, camera, and storage modules.

While the ODROID-X is aimed at software and hardware developers, it could also be the basis for a rather interesting DIY mini-PC. It may cost significantly more than a $35 Raspberry Pi or $74 MK802, but the little device also has one of the fastest ARM-based processors available and a number of expansion options.

via ARMDevices

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21 replies on “Hardkernel ODROID-X: $129 Android developer board with quad-core CPU”

  1. is it possible to detach the processor (and whatever it’s stuck to), and then mount it on another custom motherboard?

  2. Hmm. sounds good that 50 pin IO extension for those who have electronics hobby.

    Sadly I already ordered zedboard with Zynq 7020 (Dual Cortex A9 + 85k Logic Cells + 220 DSP slice)

  3. This post is kinda misleading.. This device is hardly as good of a deal as it seems, they charge you 30 dollars just for shipping and then you will have to pay your own customes fees which will amount to another 30+ dollars, additionally if you plan on using wifi you will have to pay for the adapter for that as well, and a power cord/hdmi cable/micro usb cable etc. Will def exceed 200 dollars by the time everything is said and done. Plus their shipping methods are very shady read this, ive quoted this directly from their site:

    “3. Our price does not include taxes and tariffs. Customers outside of the South
    Korea may be subject to customs fees and/or import duties and taxes, which are
    levied once a shipment reaches your country; you should contact your local
    customs office or tax authority for information specific to your situation.
    Additionally when ordering from this website, you are considered the importer of
    record and must comply with all laws and regulations of the country in which you
    are receiving the goods. Hardkernel Co., Ltd will not be held responsible for
    internal orders that never make it past your countries cutoms office. Please
    check with your customs office before placing your oder. No refund will be given
    for itmes that are seized by your local custom’s agents.
    4. This Developer
    Edition include development data, as such refund will not be accepted once you
    purchase the package. We will not be responsible for shipping and handling on
    returned itmes in any case.”

    Good luck to anyone ordering from these guys LOL

    1. they call it a DEVELOPER BOARD for a reason, you are expected to know a little about what you need and order these extra add-on’s as required.

      after all they are trying to make a profit on the BOM and also provide the cheapest mass scale “quad core” Cortex A9 developer board at the same time unlike the other Board Support Packages you as a dev would normally pay and write off in company tax’s etc

      you can LOL all you like but these guys have been supplying the professional Cortex dev markets for years without problems, this year is special everyone gets a chance to play with the first quad core dev boards and at a very good price in comparison to prior years.

        1. LOL no, if i did, all the boards would be even better and everyone would have a generic cigarette packet sized board with generic “ARM On SODIMM” replaceable standard modules and generic mini PCI on-board by now.

          or even several SODIMM slots carrier boards to take more than a single SOC, want 16 cores for that home/SOHO mini server, fine no problem, just populate the off the shelf 4 SODIMM carrier board with 4 quad SOC’s of what ever brand you like, done.

          want to scale to the 1000 SOC cloud server 2U case, no problem , use the industrial SLED carrier board and use the new Cortex Quad core with internal 10 Gbit/s fabric modules, and later swap them out and replace with the 6/8/16/ many core ARM Cortex 64bit modules as required in 2014+ etc….

    2. If you tinker with small computers, the odds are good that you already have all the cables, power adapters, and Wifi dongles, and so on. (I do.) Fair point about shipping and customs though.

    3. No company provides customs clearance unless it is by special consignment. If you expect a company to maintain a department in your country to deal with customs, i suggest you set one up because when you purchase a product from outside your country you are an importer.

      This is a development board and a very good one. If you are a developer you should be aware of what a development board is and what comes with it.

      Please know what you’re talking about before speaking bad about a company, I have ordered a board and received it without a problem (I live in the US) so if you have a particular problem with customs in your country I would suggest you change countries.

  4. I’m waiting for the day when it’s as easy to put together an ARM based PC as it is to slap together an x86 one. Hopefully, some standards get agreed upon when it comes to component and board interfaces and OS’s.

    1. That’s what I’m hoping too since I’m an end user and not a developer which this is obviously targeted towards. Oh well, seems like a nice piece of hardware for devs.

  5. Performance-wise, how would a quad-core A9 compare to what’s on the MK802? Seems like I’ve read A9 does not compare favorably to the A8 or the A5. Of course the MK802’s SOC is single-core.

    1. I’m not sure what you’ve been reading, but Cortex-A9 is a newer, much faster technology than A8 or A5. This should be much faster than an MK802.

      It’s basically the difference between a Samsung Galaxy S and a Galaxy S III.

      1. I’ve seen people confuse Cortex-Ax with the ARM9, ARM11, ARMv7, etc. (On new egg someone complained they bought a product that was supposed to be Cortex-A8, but was pissed because Android report an ARMv7 processor…of course 7 is less than 8, so they got ripped off 😉

        For anyone that didn’t get the sarcasm, the Cortex-A8 is an ARMv7.

    2. 😀 bill, the odroid-x Exynos-4412 is in fact using the very latest
      32nm HKMG process, has quad cortex A9 CPU cores and also quad Mali400MP gfx with 1080P Encode/decode HW block, 32-bit Dual-channel 400 MHz ram on SOC, the only slight niggle i have is that they used an LPDDR2 PoP module instead of the faster DDR3 so will loose a little extra free speed but gain longer usage time,

      to say it short this “quad” is WAY Better than the old Cortex “dual” A9 at 40nm etc never mind the older Cortex A8

      it’s not just about the clock speeds, that faster ram and dual channels make a big difference to generic data throughput speed hence why the newest “wide IO” 512bit bus 4x128bit stacked ram when that appears will be even better, probably in the Exynos 5 A15 dual big-Little or later BL quads next year….
      here’s their initial quad speed graph for you to look at again https://com.odroid.com/sigong/_Files/comm/2012/201207/201207031926443455.png

  6. I am enjoying your coverage of these little computers. I’m not quite ready to buy one yet. It seems like there is an opportunity for some company to offer kits, or at least a selection of all of the little bits and pieces you need to get one of these little computers running.

    1. well you do remember that the trimsllce was using the crep Nvidia
      Tegra 2 that didn’t even have NEON SIMD, they changed that PDQ with the T3 getting NEON SIMD like all the real Cortex SOC today OC.

      a new trimsllce like device updated with this quad Exynos-4412 and a 1GigE chip ,and id like to also see a generic mini PCI for the newer wireless 802.11ac cards coming soon would be cool

      but to do it right id also take this “quad Exynos-4412 On Module” and make it a generic “ARM Cortex (quad) On SODIMM” standard instead for all the future carrier boards to be easily upgraded by simply swapping out the On SODIMM module as needed, and replace a lot of the soldered hardware ports and put cheap pins in their place so as to provide short generic fly leads with the snap-in ports on the end to any case shape you like etc….

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#802.11ac
      “IEEE 802.11ac is a standard under development which will provide high throughput in the 5 GHz band. This specification will enable multi-station WLAN throughput of at least 1 gigabits per second and a maximum single link throughput of at least 500 megabits per second, by using wider RF bandwidth (80 or 160 MHz), more streams (up to 8), and high-density modulation (up to 256 QAM).”

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