Miniand is selling a new developer board called the Hackberry A10. It features an Allwinner A10 processor for about $60. It’s basically a little computer with a CPU, memory, and storage built in. It also has a range of input and output options.

Hackberry A10 Developer Board

What it doesn’t have is a case. You’ll want to buy or build your own if you plan to use the Hackberry A10 Developer Board as a desktop computer or set-top-box for your TV. You could also theoretically use this sort of box to power a robot, web server, or a range of other devices.

It’s a lot like a $35 Raspberry Pi, except the HackBerry A10 costs $60 and up, has more memory, built-in-storage, a faster processor, and WiFi.

The Allwinner A10 processor is a single core ARM Cortex-A8 chip with Mali 400 graphics. It’s not as fast as an NVIDIA Tegra 3 or Samsung Exynos 4412 chip, but it’s a lot cheaper, and it can still handle HD video and a range of basic tasks.

That’s one of the reasons it’s proven popular with budget Android tablet makers such as Coby. But the chip is also showing up in a growing number of mini PC devices that are designed to be used with a TV, mouse, keyboard, or remote control.

We’ve seen a range of these devices, including the MK802, Mini X, and Mele A1000. While most ship with Google Android, they’re also capable of running Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux-based operating systems.

Like those devices, the Hackberry A10 will ship with Android 4.0, but Miniand plans to offer Linux images for the device. These are the same folks who brought us some of the first Linux images for the MK802, so they have a pretty good track record with this sort of thing.

A Hackberry A10 Developer Board with 512MB of RAM is available for $60. A 1GB model should be available soon for $65.

Both models include:

  • 1.2 GHz Allwinner A10 ARM Cortex-A8 CPU
  • Mali 400 graphics
  • 4GB built-in storage (1.5GB available in the Android user partition)
  • 802.11n WiFi
  • 10/100 Ethernet
  • 2 USB 2.0 ports
  • SDHC card slot
  • HDMI
  • 3.5mm mic jack
  • composite video output
  • 4-pin serial header

The Hackberry A10 can be booted from a SDHC card or from the internal storage. This lets you load Ubuntu or another operating system on a removable storage card, while keeping Android on the internal storage.

If the Hackberry A10 sounds familiar, that’s because it looks an awful lot like the Gooseberry developer board which was introduced in June. But the Gooseberry lacks Ethernet and USB ports.

via Jas Hacks

thanks Michael!

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4 replies on “Hackberry A10 developer board: $60 PC board with Allwinner A10 CPU”

  1. There are still a lot of CRT TVs out in the hinterlands so I’m sure people who like to use older equipment with linux will be happy about the composite video output.

  2. Must have for me: SATA inferface, which the Mele A1000 does have. This looks like the board that’s used in Mele A10, which can be bought for $65, case and all, so I find this one expensive.

  3. This board, 2gb ram, 32gb on board flash and a tegra 3.. win 😀 – Actually I have an mk802 and its astoundingly capable for what it is

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