The pcDuino3 is a single-board computer that sells for $77, runs Android or Ubuntu Linux, and features a dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor. But it doesn’t look like your typical computer, since it lacks a case.

So meet the pcDuino3S. It’s basically the same system, but in a steel case.

The pcDuino3S is available from LinkSprite for $99.

pcduino3s

The system features 1GB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, a microSD card reader which support sup to 32GB of removable storage, 10/100 Ethernet, 3 USB ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack. It has an HDMI port for connecting an external display.

While the 1 GHz Allwinner A20 processor with Mali-400 graphics isn’t exactly the fastest ARM-based chip around, it’s a relatively inexpensive option which should be able to handle most basic tasks.

pcduino3s back

Interestingly, while the pcDuino3S has the same basic features as the single-board computer without a case, it looks like this model has a different circuit board with ports in different positions, as you can see from the videos showing how to assemble or take apart the case.

Generally the pcDuino3 is designed as a developer-friendly board, while the pcDuino3S is a relatively inexpensive PC that can run Android 4.2 or Ubuntu 12.04 and which could be used as a media player, thin client, or for other low-power PC tasks.

via CNX Software

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

9 replies on “pcDuino3S is a tiny dual-core PC for $99”

  1. I ask the same ? on all of these ‘small’ pcs at low cost. I need these in quantity AND I must have Real across the board 3D graphics acceleration in Linux. If someone can supply this I will buy else its useless vaporware to me.

    1. You will only have OpenGL ES 1 and 2, 3d acceleration on all this tiny devices, so good for desktop acceleration and HTML5 WebGL acceleration.

      You will need this year new products that start to manage full OpenGL specs if you want to run 3D applications like Blender or most of games. There are some efforts to port few OpenGL application to OpenGL ES, due to the great success of ARM SoCs, but in some cases OpenGL ES 3 could be needed in really recent applications, and so need a last year or this year ARM SoC too.

      1. Hardware accelerated video decoding under Linux is also missing from ALL ARM dev boards. Funny… because on android is working 🙁

    2. I have an Nvidia Jetson board with the K1 on it. It supports OpenGL4.4. It’s glmark2 scores compare with my PC, which has a Core i.7 with Intel and Nvidia GPUs in it.

      Hardware accelerated OpenGL ES2 video performance is also decent in i.MX6, which has a Vivante GC 880 GPU. Also anything with a Mali 400 on up in it, like Samsung Exynos octa core. There are also open source versions of the graphics drivers (etnaviv, lima). Rockchip boards are cheap, but don’t seem to have things quite together yet for running Linux.

      Getting graphics to work sometimes requires configuring, installing a new kernel, adding repositories, installing software, etc. Linux on ARM today is like Linux 10 years ago on PCs – it doesn’t always quite work out-of-the box.

  2. I like the low price. It seems like a nice simple computer. Perhaps one could creative on the case and make it unique looking.

        1. I’ve actually had pretty good luck with my Radxa Rock. I had a PCDunio V1, that was OK, and have an Olinuxino with the same processor (SOC) as the PcDuinio V3. It’s OK, but I haven’t really been that impressed with either the Olinuxino or PCDuinio.

Comments are closed.