Wandboard has been making tiny computers featuring Freescale i.MX chips for years, but the company’s next product may be one of the most interesting to date.
The Wand Pi 8M is powered by an NXP i.MX8M ARMv8 processor (Freescale was acquired by NXP), and it has a Raspberry Pi-like design, as well as a Raspberry Pi-compatible 40-pin connector.
The new single-board computers go up for pre-order today, and they should ship in the spring of 2018 with prices starting at $89.
While that’s more than twice as much as you’d spend on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, the i.MX line of processors have been popular with free and open source software developers because of the ample documentation that’s available for these chips. Purism is planning to use an i.MX8 chip for its upcoming Linux-powered Librem 5 smartphone, for example.
The Wand Pi 8M comes in three versions:
- Wand Pi 8M Lite with 1GB RAM, 4GB eMMC for $89
- Wand Pi 8M Pro with 2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC for $99
- Wand Pi 8M Deluxe with 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC for $119
All three models feature a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor, Vivante GC700Lite graphics (with 4Kp60 H.265 and VP9 video support), HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and USB 3.0 Type-C ports.
The Pro and Deluxe models also include 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2.
Here’s hoping Microsoft gives it a port of Windows 10 IoT!
NXP says the clock frequency is 1.5GHz
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/fact-sheet/i.MX8M-FS.pdf