The Radxa Rock Pi 4 is a single-board computer with a Rockchip RK3399 processor, Android and (some) Linux support, and support for up to a 4K display with a 60 Hz refresh rate.

Previously available in Model A and Model B configurations, there’s now a new Rock Pi 4 Model C which has the same basic design as its predecessors, but instead of a single HDMI 2.0 port, it supports two external displays thanks to a micro HDMI port and a mini DisplayPort.

The new model also has an M.2 connector with support for NVMe storage.

First announced in October 2019, the Radxa Rock Pi 4 Model C was supposed to ship the following month, but it was delayed by over half a year. It’s now finally available for purchase for $59.

The Rock Pi Model C is powered by a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor and features 4G of LPDDR4 RAM and support for 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0.

For storage you can use a microSD card, an external NVMe SSD, or an optional eMMC module.

Other features include a 3.5mm audio port, Gigabit Ethernet (with support for power-over-Ethernet when you use an optional HAT), and a 40-pin GPIO interface plus MIPI-CSI2 connector for a camera.

One thing to keep in mind is that while the device supports dual displays, there are some limitations:

  • The micro HDMI port supports up to a 3840 x 2160 pixel, 60 Hz display
  • The mini DisplayPort tops out at 2560 x 1440 pixels, 60 Hz

You can use two displays at once, but because the Rock Pi 4C’s USB Type-C controller is used to support dual USB 3.0 host ports as well as the mini DisplayPort, it’s only a 2-lane DisplayPort rather than the usual 4-lanes.

This article was originally published October 2, 2019, and last updated July 27, 2010.

via LinuxGizmos and CNX Software

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12 replies on “Rock Pi 4 Model C is a $75 mini PC with support for NVMe storage and dual displays”

  1. As much as I like to see new boards coming out, I really wish they would change the form factor. Personally, I’d much prefer it if all the sockets were on one side

  2. Does it support booting from the SSD automatically ? Without editing some kind of text file thats present on a microSD or the eMMC ?

  3. Radxa has very limited support. They don’t provide software/OS update to their old SBCs.

    I have a Radxa Rock board that has no update and support. They released it with Android 4 and never cared to update it with even Android 5. Very much disappointed. Same with their Rabian OS.

    I would not buy any board from them. I would rather go for other SBCs with proper support and regular software/OS update. Apart from Pi there are other boards like Odroid etc.

    Without proper support/update the board becomes useless within a year or so.

  4. This article was originally published October 2, 2019, and last updated July 27, 2010.

    What?

  5. I’d like to see something with a single full-size video output (I prefer DisplayPort over HDMI, but I prefer either one to these mini connectors), and a full featured USB Type-C port that can also do video output. Then you can choose 4K60 + USB 2 or 4K30 + USB 3, or whatever. It could even support both if they’d used DisplayPort 1.4.

    I suppose built in USB 3.0 type-A ports are pretty handy, though…

  6. There are so many of these little SBC devices available. Is there really that big of a market? I can see a couple of manufacturers, but it seems like dozens are in the market.

    1. I suspect that many of them are being bought up as cheap, compact dev kits for products intended to use whatever CPU is on the SBC. For things like TV’s, cars, cameras, printers, anything either too big to be worked on directly, or for which final designs aren’t done yet.

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