The NanoPi M4 is a single-board computer with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor and at least 2GB of RAM. It launched last year for $65 and up, but recently FriendlyELEC cut the starting price to $50.
Why the change?
I can think of two reasons. One, it’s been out for almost a year and the manufacturing costs may have fallen in that time. Two, the new price makes the NanoPi M4 a lot more competitive with the new Raspberry Pi 4 that launched this week.
While the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B has a starting price of $35, you only get 1GB of RAM at that price. A 2GB version will set you back $45, while a 4GB model is $55.
The NanoPi M4, meanwhile, now sells for $50 if you want 2GB of RAM or $75 for 4GB.
FriendlyElec’s little computer also features optional support for eMMC modules, and it sports a hexa-core processor (2 x Arm Cortex-A72 + 4 x Cortex-A53) rather than a quad-core Arm Cortex-A72 chip like the latest Raspberry Pi.
On the other hand, one of the advantages of Raspberry Pi hardware is the large user base leads to a larger support and software ecosystem for those products which tends to make Raspberry Pi devices a good choice for beginners, so it’s nice to see the foundation’s little computers starting to catch up with the competitions in terms of features and raw horsepower.
via CNX-Software
Not surprising. After hearing the Pi 4 was out, I immediately started to wonder how long it would take for some of the RK3399 boards to see some price drops now that the situation has changed. At $50 for M4, I’d expect their Neo 4 boards to come down as well if they’re still selling those.
Already got my RPi 4. GPIO in python is 1/4th the latency and 4x throughput compared to RPi 3b+. I also did not see much of any interruptions (looks like it was running on its own core).
RK3399’s gpio is slower than RPi 3.
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7296
Raspbian Kodi and VLC are not activating the 4k h265 hardware decoding out-of-the-box. I’m going to try to find the config changes needed to fix that.
riddick…glad to see you already got yours…I’m still waiting.
ETA Prime(Youtuber) mentioned the decoding problem in Kodi during his recent review of the Raspberry Pi 4…I’m sure that problem will be solved soon enough.
I was a little disappointed by his review because while he tested 1080p and 720p in 60FPS…he never stepped down to 30FPS to see how fluent they ran at what I consider to be “normal” people speed. I had much better luck at 30FPS with my original ASUS Tinker Board.
I was actually in the market for an SBC and planned on purchasing something with an RK3399 chip. That is…until the Raspberry Pi 4 came out. For me 4GB’s, Raspbian, and the community behind the sbc clinched the deal.
I was looking at the NanoPi and ASUS’s new Tinker Edge R as contenders…and was leaning towards the NanoPi because the price fit my budget.
This will be my first Raspberry Pi…looking forward to getting mine.