Looking for a pi? We all love pi's. I have 3 of them myself. But the wait sucks.
I'm no expert, I'm just sharing my research as a consumer, but here we go. I'm not trying to be a fanboy of either as you will see. My only goal here is to try to help some that are waiting:
Where they work (and don't):
- If you have a SBC project that will work on a basic debian or ubuntu install, and is not flashing a prebuilt, pi specific image, there's a decent chance Odroids will work for ya. Anything else (specific hardware, using GPIO, needing a different OS, etc), do your own research b/c this was outside of what I was looking for. These boards do have GPIO, I just don't know how it compares to pi's. There are alternate distros, but I again do your own research. RPi certainly has more distros though b/c of the larger user base.
- You can follow most software "pi projects" that fit the above with slight variations, e.g. the user name won't be "pi".
- C4 - this best I can tell is Odroid's shot at a RPi4 clone, but only comes in 4GB RAM
- N2+ - this board's main benefit is that it is substantially faster than the RPi 4. Storage is somewhat on par with RPi 4, but adds the option for emmc. RAM options are 2GB and 4GB
- M1 - this is the newest board and what I bought. I wish they would have made the processor on par with the N2+, but they didn't... instead it's comparable to the RPi 4. It does add a neural processing unit for AI and machine learning though (not helpful in my case). The standout feature though is that it has native, on board, m.2 nvme (though only 2 lanes). It also has a SATA connector for 2.5" SATA SSDs. an optional kit lets you mount the sata drive above the board. RAM options are 4GB and 8GB. They also make a metal case for this board, though it doesn't fit a 2.5" drive, just the m.2.
If this helps one person, then it was worth it.
submitted by /u/AKL_Ferris
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