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Raspberry Pi vs. Cheap Android Dongle: Embarrassment of (Cheap) Riches
New submitter Copper Nikus writes "The price of Android Mini PCs have recently dropped to the point they are starting to make the Raspberry Pi look overpriced. This article compares the Raspberry Pi model B against the similarly priced MK802 II single core Android mini PC. IMO it can be argued that the mini PC wins that fight. It's worth noting that several new quad-core Chinese ARM SoCs have been recently released to the world, and it can be expected to see Android mini PCs start using them in the very near future. This should translate into even lower prices for the now 'obsolete' generations of single and dual core Andoid mini PCs out there." The target markets and base OS vary, but there's enough overlap for this comparison to make some sense — both have ARM chips, both can (to varying degrees) run either Android or a more conventional Linux distro, and both can fit in a small pocket.
You're right. The words "cheap" and "Chinese" are sort of red flags that maybe you won't find such nice USB headers and will have power distribution problems or noise on the audio ports or heat issues or bad liquid capacitors or any variety of cheap hardware problems.
We just deployed 3x Pi in a warehouse. I have to say, I'm really impressed with them. They are small, robust, and best of all, fanless (our last Mini-Itx died from dust-inhalation). System upgrades are easy - just swap over the SD card.
Just a couple of gotchas:
* Overclocking isn't just about heat (I added a heatsink and the CPU runs cool). The jump from 950MHz to 1Ghz is a very steep one (it suddenly bumps up all the other system clocks by a large amount) and this can make it unstable, corrupting the filesystem. 950 seems to be reliable.
* Power for USB (especially WiFi) is dodgy. Hotplugging a dongle will make the Pi reboot from brownout. It seems to be worse because the "5V" supplies aren't actually 5V. I tested several; surprisingly, the branded Nokia/HTC ones put out about 4.7V, whereas the unbranded ones are nearer 4.9. I suspect that in a USB supply that is really designed to charge a 3.7V LiPo cell, the more energy efficient ones may aim to come in slightly under 5V to reduce waste. Even with the newest model B rev 2, there is still one polyfuse on the input: I shorted this to gain another 10mV.
Anyway, I really want a Model C, perhaps with a 1.5GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, 4 USB ports, embedded Wifi/bluetooth, and a better power supply.
My Pi runs XBMC fine and plays my BluRay Rips without stutter with 5.1 Audio. I believe it's limited to 5.1 though...
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
pi should have been 5v tolerant and not stuck in 3.3v-only i/o mode. yes, condition the lines. oh, the shock and horror! junior hardware *learners* that will probably blow up their pi when they over-volt the gpios.
also, no mounting screw holes? sheesh. miss the obvious, why don't you.
I own a set of pi's and the latest update did seem to help fix the elephant usb bug. I think (need to bang on it some more).
the pi is a good start, but there are things they really missed on. I'd like to see a real effort with all the things they've learned. and I'd like it standard enough so that we can all use it as our new 'engines' in the embedded world.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Exactly, I wanted the GNU/Linux toolset which has only been ported to Android in chunks by people that want certain tools, it was easier to run Debian in chroot and apt-get install whatever I needed than it was to track down the combination of ports needed to get what I wanted (or port them myself). This is in no way an indictment of Android, just that my particular use case was kind of atypical and so the software I wanted hadn't been ported in one package and I was lazy.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
No, there is an exposed populated header (pins). You can buy a breadboard compatible breakout board that comes with a cable. One version is the cobbler kit http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pi-cobbler-kit/overview for 7.95.
You CAN connect 3.3v electronics without this kit (e.g. you can connect an Arduino pro to i2c or serial and double your pins adding PWM, AD inputs and so on.