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Atom-Based JaguarBoard To Take On Raspberry Pi (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: The tiny single-board PC movement that's leading the Internet of Things (IoT) market is largely dominated by ARM-based processors, and for good reason — they're cheap, low power and capable. However, what if you prefer to work with the x86 architecture? JaguarBoard looks strikingly similar to Raspberry Pi, which is arguably the most popular single-board mini PC. But unlike Raspberry Pi, JaguarBoard allows users to develop for x86, courtesy of its Intel Atom Z3735G (Bay Trail) foundation. The chip is a quad-core part clocked at 1.33GHz to 1.83GHz with 2MB of L2 cache, offering a fair amount of horsepower for IoT applications. In addition to an Atom processor, JaguarBoard also boasts 1GB of DDR3L memory, 16GB of eMMC storage, three USB 2.0 ports, 10/100M LAN port, HDMI 1.4 output, SDIO 3.0 socket, two COM ports, four GPIO pins, and audio ports. It's an interesting device that you could use strictly as a mini PC for general purpose computing, as an embedded system, a learning or research tool, or for whatever DIY projects you can conjure up. It's not the only hobbyist-appropriate x86 board, but those specs are pretty good for $45.
For that price - it is useless. I would much rather get a kangaroo for $99
Oh sure, yeah, a 'roo is cute when it's young, but have you ever stopped to think about what happens when it gets older? There are countless millions of loving, adoptable single-board computers put to death every year, simply because people keep making more of them to try to make money, and other people reward them for this by paying them for these SBCs when they could instead save an innocent older SBC from death by adopting.
Many people who buy 'roos later decide it's an inconvenience and get rid of them, adding yet more innocent SBCs to the huge numbers already sent to China and Africa for ecotoxic reprocessing.
If nobody bought, and everyone adopted older SBCs, nobody would manufacture new ones, and eventually, no innocent, adoptable SBCs would die. Nobody wants to admit responsibility and wants to pass the blame, but everyone who abandons, buys or builds new SBCs while they are being burned for the gold in their connectors has blood on their hands.
Remember, a 'roo isn't just for Christmas.