Odroid C2 Challenges Raspberry Pi 3 On Hardware But Not Ecosystem (hackaday.com)

szczys writes: We are surely in the age of single-board computers as the words "Raspberry Pi" sneak into the ranks of [a] household name. Many would have thought this impossible, but for hardware enthusiasts it has wide-reaching benefits as others clamor to enter the market. The most formidable challenge made so far is by the Hardkernel Odroid C2 which bests the Pi 3 on hardware, but not everything. Odroid C2 has the same cores, running faster with more RAM. It swaps out gigabit Ethernet for the Pi 3's somewhat unimpressive Wi-Fi chip. And it includes onboard eMMC (useful for faster booting) as well as an SD card slot. Odroid C2's hardware is clearly a better offering than Pi 3 for just $5 more (as we saw from the benchmarks last week), but that's not the entire story. It's further down Linux stream for a less mature distro, and has nowhere near the community support that has opened the Pi [up] to just about everyone. But it is the hardware geek's SBC with the layman's price tag and that's a very interesting indicator of where we are with low-cost computing.

Comments

Not a fan of Odroid

[spire3661]

Even disregarding the community aspect, Odroid runs a weirdo/old software stack. If it was running something more akin to Raspbian which is pretty close to mainline Debian, i would be more interested in it. I dont even like using Adafruit's custom raspbian images they provide with their ~3" TFT screens.

Re:Not a fan of Odroid

[Obfuscant]

Even disregarding the community aspect, Odroid runs a weirdo/old software stack.

Ubuntu 16.04 is "weirdo/old"?

The reason I'd avoid it is because I' m trying to use one of their XU4s to run a GigE camera, and under Ubuntu 15.4 it appears to have issues handling jumbo frames. That's a bit better than what happens using the official Hardkernel Ubuntu 15.10 -- the GigE controller (connected through the USB, as is done on the Pi) disconnects about ten seconds after being initialized. I.e., it simply disappears. And I can't get an answer from Hardkernel about any fixes they plan for this.

I'm guessing it is poor quality control from a Chinese factory using ROHS solder. It certainly wouldn't be anything unrelated to the specific board, like the 15.10 drivers just plain don't work with the hardware, could it?

As for the summary, no, the C2 does not swap out GigE, it swaps IN GigE.

c2 vs pi3

[millette]

Actual link to the Odroid C2 vs Raspberri Pi 3 comparison:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...

Higher Specs look good on Paper

[wisnoskij]

Higher Specs look good on paper, but are not nearly as important as stability and well written software. I have the original version that looked amazing next to the pi 2. But it crashes all the time and the only video player that works on it is Kodi.

Re:Swaps out Wifi or ethernet (which PI 3 ALSO has

[drinkypoo]

The Odroid hardware QC is so shaky, however, I've avoided trying it so far.

Last I checked they were offering a whopping 30 days warranty on these SBCs. That's not a sign of confidence in the product.