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FriendELEC Releases $40 NanoPi K2 Board That Competes With ODROID-C2, Raspberry Pi 3 (cnx-software.com)
DeathByLlama writes: The single board computer market, broken wide-open just a few years ago by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, continues to flourish today as FriendELEC releases their $40 NanoPi K2 board. This SBC packs a 1.5 GHz 64-bit quad core Amlogic S905 processor, and paired with 2GB of DDR3 RAM and the Mali-450MP GPU, it is able to stream 4K at 60 FPS. Add in gigabit ethernet, onboard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IR (and a remote!), eMMC compatibility, a familiar GPIO header, and a $40 price tag, and you end up with some stiff competition for other market leaders like Hardkernel's ODROID-C2 and Raspberry Pi's flagship Pi 3. The release is clearly in early phases with Ubuntu images and house-sold eMMC modules still on their way. It's amazing to see such strong competition in this market -- and with so many sub-$100, incredibly capable SBC options, which will choose?
It amuses me how all these SBCs advertize decoding high definition video. Of all the things I can think of to do with a Pi--robotics, remote sensing, UAVs, etc--decoding video is just not on my radar. Besides that I tried using a Pi once for a XBMC/Kodi box and found the experience to be lacking. 1080p video did play just fine most of the time until something crashed.
These devices can be used for amazingly cool projects. But I suspect 90% of them end up in the bottoms of drawers. I've got 4 in a drawer myself, waiting for time to use them in some cool project some day. In the meantime another more powerful one comes along.
Can anyone tell me if this board or any board (BBB maybe?) contains power management, such as suspend and resume, power on or wake on a schedule, etc? For remote sensing that is really what I need.