Single board computers: which is the best?

Not sure which forum I should post this to, but anyhow, as the title says, I'm looking at the Raspberry pi 2 b and am wondering if it is worth the price and trouble getting it to work?

I understand that Raspberry isn't the only game in town, so how do the others stack up against it?

Recommendations anyone?

Thanks in advance,
Doc

Better how? Faster? More I/O's? better build quality?

It might help if we know what your going to do with it. If I were to buy a SOC I go for a PI. There is a lot of documentation on them as far as i know.

For the money, the RPi is hard to beat.

There are other single board computers out there far more capable but I like my Pi

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...ecember-2012?p=7354585&viewfull=1#post7354585

The Raspberry Pi 2 has the best online community and is tough to beat for the price.

Others like the Beaglebone Black are more expensive and don't have as impressive specs as the RPi 2 but the Beaglebone for example can interface with a variety of interesting add-on boards called "capes" that add things like batteries, touchscreens, serial interfaces, weather sensors, etc. Also the Beaglebone is entirely open source and their documentation is excellent. The build quality is equally good, it looks like a professional piece of kit. http://beagleboard.org/BLACK

The Cubieboards in my opinion have poor build quality and while the initial model was reasonably priced with excellent specs and features for the money they have inched up in price and size as their popularity has risen and I personally don't think they're all that great. Compared to the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone the Cubieboard's build quality just looks shoddy to me but I have a model 1, perhaps they're better now. http://cubieboard.org/model/

The $9 C.H.I.P. that was on Kickstarter last year looks pretty awesome and should be awesome in theory but mine arrived DOA. The manufacturer has instructions on their site on how to fix that issue with a jumper wire and reflashing the software but I just haven't had the time to work through getting it fixed and running. http://getchip.com/

The Pine 64 looks pretty intriguing with great specs for the money, better than a Raspberry Pi 2 for half the price. http://www.pine64.com/product#pricing

Then there are the various Intel-based SBCs that have come out, but I have yet to see one get under the $50 mark and that's the price range I'm interested in. >$100 for a SBC, I may as well just spend a little more and get something ITX based or something...

Ive been reading up on the pine64 myself ..

here are some links to check out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_single-board_computers

http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/index.php

http://www.96boards.org/products/ce/hikey/

Wow. I reckon I have a ton of reading to do b4 pulling the trigger on one of these nifty little boards...
I also see that the Pine64 is still in the pre-production phase?

I am trying to have a "PC" compatible system while not spending a lot, and using less power than my current systems draw...and also not spending a ton of dough doing it.

In that regard, I do not see spending more than $35.00-$50.00 on the mainboard, as I can get a good refurbished quadcore computer tower with 4gb mam and 1tb storage with win7 for under $150.00...With a guarantee no less.
Thank All of you for helping me to see more than just Raspberry and arduino...now the fun begins....READING
Thanks again,
Doc

Edit: I was looking at the specs of the Pine64, and one thing caught my eye was the paragraph that says "PINE64 provides almost full motion playback of up to 4K H.265 high-definition video.
WTF does that mean? It will play, but it will be pixelated, or choppy?
If my thinking is correct, "almost" only counts for hand grenades, horse shoes, and atom bombs...and in no way should it ever be used to describe a video output experience

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...ine64-compare-with-other-card-sized-computers

I stand by what I said in the above thread, and would like to add that I had no idea there were so many options for these types of machines. I picked up a copy of a PC mag today that showed 10 different manufacturers on the cover alone (for this platform). Knowing that there are so many choices , my guess is that this space will start to look alot like smart phones: the devices with the talented/dedicated developers will pull ahead. Sure you can grab the cheapest phone/tablet off the shelf, but to get all the really fun stuff there needs to be dev support.

Predictions:

1) Small development teams will sprout like weeds because of the relative low cost of the devices

2) With so many different devices to maintain I doubt that stability will be a paramount concern. These devices will be aimed at hobbyist/enthusiasts because of the problems that come with developing a different OS for each brand of device, and will have to be bought by those who can fix the bugs themselves.

3) Further into the future now: Anything these little guys can do that smartphones cant will get added into phones and they will phase out/merge into the existing market. They already offer only parallel hardware specs (same proc speed/ram specs basically). They look to me like not much more than a bare smartphone board with a full size USB/video output and no screen. Unless they manage to stay far ahead of smartphones/tablets who would want them?

Just my .02

Looks like the Banana pi or the raspberry pi are the ones to beat, as they have the most support atm..I would suspect that these little gems will someday replace the traditional "tower" and "desktop" models and traditional monitors will also disappear.... and the TV screens will improve on the response times so they can compete with the monitors in their own market.
At any rate, I am having fun doing the research....I see these coming into vogue and I see a future in these SBC's..even if only a fad

If you find a good Intel-based one at Raspberry Pi prices, and at the RPi credit card sized form factor, please let me know. I'd like to play around with a x86-64 based SBC but I refuse to pay over $50.

Looks like the Banana pi or the raspberry pi are the ones to beat, as they have the most support atm..I would suspect that these little gems will someday replace the traditional "tower" and "desktop" models and traditional monitors will also disappear.... and the TV screens will improve on the response times so they can compete with the monitors in their own market.
At any rate, I am having fun doing the research....I see these coming into vogue and I see a future in these SBC's..even if only a fad.....OOPS! this response is two days old or more..I forgot to hit the post button duh

Edit: sorry for the double post..dunno what happened

wish i saw this sooner, might not be as big as Rpi but how about the odriod C1+. doesnt cost much more $35, has more ram+quad core+gb nic.
http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G143703355573

*edit*
forgot you can buy eMMC cards from them with either andriod preloaded or llinux.

I also found the Orange Pi to be quite fruitful for only 2 dollars more .. The viscous cycle lol

Bummer that Pine64 wont ship till may 16. I also am finding microcontrollers like Arduino very appealing. Wifi support, low power consumption, free visual studio plugin, support ... Dang it.. What to build, what to build




.

Yea, the Odriod C1+ looks impressive and to be able to run both Android & linux out of the box is a big plus...looks like C1+ also supports Rpi addon boards. mebee I should wait a bit and see how the market settles. I would hate to get locked into a platform that has no future.
This is getting interesting

well HK spends more time upgrading boards and with more ram faster cpu speed more cores. i mean look at the other board listed for $75 samsung 8core cpu 2gb ram,ect,ect. for the price even that one seems really nice.

i started to wonder about doing a C1+ cluster but then i figured that would work for using it for FAH and rosie ect. that each one would just need to run, it is nice to see bonic client for android and one has been out for linux since the start. making going either way nothing to sweat about, i just kinda wish the C1+ has 2gb. i would be willing to pay 45 for that but something says they would charge more.

I'll need to check out downloading and installing the OS vs having it already to run like Raspian,, retropie, lubuntu etc.

http://makezine.com/projects/build-full-size-working-bb-8-using-beaglebone/

Pi3 is coming soon with bt,wifi, quad cor clocked at 1.2ghz, all for the same 35.

Haha Evilsizer...I just got an email from ZDnet that stated that the Rpi3 is out today...talk about timing

I'm sure glad that I didn't pull the trigger just yet...I would have missed out on all the goodness that is the Rpi3. I just watched a short youtube video that shows the Rpi3 comes with NOOBS and Winten IoT pre-downloaded on the sd card.
ZDnet has two links where you can buy the Rpi3 today...Man am I pumped!
I love technology