Yes, most ARM development boards are SBCs, but in the Cortex-A9 landscape we've seen some interesting things.
The same Cortex-A9 of which I've written on the AMD Users forum: "Compared to their first ARMv7-A SOC, the ARM Cortex-A8, the Cortex-A9 offered an overall performance enhancement of well above 50%. Unfortunately some licencees saw that as an argument to sell their Cortex-A9 products at a much higher price too..."
We already had the CuBox and the Hummingboard.
Pro's for the HummingBoard and CuBox, both made by SolidRun, are the versailabilty of the design with six carrier boards and six different SOMs (i1Lite, i1, i2, i2eX, i4Pro, i4x4) to combine them with.
As con I've named the price, and that still stands. You'd better buy a quad-core media player with a Cortex-A9, such as the RK3188.
Now there's a competitor in Cortex-A9 land, offering a combination of baseboard and SOM at a very competing price:
the LeMaker Guitar
We already know Lemaker of one of the producers of the original Banana Pi and as makers of the Banana Pro. The Guitar is no slouch either.
Let's compare SolidRun's offerings against the quad-core Guitar:
SOM Feature | LeMaker Guitar |
---|---|
SOC | Actions Semiconductor Torch S500 |
Speed | 1300 MHz |
Video | PowerVR SGX544 |
RAM | 1 or 2 GB |
eMMC | 8 GB (standard), 4 to 32 GB (optional) |
Picture | |
Base board Features | LeMaker Guitar |
WiFi | AP6181 802.11 b/g/n |
IR | Yes |
Bluetooth | Yes, 4.0 |
USB | micro USB 3.0 host/device port, 2x USB 2.0 host ports |
LAN | 10/100 |
Picture | |
Price | $45 (1 GB) $60 (2 GB) - both package of board and SOM |
SOM Feature | Som i1 Lite | Som i1 | Som i2 | Som i2ex | Som i4Pro | Som i4x4 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SOC | Freescale iMX.6 Lite | Freescale iMX.6 Solo | Freescale iMX.6 Dual Lite | Freescale iMX.6 Dual | Freescale iMX.6 Quad | Freescale iMX.6 Quad |
Cores | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
Speed | 1000 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1200 MHz | 1200 MHz | 1200 MHz |
GPU | Vivante GC320+GC355 | Vivante GC880+GC320 | Vivante GC880+GC320 | Vivante GC2000+GC320+GC355 | Vivante GC2000+GC320+GC355 | Vivante GC2000+GC320+GC355 |
RAM | 512 MB, 32 bit, 800 MT/s | 1 GB, 32 bit, 800 MT/s | 1 GB, 64 bit, 800 MT/s | 2 GB, 64 bit, 1066 MT/s | 2 GB, 64 bit, 1066 MT/s | 4 GB, 64 bit, 1066 MT/s |
Price | $? | $50 | $67 | $81 | $120 | $130 |
Carrier board Features | CuBox Carrier Base | CuBox Carrier Pro | Hummingboard Gate | Hummingboard Edge | Hummingboard Base | Hummingboard Pro |
USB | 2x USB 2.0 | 2x USB 2.0, 1x micro USB | 4x USB 2.0 | 4x USB 2.0 | 2x Host USB 2.0 | 2x Host USB 2.0, 2x Header USB 2.0 |
WiFi | No | Optional | Optional | 802.1 b/g/n (BCM4330) | 802.1 b/g/n (BCM4330) | 802.1 b/g/n (BCM4330) |
Bluetooth | No | Optional | Optional | Yes, 4.0 | Yes, 4.0 | Yes, 4.0 |
LAN | 10/100 | 10/100 | 10/100 | 10/100/1000* | 10/100/1000* | 10/100/1000* |
IR | Receive only | Receive only | Receive only | Receive and transmit | Receive and transmit | Receive and transmit |
Price | $70 | $80 | $70 | $102 | $70 | $85 |
The only thing where the SolidRun offerings seem to have things going for them is the amount of RAM per core and the speed of the LAN connector in their Quads and deluxe dual models.