A few months ago I was browsing AliExpress, when I stumbled upon a product called OrangePi.I searched the internet for information about it, and I immediately discovered its official website, which is www.orangepi.org (there also exists www.orangepi.com but it looks to be the website of a UK vendor of the same boards).
Well, what is an OrangePi? Of course, the name recalls the most famous SBC (single board computer) ever, the RaspberryPi, and this is not a coincidence, as the OrangePi is a chinese SBC, clearly inspired by the Raspberry.
As of now, there are 7 different Orange Pi models (ranging from "Mini" to "Plus 2"). The most interesting in my opinion is the "OrangePi PC". Why? For its aggressive price of only $15 plus shipping!
The hardware of this board is interesting:
CPU:So, as you can see, we basically have a quad core ARM CPU, with 1GB of RAM, 3 USB ports, and a fair graphics card.
H3 Quad-core Cortex-A7 H.265/HEVC 4K
GPU:
·Mali400MP2 GPU @600MHz
·Supports OpenGL ES 2.0
Memory (SDRAM): 1GB DDR3 (shared with GPU)
Onboard Storage: TF card (Max. 64GB) / MMC card slot
Onboard Network: 10/100M Ethernet RJ45
Video Input:
A CSI input connector Camera:
·Supports 8-bit YUV422 CMOS sensor interface
·Supports CCIR656 protocol for NTSC and PAL
·Supports SM pixel camera sensor
·Supports video capture solution up to 1080p@30fps
Audio Input: MIC
Video Outputs:
·Supports HDMI output with HDCP
·Supports HDMI CEC
·Supports HDMI 30 function
·Integrated CVBS
Supports simultaneous output of HDMI and CVBS
Audio Output: 3.5 mm Jack and HDMI
Power Source: DC input
USB 2.0 Ports: Three USB 2.0 HOST, one USB 2.0 OTG
Low-level peripherals:
·40 Pins Header,compatible with Raspberry Pi B+
·GPIO(1x3) pin
·UART, ground.
What it lacks (other Orange Pi models have this and/or that) are onboard wifi, a gigabit ethernet port and eMMC, but of course we can't have everything at this price.
I've ordered the Orange Pi PC on Aliexpress, from the official manufacturer, and 3 weeks later I received a neat package containing the board, a usb power cable and a not-too-sturdy transparent plastic case. All this for less than $25 including shipping!
I've been using it for a couple of weeks and... what can I say?
The board could be very interesting if only the community behind it was bigger and more active. It definitely can't compare to the Raspberry Pi community as of yet.
The support from the manufacturer could be better, as the images of operating systems they provide are old and faulty, and the claim that Raspberry Pi images can be used for this board(s) is absolutely misleading since RasPi images are not compatible at all.
Luckily there is a member of the community, called loboris, who is very active and has released many OSes to be used on these boards, among which Debian, Fedora, Slackware, Arch Linux and others.
I'm currently running his build of Ubuntu MATE 14.04 and I have to say he has done a great work: it's easy to install, and apart from a few glitches here and there, it works very well.
My original intention was to use this board as a very low cost syncthing server/node, and that's exactly what I did.
After installing the aforementioned Ubuntu MATE, I've downloaded the latest ARM version of syncthing and installed it on the OrangePi PC.
(For those who don't know what it is, syncthing is an open source alternative to BTSync or -basically- a completely self-hosted Dropbox alternative).
It works great, it's very fast, and for the money I've spent I'm very satisfied, considering that I was also able to "redirect" the Raspberry Pi 1 model B I was using for this task to something more useful (a squeezebox player, actually).
Unfortunately, Linux does not have the proper drivers to take advantage of the GPU hardware acceleration, therefore using this board as an XBMC/Kodi mini HTPC is not a good idea (yet). Some people are working on it, and I really hope they succeed, because a $15 Kodi machine with the ability to render HD video would be HUGE!
At the moment, the only way to take advantage of the GPU is by installing Android, although the image provided is buggy and not very reliable.
Still, if you like to fiddle with new hardware and explore new possibilities, you might want to give it a chance.
In my opinion the OrangePi PC is a nice product, which lacks the necessary support from the manufacturer, who looks too busy releasing new boards instead of developing a good OS for the boards they have already sold.
The community is growing, but the official forum must be hosted on a very old server, since it's so sloooooow. I hope they will at least upgrade this.
Still, for $15 this board is a steal. I would definitely buy it again, although I would still limit its use to simple tasks. If you have complex projects in mind, you can't beat the Raspberry Pi world and community, and the price difference is not that big.
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