Hordes spaff cash on Chip titchyputer to rival Pi (maybe) The success of the Raspberry Pi has spawned a cottage industry of imitators, but the budget hobbyist computer's $35 price tag is looking downright expensive compared to the latest arrival – the $9 Chip bare-bones computer. Chip promo vid The Chip comes with an Allwinner A13 ARM-based 1GHz processor, 512MB of DDR3 RAM and 4GB …
I mean there's lots of single board Linux computers, but having a portable Linux computer with a kinda decent keyboard and screen running Debian is something the world actually needs badly. Add the possibility to stick in an LTE stick and you've got probably the most exciting mobile device on the market.
"a portable Linux computer with a kinda decent keyboard and screen running Debian is something the world actually needs badly"
That's the part that caught my attention too. Colour me stupid for not being able to shape cheap android tablets to my needs and wants - but Keyboard + Debian + Screen and I'm in.
I'm not so sure. One can get Android mobes shipped from China for $40 which have specs not entirely dissimilar to the $75 version of Pocket Chip. It seems to me they're taking a landfill Android and selling it to you in installments. The baseboard, video, screen....and still no LTE chip.
You beat me to the punch because just days ago I inherited a useless 4.3" tablet with no LCD because the LCD went to repair the other useless 4.3" tablet that had more flash. SBC was my best idea for doing something fun with the 2.75x2.25x0.25" board which has specs *very* much like the Chip (A13, 512MB, 4GB, a/b/g, others). I can grab a whole new one for $50, probably less (of course then I get the screen too which I found for $12 with unknown s&h from China) so the Chip by itself seems a sweet deal for hackers who aren't quite as much into recycling and re-purposing. Too bad about the ongoing GPL thing... it has some real potential and some footgun potential.
Also, srsly Chip? Is that going to come right up on page 1 in Google? Is that trademark even registrable? I would at least misspell it a little...
I have to wonder how large the intersection of "Folks who like to solder random electronics to GPIO pins" and "Folks who are fine with systemd and Gnome" is. I have a big enough backlog to wait until it ships and see what reality is like. It's not like doubling the price would be a deal breaker.
"Lima or liar?"
That might actually matter were it not for the fact that the English translation of the "totally open source" bit is "we really intend to make it open source at some point in the future, honest! Please stop bugging us about any information until then!". Also, the fact that the "$9 computer" is actually $29 shipped and the crew is apparently intentionally ignoring the 10001 "at least let me buy several of them at once with that kind of shipping charge" cries does not bode well.
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"What is the real point of bringing the price down to such a level that something inevitably has to be compromised?
Unless you are aiming at the developing world, $75-100 is an affordable price for a DECENT single board machine, as long as it ships with open, or at least documented, hardware."
Or maybe you want to dabble in the "Internet of Things" (or use some as offline controllers if you prefer not to be connected). If you're distributing a bunch of sensors around the house, or want to build a networked toaster (well, someone might want to!) then $9 is closer to a reasonable price for each controller than $75-100.
If you're distributing a bunch of sensors around the house, or want to build a networked toaster (well, someone might want to!) then $9 is closer to a reasonable price for each controller than $75-100.
Exactly what I was thinking.
I have had a big HA project in mind for a while now. The problem I always hit is cost. If you are deploying 10 units, even the RPi starts to look expensive. I know I can do the job with lower cost uCs, but then you hit the snag of connectivity, and adding it brings up the cost again.
$9 each with built in wifi and BT, and it becomes a worthwhile project.
If it's for IoT style things, the domino.io board looks better: http://domino.io/ and https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/706167548/dominoio-an-open-hardware-wifi-platform-for-things/
Lower power consumption, more gpio, really open source afaik, likely to ship in the next few weeks rather than in a year, ...
I was considering a Raspberry Pi for the job of hammering torrent users on my network, but this looks way better. I administer a wireless network in a large rooming house (90 users). Presently I use a cheap computer to monitor network traffic for torrents and redirect that traffic and any subsequent traffic to 127.0.0.1., forcing the offender to come to the office to get de-listed from my ban-hammer. Its for our protection as we are a small internet provider.
The $9 version only gives you composite video out (fine for anything headless...), but VGA and HDMI outputs are $10 & $15 extra respectively. And shipping to the UK is $20. So that's $44 for the HDMI version to my door, which (once you've added import charges) is around £40.
(This post from the my-specific-use-case-is-not-being-catered-for department)
True, this is better suited for Americans given the location. You'd be better off looking for an earlier Pi which will likely be locally sourced.
I took a look and it seems comparable in CPU/GPU specs to the Pi-B, which I personally found to be a bit underpowered as a media player client, especially at high resolutions (the B I used tended to keep crashing).
Chips?
Looks good from the onset and as an owner of two generations of Pi, this would certainly be added to my little collection
The deal maker here are the built in WiFi and forthcoming "Pocket Chip" add on, something the Raspberry needed in my opinion, a small but functional keyboard and monitor combo, no ribbon cables, USB, HDMI connections needed, an all-in-one add on to get it going anywhere.. come November when the "Pocket Chip" is scheduled for release..
Sure the VGA and HDMI interfaces are optional, but it's a small price to pay..
It seems that these "hipsters" have thought things out, this seems to tick all the boxes in regards to power options, portability and power (LiPo battery option)
This claim seems somewhat unlikely considering it's based on AllWinner hardware - just Google for "AllWinner GPL Violations" to see what kind of attitude AllWinner have towards "open source".
Anyone that ships AllWinner hardware and releases software is, by definition, going to be in breach of the GPL too as AllWinner deliver binary blobs to their hardware customers, so it's impossible to release "all software" and be GPL compliant.
I'm aware of hardware companies that have had to move their projects away from AllWinner (to Amlogic, Freescale, HiSilicon etc.) just to avoid the GPL stench that pervades AllWinner.
Well extrapolating current trends, I'd say that in a year this will be considered magical alien technology from the past, particularly the "Pocket Chip". If current trends prevail, mobile devices will probably turn into something like multi-channel interactive TVs, devices which throw ads at you, intermingled with a bit of information or entertainment.
Or of course the mobile world gets into a stasis where nothing changes any more... which is actually likely since we already have mostly identical devices.
For the record, there are different models of MK802, and the earlier ones used the infamous Allwinner A10 (newer models use Rockchips, which appear to be more open). The model IV looks pretty potent with a quad-core CPU and Android 4.2 onboard (there's a variant model IIRC that can run Ubuntu or a variant thereof).
With chip suppliers like Allwinner you traditionally don't get documentation. Maybe you get a reference design if you're lucky (e.g. you are buying in serious volume).
Six months later your chip goes obsolete and the next generation comes along, newer, shinier, and (obviously) not quite compatible in hardware or software terms.
Do either of those matter much in the alleged target market? I'd have said yes to both, but what do I know.
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