#104

[@invictus0x0]

gotta love the spaceballs reference ;-)

[@willynebula6193]

Blaine Hopkins totally agree😃

[@MickMake]

+Blaine Hopkins (invictus0x0) It had to be done. ;-)

[@noccy80]

Comb the desert!

[@AnthonyCook78]

May the schwartz be with you!

[@TanjoGalbi]

That has to be one of the best/funniest scenes in Spaceballs :)

[@zelra891]

well. I think I need to do some explanation on all these boards since I'm in China. basically, there's not many of people that care the low level hardware specification, not even knowing these. as a consumer, if I need to do calculation, I just need linux; if I need to have some fun, android is ok. so in most of the consumers side, it's a cheap board with a powerful chip, that's all most people care. in my world, this board is much cheaper than a RPi3 and slightly stronger. I do believe the manufactor do not get many authoriation from allwinner, just like the old days we don't have gpu driver for RPi. So basically, it's in a very easy war: to have a less price with stronger chip, that's all.

[@MickMake]

Yup. After spending some time there myself and getting to know the culture; it's all about short term goals. Anything that requires long term planning isn't thought about, because it's all about very quick turn-around times. It doesn't mean China doesn't want to, it's just that there's no time to do it.

[@PeterScargill]

Until it doesn't work...

[@billfusionenterprise]

it is difference between made in china and made by chinese

[@MaxPanic]

That component layout though... This is the Marty Feldman of SBCs.

[@MickMake]

+John Ioannou Yeah, it looks a little odd, but it's like that to ensure the RAM address and data lines are all the same length. When you're running at those fast clock rates, even track lengths can make a difference.

[@MickMake]

+John Ioannou Good old Marty Feldman!

[@erikvincent5846]

John Ioannou , that sbc has more crooked parts than an average politician

[@crimsun7186]

These other SBC guys have to get to their senses. A bunch of high performance parts on a single board a good computer does not make without software support.

[@electrodeyt3491]

Question, with external SPI ram is it possible to boot a version of Linux on the Teensy 3.6? uClinux doesn't require an MMU.

[@tekrat]

Have gone back and retried it recently? I know there's been a ton of OS update for Armbian and some updates to Android image.

[@MickMake]

I really need to do an update on all my SBCs. I think once the studio renovation is complete and I've had a break I'll get back into the SBC review updates.

[@gregsullivan7408]

Slightly OT: what's the piano music you use for the intro (and ending)?

[@MickMake]

+Greg Sullivan Hmmm. It's called "Buddy". Can't remember the writer, but will find out when in front of my Mac next.

[@PeterScargill]

I have the Plus 2e and the Pi2 in front of me. The former is working a treat (can't get to the serial port but I'll get there) but the Pi2... well, it booted up until I did update/upgrade (Armbian) now it won't even start - I'm about to try Debian...

[@MickMake]

+Peter Scargill Some of my subs have had issues with Orange Pi/FriendlyArm/Banana Pi in terms of QA. I've never had issues, but I suspect it's due to cherry picking boards for review. But it could also be some kernel issue in your case. Will be interesting to see what you discover.

[@PeterScargill]

Hi = Well = the FriendlyArm 64 bit boards tend to suffer from the same issues - they put them out and really are just not interested in supporting them - but their 32 bit products I have to say generally work quite well. I have most of them and have GPIO and I2c working perfectly. I first came across Orange Pi when the original came out - no support - the one email address they gave went into thin air - looks like things have not changed much. I'm giving this thing one more chance with what they call "Raspbian" - the HDMI doesn't work - but access via winSCP does. It really is amazing that someone can go to all the bother to design a board and get it made then lose interest in support.

[@MickMake]

+Peter Scargill It's a typical scenario; the hardware guys really have no interest and the wrong mindset for software and vice versa for the software guys. They are two distinct people that think very differently. The software guys are happy with many changes and alternations/changes in scope/trash and rewrite, while the hardware guys are very rigid/can't handle change/consider a PCB more a "work of art" that can't be touched. Add into the mix the marketing guys spouting forth stuff things the board can't do, and the finance guys just wanting to push the darn thing out the door; if the hardware guys don't have a backbone, then things go south very quickly.

[@PeterScargill]

Yes, I believe that just about sums it up. No doubt this is one reason the Raspberry Pi has done so much better than these other boards despite being pretty lacklustre (one UART etc).

[@PeterScargill]

You might like this, Mick.. this morning I got up and as I was deciding just how the P2 would meet it's death - drop off a cliff, under the foot... it occurred to me that the hardware would not be that different to one of my other H5 boards which works perfectly... and so I took the failed SD image and over-wrote it with an image of the other board. The result - and there is more to come but I'm off shopping - a perfectly working Orange Pi P2 complete with I2c display and all my usual toys - Node-Red, Grafana, Mosquitto, Apache, serial..... WAY too early to tell if there's a catch - more later today however... more here later.. tech.scargill.net/orange-pi-time/

[@ryda2l]

Hi Mick, really liking your reviews For future can you comment more details around what power supply including volts and amps you used for testing?

[@MickMake]

+ryda2l Yup, normally I do this, but I forgot to look at my testing checklist this time and so it didn't end up in the video.

[@ryda2l]

Would you recall what you have used for the Orange Pi PC 2?

[@eidgenossenarkebuse]

Best Spaceballs Reference, "i said across her nose, not up it!"

[@MickMake]

+eidgenossenarkebuse Ha ha!

[@aswingsharif6729]

Question is, what an android-base or windows-base decent handphone can't do which orange pi can ?

[@Tarbard]

I only watch the orange pi videos out of a morbid curiosity.

[@GeorgeOu]

What video capture are you using? It's much lower latency than my BlackMagic PCIe card.

[@MrBrymstond]

It all starts off with the infamous Allwinner Chip! Would you build a super computer with a i386?

[@pagiatis]

Very informative video, subscribed. What is the best Orange Pi board in your opinion in terms of development and overall working-out-the-box-ability?

[@sethrd999]

I am so glad id decided against using this one for a computer vision / opencv project. The main lean for me was only 1GB ram. I opted for the odroid-xu4 as it has everything where it counts. Great review as always detailing whats up with these things.

[@MickMake]

+Nigel Sollars Thanks mate. Yup 1G isn't much for a board with a fast SoC as this.

[@power-max]

People with OCD are going to HATE this board!

[@MickMake]

+Power Max I reckon so.

[@billfusionenterprise]

trying to fix cross talk issues the bizarre way

[@deviantaut]

I just made a sysbench. it's 10 times faster than a raspi3. doesn't mather which settings. Ubuntu server is running great with jdownloader and octoprint.

[@Robmanian]

Which Orange PI has the best CPU?

[@MickMake]

+-CLM17- The H3 based ones seem to be the best supported under Armbian.

[@aaronmicalowe]

3:11 David Blaine would have been proud of that disappearing trick :o)

[@MickMake]

He he. I've been trained.

[@stevensexton5801]

These boards are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. Thanks for labeling each of these candies so we have a half a change of finding the good ones.

[@MickMake]

+Steven Sexton No problem!

[@bluehornet6752]

Your wife is awesome! Here we are a year after this video was made, and I'm hoping things are better with the OP 2/OP 2E devices...because I just ordered one. Any updates on whether or not things are working better these days?

[@MickMake]

Thanks mate. She is a blessing putting up with me and my antics. Should do a follow up video on this one. Can’t believe this one was a year ago!

[@bluehornet6752]

My Orange Pi will be here tomorrow I think, so I'll give it a try and post back on how things are with Armbian now.

[@dennisblokland1938]

im actually quite happy with the board since armbian is still in the beta i expect alot more to come. and audio workt fine with me btw.

[@dennisblokland1938]

and you can enable i2c and spi by setting status to "okay" not enabled now it works fine for me

[@MickMake]

Thanks for the heads up. I think the board is OK as well, but I'd prefer more boards ahead of this. Once it gets some traction, (if it ever does), it'll be a screamer however.

[@dennisblokland1938]

MickMake agreed feature wise it's very good

[@billfusionenterprise]

first person to seam so, I did run into someone who was pushing it, but i wonder if he actually ran one

[@michaelecker448]

what about the ASUS "Pi"?

[@MickMake]

+LINUX-ISKY Yes, that's coming. I just need to find someone who'll sell it to me!

[@wierd0n3]

amazon sells them now Edit: HDMI likes to disconnect, HDMI audio is called "analog", and its software is a bit glitchy until you "apt-get dist-upgrade" this is just in the first 2 hours i had to play with it this weekend

[@electrodeyt3491]

wierd0n3 Might as well ask here: Unless I use a HDMI-DVI cable, my TV doesn't like the Video Signal my BBB spits out.

[@wierd0n3]

I'm assuming you mean a beagle bone black, i haven't played with one of those yet. however if you pour through some FAQs for it, you should be able to force a resolution that plays nice with your tv. (I have mostly RPi boards. this is my first time with a "clone" board)

[@electrodeyt3491]

wierd0n3 Nope not that. My TV doesn't like the type of video it outputs.

[@AndreasKoepkeAU]

I think I might stick to my RPis for now.

[@aarondcmedia9585]

This seems a good idea that I am also choosing. If they come out with a better board with enough support to swap over for a performance boost, the C (etc) code should migrate relatively easily.

[@ufohunter3688]

The forum support by itself is worth the price of a RPI. There was never an issue that I didn't find the answer to from the forum support. Thanks Guys! Sure its not the fastest, or the cheapest, but its as solid as a rock. I have my RPI2 dedicated to running BOINC and its being doing that 24/7 for the past 6 months (Retired it when I got the RPI3). Going 100% on all 4's with no cooling, it hasn't blinked. Can't wait for RPI4 !!

[@billfusionenterprise]

this board is why I hate term "pi-killer" , there is no substitute for the pi platform

[@fjdkfdfjdf33]

I've got the board running armbian which works really well. I am waiting on the heatsink to get it to run cooler though. Otherwise I like the board although my use is very limited. Just got it running an ssh and web server. There is a new kernel build every day so it seems that armbian is working on it daily. At first I thought the board was dead, but after trying various images and a good sd card, armbian does the job.

[@MickMake]

+Philip Jessup Yup it's getting there. Given enough time it'll be fantastic.

[@PeterScargill]

My armbian was fine until I tried doing an apti-get update and apt-get upgraded - after that and a reboot - it would not even start up.

[@necro_nemesis]

Layout similarities to Edvard Munch’s The Scream seem appropriate.

[@MickMake]

+Necro Nemesis Yeah, it does look like that. I'm not going to look at this board the same again.

[@jamesthomson7634]

That was the best intro yet.

[@MickMake]

+Atticus Finch I didn't think so many people would pick up on it. You're all spaceball fans! Never knew!

[@CraigFryer]

I almost ordered one of these today and then I thought I'll wait a little bit longer. Sort of glad I did. now I am really at a loss as to what to order.

[@MickMake]

+Craig Fryer What are you going to use it for?

[@lotsarats]

the paper on my desk keeps blowing away in the wind...

[@electrodeyt3491]

lotsarats Look up "PicoTux"

[@WereCatf]

I don't even have any 64-bit SBC yet, because they all, aside from the RPi3, seem to be in a similar more-or-less dysfunctional stage! Quite a shame.

[@MickMake]

+Nita Vesa Yup, quite true. The only decent 64bit SBCs are the x86 ones.

[@AnimalFacts]

Definitely gotta love the Spaceballs reference..... lol

[@MickMake]

+Animal Facts Yup!

[@Promilus1984]

So now 2 years later it seems it's getting at least kind of usable ;)

[@MickMake]

Yeah, getting that way. All with the hard work of OSS fans, NOT the company making the hardware.

[@DenwoodNOAA]

And the Oscar for best supporting actress goes to... Mrs. MickMate! Yay!!!!

[@harshilsaxenaa]

Should I buy it or not??????

[@MickMake]

It's still very experimental. If you like a bit of hacking around then go for it, but if you want something that works you will be disappointed.

[@harshilsaxenaa]

Any other board you prefer from orange pi or others??

[@MickMake]

harshil saxena It really depends on what you want to do with it. What's your project?

[@harshilsaxenaa]

We work in the field of penetration testing and analytics...I have a couple of raspberry pi's but I want to expand my collection which even I can further use

[@MickMake]

harshil saxena There's many many boards. Over 1,000. Some of the smaller boards, even the Orange Pi Zero has some fairly decent network speeds.

[@briancrane7634]

Very nice indeed! All the facts and only a bit of fluff (I really enjoyed the Spaceballs skit). Very nice presentation style also. Many thanks!

[@MickMake]

+Brian Crane Thanks! Great you enjoyed it.

[@leozendo3500]

the android you are Using is for Android TV only, and the languange is Chinese, it was asking you to update

[@MickMake]

+wzd leo Thanks for that. Was wondering what the heck I had on there.

[@awhite2600]

You can switch the language to English. You just have to navigate through the settings in Chinese first. In fact, I'm typing this comment from an OPI PC2 running Android - in English.

[@riaandewinnaar5040]

Works well with chrome and youtube

[@TableWolfMusic]

I suppose such hot boards are for people who live in the artic/antartic because they heat themselves up to an operational temperature, whereas a normal board wouldn't cold-start. ;p

[@ethandoesit4209]

i love the spaceballs reference lol. but thank you for making all these videos about the orange pi and all other SBCs, cause im new into them for retro gaming and i wanna try something beter than the pi zero but also something other than the raspberry pis out there. been a sub for a bit and keep it up man

[@MickMake]

Thanks mate! It’s a great time to be around. So many retro games that are playable on cheap hardware.

[@erikvincent5846]

We call it, Mr. Coffee

[@MickMake]

+Erik Vincent It is a classic movie.

[@xgamer]

i think eventualy this is a going to be a good board once the armbian team work on it

[@MickMake]

My thoughts exactly. Give it time. The hex-core GPU is a screamer! If only Allwinner would help out and stop this driver blob situation.

[@billfusionenterprise]

I think they probably help someone else out first, tooooo many things wrong on the orange

[@MaxContagion]

thanks for getting her on here. your "twins" were funny. it is nice to see other in the skits though. i liked that skit too.

[@fouzaialaa7962]

love your videos mate !!

[@MickMake]

+fouzai alaa Thanks mate.

[@jameslamb4573]

Who's on first?

[@MickMake]

+James Lamb That's right! ;-)

[@altamiradorable]

What's on second ?

[@stefanschmidt5186]

I see a spaceball reference i press like. I am a simple man

[@MickMake]

+Steve Smith Ha ha!

[@greenanubis]

Its a shame that there is no better support....

[@lotsarats]

would be awesome if they can finish up on their mainline support for the H4 this one looks grim tho

[@MickMake]

The H4 has a lot of advantages, but if Allwinner don't get their finger out and provide some decent support, it'll never be used. I just don't understand it, really.

[@leighgray8537]

Spaceball quotes, love it :)

[@november87]

Great video bro!

[@MickMake]

Thanks.

[@RichardT2112]

"There are some issues" understatement of the day :)

[@MickMake]

+Richard T He he. Just a few.

[@billfusionenterprise]

I love the fact that one of the distros is banana pi os

[@billfusionenterprise]

screen shot at 4:12 says it all

[@jessehobart2899]

come on, take the couple minutes to figure out how to change the language to english on the android os

[@CecilMerrell]

+1 for spaceballs

[@kk4pqr]

spaceballs, awesome!

[@avejst]

Thank you for trying. Good job, :-)

[@MickMake]

+Asger Vestbjerg Thanks mate.

[@browaruspierogus2182]

I have this board and maybe will try Windows IOT OS

[@eyesofnova]

man.. This and the Orange Pi Zero have the same lack of development. Are they even trying?

[@MickMake]

+EyesofNova Apparently not! They are actually superior boards to the Pi, but just goes to show what lack of support does to a product.

[@xavnarutom5122]

“Brand spanking new” yes u need a spanking

[@ToasterWithFur]

nice esteregg with spaceballs (;

[@MickMake]

+Der Nerd Yup, the idea has been sitting around for a while.

[@riaandewinnaar5040]

Dude, the Android rom works fairly well. And you can easily change the language to ENGLISH

[@wilyartihoward2071]

Woops! Too late just bought it! Hehe oh well I will put it on the shelf next to my Pinebook....

[@MickMake]

Really need to do an update on this SBC.

[@JusstyteN]

where are you from? you talk almost like explainingcomputers channel

[@MickMake]

+JusstyteN I'm from down under. An Ozzie. We tend to speak a little like pommies. No surprise as we are a convict settlement. ;-)

[@timrichter1980]

As a german, it sounds to me somewhere between american and british english. In a good manner :) Some australians seem to speak more like the american way of english. Don't know if it's my ears or something, really scratching my head

[@markmyers7426]

This board runs Android 5.1 flawlessly. You can't say that for Raspberry Pi3. In a couple more months when the community support matures, this little board will be an excellent device...all for a $20 bill!

[@bucshee]

What image are you running? The official image? I've tested that and it runs far from flawlessly (no Play Store, a bit unstable, no power off option and limited drivers).

[@markmyers7426]

bucshee , I am using an image from the Russian 4pda OPI PC2 page. Playstore and root with a better lancher. There is also a new official image in the orange forms that has gapps but it is not rooted. Some apps are not compatible but I havent bothered to install market helper, i just sideload. Runs everyting I tried so far smooth as silk, Kodi, KZbin, full hardware acelleration.

[@markmyers7426]

power off is with the power off button on the board. When it turns from red to green, I unplug.

[@bucshee]

Max Meyers Cool. I'm going to give those images a go. And about powering off...well yeah you can hit the switch and unplug. What about actual shutdown (ie from the GUI)?

[@bucshee]

Do you have a download link for the image? The forum is in Russian :D

[@WhiteWulfe]

Ahhhh, ha ha ha ha ha the Spaceballs reference is epic! And wow, that's a lot of faults for a board o_O

[@MickMake]

+White Wulfe Yup, so many spaceballs fans! Didn't realise there'd be so many.

[@blogtodeath4736]

Thanks Mick, great video as always. Your pain is our salvation! Keep up the great quaility of work.

[@MickMake]

+aR Bemo (aRBemo) Thanks mate.

[@TheWeepingCorpse]

64 bit cpu ok but still only outdated open gl es 2.0 :(

[@MickMake]

Sadly yes.

[@gendolookin]

Spaceballs FTW

[@digitalsparky]

Yay for spaceballs quote :p, may the Schwartz be with you.

[@RichardT2112]

One thing I do not understand is why people just don't deal with the RPi ... given the enormous support for it and stable releases (as compared to these hacks) I can't see a single reason to move away from the RPi. Sure, there may be some slight proposed benefits of these boards vs RPi (like speed), but nothing I can't do via a I2C and a module or two ... The headache just doesn't seem worth it for some speed gains, unless you are doing speed specific tasks. My $0.02 CND

[@MickMake]

+Richard T Yup, I agree. However, for me personally, I don't like monopolies, even if they're an education based monopoly. Monopolies reduce choice. I know that the rules aren't the same in the case of the Pi and we actually do need monopolies every so often to motivate standardisation. But I'm always adverse to them. Also there's some things that the Pi can't do well and the niche market is where these other boards get some traction.

[@RichardT2112]

MickMake Good point - I am just quite jaded that the support for these boards has been abysmal....

[@MickMake]

Richard T yup it is bad. The Pi was as well in the early stages and they've had years to hone their business.

[@billfusionenterprise]

pick on apple first, there was another mac maker back in the 90's, but with the pi i would say the comment was off base due to the reason why the pi was made in the first place and number 2 there is no monopoly by raspberry pi on the SBC market by no means, just by the numbers of other boards out there which are good and got some support, there is base is smaller due to being younger but is growing

[@aaronmicalowe]

Sometimes SBCs made by competitors have features that RPi don't, which is good for everyone, cause then Raspberry need to introduce those features to avoid losing customers. Features like Bluetooth, Wifi, HDMI output etc that some early boards didn't have.

[@BastienAuxer]

Spaceballs for the win!!!

[@qzorn4440]

spaceballs.

[@soldermaster4737]

At least you got your Orange Pi PC2 to boot. I have two of these from AliExpress.com and neither one seem to work right. I get no lite LED's on the Orange Pi WEB Site images. Nothing!!! No lite LED's, nothing. The Orange Pi forum talks about this issue with no solutions. I tried to get my money back from AliExpress.com but all they do is ask basic power supply, etc. questions. They did give me one image that worked once, at 720 resolution, but once I updated the image it would not boot. Even ARBian images do not work. AliExpress.com is no help. I even thought about sending you these two boards and see if you can make them work. These PCB's are just plain bad.

[@MickMake]

+Solder Master Sounds like they had a bad batch of boards. I didn't put this in the video, but power is critical as well as the right SD card. I went out and bought a bunch of new fast SDs.

[@electrodeyt3491]

MickMake I run my BBB on 0.5 Amps!

[@axlcastellanoskuwae6733]

Excelent video!

[@ThorstenSkinnie]

Spaceballs..

[@MickMake]

+Thorsten Schütz Amazing how many spaceballs fans there are

[@wallacebrown6798]

I bought one of these as well as an Orange Pi Zero.... These boards are absolute crap from a quality control perspective. Thanks for reviewing. I wish I had seen your video before I spent money on these sub standard products that promise a lot but deliver very little.

[@MickMake]

+Wallace Brown Thanks mate. Yup they are a little dubious, but I quite like them. Power for size is pretty decent.

[@MrPitki]

Thanks for saving me money. I almost bought it

[@MrEndzo]

You deserve a like NOW.

[@MickMake]

Thanks.

[@jonastreschanke5859]

taxation is theft

[@MickMake]

Jonas Treschanke Didn't realise it was.

[@ddbhaha1529]

I have one of these orangepipc boards, and I do not recommend it due to lack of any support nor user community developments.... You are alone on this one. Armbian is pretty much the only thing that is running decent on it, but that is it.

[@soldermaster4737]

I have a Orange Pi PC, it boots on several operating system but the on board ethernet does not work. Just connecting power and nothing else causes both ethernet LED's to light up 100% of the time. Hence, something is wrong with the PCB.

[@MickMake]

That's interesting. Is it the older Pi PC?

[@soldermaster4737]

Yes, it's a Orange Pi PC that was made before he newer PC2. It uses a different CPU but it looks about the same, except for the fact that he memory chips and CPU are not on an angle.

[@DoRC]

Space balls!

[@williamhart4896]

way too many gremlins to be worth buying it

[@harpskid]

Okay get ready to scream at your screen because I'm about to noob the comments hardcore. I'm brand new to these kind of gadgets, I mean BRAND NEW. To make matters worse, I don't have the most experience with linux. (I played a little bit of playing with ubuntu in 12.04 a few years back) Would you recommend this product for a 17 year old who just wants to mess around with a cheap little device? Here are my goals 1. Potentially get early 2000s pc games to run on it (Nox, unreal tounament, etc) If those expectations are too high I'd be pretty happy getting ps1 games to run on it. 2. Overclock the system to its voltage limit with a super ghetto cooling setup 3. Make a little portable laptop thingy out of it using 18650 batteries to power it and one of those cheap little china screens to display. Doable? Alternate device suggestions under $35? Do I even have a chance at accomplishing anything at my skill level?

[@MrDeicide1]

Mick, why is your mom snooping around your basement?

[@MickMake]

That's a worry, I don't really have a basement.

[@MrDeicide1]

Blimey ! Then you're not really Mick, are u ?

[@nullptr4042]

Your channel is great, but honestly, your logo is very old school consider polishing it :)

[@MickMake]

+John Doe Thanks mate. I'm always open to suggestions for changes. What did you have in mind?

[@igrewold]

Great review man, thanks a lot. Don't miss this U3 uSD card: v.ht/mixza

[@deveshtomar5102]

77

[@VauxhallViva1975]

Ugly chip placement - yuk. :( Looks like they took all the parts and literally threw them at the board, then designed around where they fell.

[@MickMake]

+VauxhallViva1975 It does look ugly, but a good way to optimize placement of components. Ultimately it'll still run well.

[@delpilargabriel9]

hahahaha...spaceball joke fan...

[@MickMake]

+gabriel delpilar Yes indeedy.

[@arckmarou]

First

[@MickMake]

Nice one!