Single Board Computers

Many SBCs are now available, with lots of their specifications and applications having been covered on the ExplainingComputers YouTube channel Listed below are just some of the SBCs available today. Enjoy!

Single board computers (SBCs), such as the, are small computing devices that can be used for a variety of purposes that include experimentation, learning how to program, building a media player or NAS drive, robotics and home automation , and performing computing tasks such as web browsing or word processing. SBCs are also increasingly used for a wide range of industrial applications in areas that include robotics and the Internet of things (IoT).

The Raspberry Pi 4B The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B from the Raspberry Pi Foundation is the latest incarnation of the world's most popular and most highly supported SBC. It comes with 2, 4 or 8GB or RAM, dual 4K micro HDMI ports, gigabit Ethernet and two USB 3.0 ports. If you want to get into SBCs, then this remains the best place to start. You can watch my review of the Raspberry Pi 4B here: here.

The Raspberry Pi 3A+ The Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ from the Raspberry Pi Foundation is a cut-down version of the Raspberry Pi 3 B+, with a thinner and smaller form factor, 512MB rather than 1GB of RAM, fewer USB ports, and no Ethernet socket. A great board for IoT projects. You can watch my review of the Raspberry Pi 3 A+ here.

The Raspberry Zero W The Raspberry Pi Zero W from the Raspberry Pi Foundation is the latest version of the Pi Zero, with the "W" part indicating that it has onboard WiFi and Bluetooth. Hurrah! You can watch my review of the Raspberry Zero W here.

The Odyssey X86J4105 The Odyssey X86J4105 from Seeed Studio is one of the best SBCs with an x86 (as opposed to ARM) processor. The board has 8GB of RAM, a quad core Celeron CPU, an onboard eMMC option, a SATA port, and M.2 slots that can take SATA and NVMe SSDs, as well as a cellular module. You can watch my review of the Odyssey X86J4105 here: here.

The Odroid C4 The Odroid C4 from Hardkernel is a Raspberry Pi 4 competitor with 4GB of RAM, and which features a connector for an eMMC storage module from which the operating system can be booted. You can watch my review of the Odroid C4 here: here.

The Raspberry Pi 3B+ The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ from the Raspberry Pi Foundation has in some respects been replaced by the more recently launched Raspberry Pi 4 Model B as above. However, the Pi 3B+ remains a better choice for some applications due to the cooling solutions that need to be fitted to a Pi 4B in many instances. You can watch my review of the Raspberry Pi 3B+ here: here.

The Rock Pi 4B The Rock Pi 4B from the RADXA is an RK3399-based SBC with two USB 3.0 ports and an M.2 slot for an NVMe SSD up to 2TB capacity. The Rock Pi 4B is available with 1GB, 2GB or 4GB of RAM, and has a Raspberry Pi form-factor. You can watch my review of the Rock Pi 4B here.

The LattePanda The LattePanda from DFRobot is a Atom-based x86 SBC that runs a full, standard version of Windows 10 (32 or 64 bit editions) You can watch my review of the LattePanda here.

The Tinker Board The Tinker Board from Asus is a more expensive and more powerful SBC than a Raspberry Pi 3, if based on the same form-factor. It does, however, currently enjoy far less software and wider support than the Raspberry Pi. You can watch my review of the Tinker Board here.

The LattePanda Alpha The LattePanda Alpha is a high-end, x86 based single board computer from DFRobot that comes with 8GB of RAM, 64GB of eMMC flash storage, and two M.2 slots, one of which can take an NVMe or SATA SSD. There's also an integrated Arduino microcontroller. You can watch my review of the LattePanda Alpha here.

The LattePanda Delta Similar to the LattePanda Alpha, the LattePanda Delta is an x86 based single board computer from DFRobot. Howevever, it has a lower specification, which allows it to sell for a much lower price. Most notably, the LattePanda Delta has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard flash storage. Like the Alpha, it also has two M.2 slots and an integrated Arduino microcontroller. You can watch my review of the LattePanda Alpha here.

The NVIDIA Jetson Nano The Jetson Nano from NVIDIA is a quad core ARM SoM (system on a module) with a 128 CUDA core GPU. It is primarily intended for AI appplications, and comes with 4GB of RAM and four USB 3.0 slots. You can watch my review of the Jetson Nano here.

The ODROID N2 The Odroid N2 from Hardkernel is a hexa core ARM-based single board computer which works very well as a media player (running Core ELEC), or Linux distros including Ubuntu MATE and Manjaro. The only real downside is the lack of onboard WiFi or Bluetooth. You can watch my review of the Odroid N2 here.

The Atomic Pi The Atomic Pi from Digital Loggers is an SBC with an Intel Atom x86 CPU, 2GB of RAM, and one USB 3.0 port. It was produce as the control board for an abandoned domestic robot called Kuri, but rebranded as the Atomic Pi. You can watch my review of the Atomic Pi here.

The Khadas VIM3 The Khadas VIM3 is an ARM-based SBC with onboard flash storage, and an M.2 slot that supports an NVMe SSD. It comes with Android pre-installed, making it a great out-of-the-box 4K media player. The VIM3 is also equipped with an NPU (neural processing unit), allowing it to be used for vision recognition and other applications that rely on neural network inference. You can watch my review of the VIM3 here.

The NanoPi M4 The NanoPi M4 from Friendy Elec is an SBC with the same form factor as a Raspberry Pi 3, but with a hexa core processor and four USB 3.0 ports. You can watch my review of the NanoPi M4 here.

The NanoPi NEO4 The NanoPi NEO4 from Friendy Elec is tiny SBC with a powerful RK3399 (hexa core) SoC. You can watch my review of the NanoPi M4 here.

The Edge-V The Edge-V from Khadas is an excellent SBC based on an RK3399 system on a chip (SoC). It comes with Android pre-installed on eMMC flash storage, is great for 4K (2160p) video playback, and can be purchased with 2 or 4GB of RAM, in addition to different eMMC storage options. You can watch my review of the VIM2 here.

The VIM2 The VIM2 from Khadas is a range of 64-bit, octa core SBCs that come with Android pre-installed on eMMC flash storage, and which have the ability to dual boot. You can watch my review of the VIM2 here.

The ROCKPro64 The ROCKPro64 is one of a range of single board computers from Pine64. The board has a hexa core CPU, comes with 2GB or 4GB of RAM, has a USB 3.0 port and a USB-C port, an eMMC socket, three camera connectors, and supports 4K output. And in addition, the ROCKPro64 has an open-ended PCIe x4 slot that can accomodate peripherals including a two port SATA adapter, and an M.2 NMVe drive adapter. You can watch my review of the ROCK64 here.

The UDOO x86 Advanced Plus The UDOO x86 Advanced Plus is one of a range of four x86 64 bit single board computers from UDOO. The boards can run Linux distros and Windows 10, which can be installed on an SSD or HDD connected via their SATA port, on an M.2 SATA drive, on onboard eMMC flash, or on a micro SD card. You can watch my review of the UDOO x86 Advanced Plus here.

The ODROID-XU4 The ODROID-XU4 is one of a range of single board computers from Hardkernel. The board has eight processor cores, 2GB of RAM, and can boot from either a micro SD card or an eMMC module. You can watch my review of the ODROID-XU4 here.

The ROCK64 The ROCK64 is one of a range of single board computers from Pine64. The board has a quad core, 64 bit CPU, comes with 1GB, 2GB or 4GB of RAM, has a USB 3.0 port, eMMC socket, supports 4K output, but sadly has no onboard WiFi or Bluetooth. You can watch my review of the ROCK64 here.

The Banana Pro The Banana Pro from LeMaker is a SBC that benefits from having a SATA port, so allowing the high-speed connection of SSDs and HDDs. You can watch my review of the Banana Pro here.

The LeMaker Guitar The LeMaker Guitar from the LeMaker is a two-part SBC that allows a range of update and application possibilities . You can watch my review of the LeMaker Guitar here.

The Orange Pi 3 The Orange Pi 3 is one of a wide range of low-cost Raspberry Pi clones from the Shenzhen Xunlong Software Co. While the hardware offers great value, it does suffer from limited software and community support. You can watch my review of the Orange Pi 3 here.

The Orange Pi PC The Orange Pi PC is one of a wide range of low-cost Raspberry Pi clones from the Shenzhen Xunlong Software Co. While the hardware offers great value, it does suffer from limited software and community support. You can watch my review of the Orange Pi PC here.