Now that we looked at some of the details about each board, optimal uses of each board can be determined.

Although the UNO is the most popular board, all boards have excellent support through online forums thanks to the common architecture and the use of a common language and IDE. This means that you are unlikely to fall into device-specific traps that could prevent a piece of code from working because of hardware configurations or inherent bugs.

Arduino code can be easily transferred to different boards with virtually no changes which is highly beneficial to any designers wanting to change their mind about what board their project will use.

The deciding factor each project will use comes down to two basic things: hardware and cost. While the cost aspect of each Arduino is obvious (the lowest cost option is always the preference), the hardware may not be so easy to determine. When looking at hardware the following should be considered:

Physical dimensions



CPU power



Memory size



I/O capabilities



On-board peripherals



Weight



Connectivity



When it comes to physical dimensions the Arduino Nano is the smallest and is a very portable device. The UNO is a medium sized development board but is still small enough to be mounted to many projects including remote-controlled devices such as RC cars and boats. The Mega and Due are much larger boards which makes them difficult to use in space restricted applications.

If a project requires high processing power, the Due comes out on top with its powerful ARM core and large RAM/ROM. While the Mega is a large Arduino with plenty of GPIO, its CPU speed is still the same as that found on the UNO and Nano (same Mega family) and so there is no speed advantage to using the Mega.

The UNO and Nano use the same processor which means that in terms of hardware and peripherals the UNO and Nano are identical. If a project requires plenty of GPIO, the Due and Mega are the obvious choices. An application that does not require a strong CPU but needs plenty of GPIO will do well with the Mega.

Analog projects can be done with all the Arduino boards, but the Due stands out with 12 analog inputs and 2 analog outputs.