WEBVTT

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the launch of the Raspberry Pi started a chain reaction of

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innovation and today it offers more functionality than ever before for next

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to nothing you can play old games build

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a media center block Internet advertising on your network build up

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your own digital camera learn to program remotely access your PC even replace

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your computer alt together but there's one small problem it's been almost

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impossible to buy a Raspberry Pi 4 at MSRP for three years and while the

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Raspberry Pi Foundation assures us it should get better in six months we've

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heard that before luckily for us and anyone else with cool project Envy the

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success of the Raspberry Pi has inspired an entire Bakery of CopyCat ARM-based

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single board computers or sbcs there's your banana pie your orange pie your

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rock pie the potato who is running this

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Bakery anyway the names aren't important what is important is that some of the

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raspberry pies competitors are so cool that the original name brand one may not

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be your best option anyway so whether you're looking for a dropin replacement

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something that's more performant or even if you want to save a buck I think we're

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going to have something to Pike your interest okay that was a labored joke

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off before we can explore Alternatives it's worth doing a brief overview of the

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latest name brand SBC the Raspberry Pi 4

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model B it packs a quad core ARM processor s so up to 8 gigs of memory

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flexible high-speed I/O and support for up to two 4K displays and it does all of

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this without betraying the Raspberry Pi foundation's mission of democratizing

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Technology by making computers affordable to everyone it starts at just

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$35 of course Hardware is nothing without software but the Raspberry Pi

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Foundation has got you covered there to with raspberry pios it's based on debb

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and Linux and comes bundled with a web browser development tools some

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educational software and a user-friendly package manager for installing

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additional programs most importantly it's open- source and free this has led

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to the proliferation of specialized versions of Raspberry Pi OS like Libra

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for example is designed for Media Center use while retro Pi is all about game

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emulation and it's also enabled the manufacturers of other pies as we'll be

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calling them to quickly Roll Out versions of Raspberry Pi OS for their

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own Hardware let's look at our first Alternatives The dropin Replacements at

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$55 the banana P M5 starts off strong up

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upgrading all of the onboard USB ports to USB 3 it has a similar amount of

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processing power on tap and adds an IR receiver and 16 gigs of onboard storage

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as an alternative to the micro SD slot unfortunately it trades away the

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Raspberry Pi's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth along with its dual display outputs but at

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least its single HDMI port is full size

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and still capable of 4K 60 HZ output also at $55 the ooid C4 includes the

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same four USB 3 ports receiver and

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full-sized HDMI port capable of 4K 60 it

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doesn't have onboard storage but it does have a connector on the bottom for an

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emmc module should you wish to add your own like the M5 Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

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capabilities are not included but it has a slight Edge and CPU performance over

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the banana thanks to its higher clock speeds and included passive CPU Cooler

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the single micro USB port on the board is for

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usbg making the C4 one of the few models we tested that cannot get power via a

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USB connector instead it uses a DC Barrel Jack that

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can take anywhere from 5.5 to 12 volts DC worth noting is that the ooid is the

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only non- raspberry flavored Hardware that's officially supported by retropie

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while neither of our drop in Alternatives managed to hit the

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impressive $35 starting price of the Raspberry Pi 4 model B given that those

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are only available through scalpers for over $100 I consider 55 a win here or at

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least I would if I didn't know that I could go even lower at just

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$30 Li potato from Libra Computing is

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almost cheaper than actual pie like the

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M5 and the C4 that we just discussed it uses high efficiency ARM cores but

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unlike those ones they're an older design and can't run clock speeds higher

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to compensate hence the name this model is actually from 2017 which is why it

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feels a little last gen four USB ports is good USB 2.0 not so good Ethernet is

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good 100 megabit Ethernet not so good

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you get the idea it also uses micro USB instead of USBC for power and DDR 3

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memory in whatever capacity you want as long as it's 2 GB lip potato was meant

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to take on the Raspberry Pi 3 so it's not surprising that it doesn't quite

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stack up against the pi 4 but still it does bring some interesting features to

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the table an IR receiver an emmc port for storage and it even includes a USB

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dongle in the Box for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth one pleasant surprise was

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Hardware h265 decoding at up to 4K 60

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which made it stand out against the pi 3 and would help it still be servicable as

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a media player running something like libc or coral for just $5 more though

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Libra Computing also offers the Renegade

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given the name it is surprisingly similar to its starchy cousin though

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with micro USB for power but at least it trades two of those USB 2 ports for a

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single USB 3 and in exchange for a slightly lower clock speed it bumped

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bumps the RAM up to 4 gigs of ddr4 adds gigb Ethernet and even adds Hardware

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encoding for up to 2 h265 streams for

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the $5 difference from Li potato it's a pretty big upgrade though either would

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do you just fine as a media player the last of our lower cost options is the

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$35 orange Pi 3 LTS which is yet another

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unit that uses efficiency course with higher clock speeds on this one we've

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got two USB 2s and a single USB 3 we're

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back to using USB PC for power though with gigabit Ethernet and onboard Wi-Fi

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and Bluetooth and while it uses DDR3 for

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its memory it's still managed solid performance and the 3 LTS even includes

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8 gigs of emmc storage that comes pre-loaded with a custom Android 9 image

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this is the first device we've looked at though that only has the 26 pin general

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purpose IO header which could limit your DIY project and making matters worse it

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doesn't appear to be pin compatible with the first gen Raspberry Pi 2 six pin IO

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so you'll have to take a close look at the documentation before you plug things

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into it while none of these offer the whole package flexibility of the pi4

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whatever it is you're trying to accomplish at least one of them should

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be able to get you there at the same price that is unless you're trying

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something really ambitious then you might need to spend a bit more at

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$85 the ooid N2 plus is the first model

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we've looked at that doesn't basically copy the Raspberry Pi form factor it's

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roughly twice the size of the pi4 and has a giant passive heat sink on the

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bottom that cools the first s so we've seen that combines both performance and

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efficiency cores in a 4 plus2 configuration it also has the most

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powerful GPU that we've seen so far by the way if you've seen our GPU plush

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available at LTD store.com it's adorable in addition to its excellent CPU and

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memory performance the N2 plus has a highquality 32-bit stereo out with

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better than 100 DB signal to noise ratio and less than

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.6% total harmonic Distortion put together with four USB 3 ports and a

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micro usb OTG an IR receiver and an emmc

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port for additional storage it's no wonder that the N2 plus is a popular

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option for media players and for emulation back to an almost back to an

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almost Raspberry Pi form factor we've got our second offering from orange piie

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the orange piie 5 starting at $75 you

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get eight ARM V2 cores again in a big little configuration and up to 32 gigs

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of ddr4 memory and a built-in npu for machine learning acceleration there's a

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ton of IO both USB 3.1 type-c and

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DisplayPort 1.4 are making their first appearances here and the full-sized HDMI

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2.1 Port can push 8K at 60 HZ there are

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also enough myy connectors for another two 4K 60 displays and three cameras an

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m.2 slot supports NVMe ssds or Wireless

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modules and a 26 pin gpio rounds things out all of this comes with a fairly

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Hefty power draw though it requires 4 amps at 5 volts on the USBC connector so

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you're going to need to budget for an adequate wall wart with that said it

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blows away the rest of our boards in performance getting the top score in

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well everything and usually by a pretty good margin now I know that both of

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these premium pies are significantly more expensive than the pi4 model B

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almost to the point where including them as Alternatives could be considered kind

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of disingenuous but I still think they belong in our list because both were

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significantly better than the pi 4 in a number of ways while costing less than

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what scalpers are charging on eBay for freaking Pi fours now in any Roundup

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there's bound to be an oddball or two so meet the misses not that

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kind that kind back down at $60 we've

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got the rock Pi 4C plus which frankly we

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expect it to perform quite a bit better than it did combining two high

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performance cores the same a72 cores from the pi 4 with four High efficiency

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cores this is a board that we thought would be close to the original like the

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pi4 it has two micro HDMI ports but it

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can't run both of them at 4K 60 like the pi4 it has two USB 2s and two USB 3s it

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also includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board and even one UPS the pi4 with a

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connector for an external antenna an emmc port and an m.2 slot they even

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colorcoded the 40 pin gpio so you don't go and plug things in where you

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shouldn't but ultimately The Rock pie 4C ended up getting let down by poor

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performance from its ddr4 memory and poor CPU performance that just couldn't

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quite match the four high power cores in the pi 4 at $75 the nanop m4b uses the

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same 2 plus4 core architecture as The Rock Pi but at higher clock speeds and

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in addition to its 40 pin gpio the m4b

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has a PCIe by2 interface that can be used for daughter boards that can add

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features like extra usb3 ports an NVMe

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SSD adapter and even a four port SATA controller that can turn it into a nice

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little Nas device for your home network this board also supports emmc storage

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though it uses a different layout from the others that we've seen so far it's

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got dual mppy CSI ports enabling dual cameras for robotics or AI use and even

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includes switchable Android ADB support but again the m4b falls short of the pi4

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in CPU performance and its aging DDR3

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didn't make up that lost ground making it a tough sell compared to the rest of

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the competition unless you really want that PCI E by2 interface next up is the

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seed that's with three e router its most

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obvious standout feature is obviously its dual network Jacks because as you no

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doubt guessed from the name it's meant to be used as a tiny router running

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something like open wrrt now it can run any OS the Raspberry Pi can and it can

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be used for random projects like any other board we've tested so far the

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rerouter even managed solid performance coming in almost identically to our pi4

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which is probably because it actually is a pi4 kind of inside the casing you'll

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see that we have this kind of motherboard with IO ports on it and then

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a daughter board that is actually a Raspberry Pi compute module 4 or cm4 for

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short essentially it's a Raspberry Pi 4 without the physical IO and it's meant

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to be embedded in other devices providing the brains for things like

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digital signage thin clients Industrial Automation and yes routers but just like

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the normal pies um these are basically impossible to get right now and they

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want $160 for the package so it's not

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really a great alternative the linkstar h68 K is an interesting one though it's

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sort of a traveling Network Appliance

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media player Nas router and server all rolled into one robust little package

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while it too can run more general purpose operating systems it's obviously

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meant for networking with dual 2 and 1/2 gig land ports and then two more 1 gig

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land ports alongside support for Wi-Fi 6

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and a basic npu for simple AI tasks with 32 gigs of emmc storage on board an SD

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card slot and a USBC Port you've got plenty of storage options in a device

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with pretty similar performance to the banana M5 or the ooid C4 but at

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$129 the best value argument for it is

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hey at least it looks a lot better than the seed router now to be clear all of

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these were good enough to be included we just just didn't feel that they fit in

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with the rest of the pi4 Alternatives as

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well as we might have liked as for rpix if we had to buy just one for a first

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SBC it's hard to say no to the orange Pi 3 LTS at 35 bucks decent overall

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performance plenty of wired and wireless connectivity and built-in emmc storage

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means you don't have to go and buy a Micro SD card on the other hand if you

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were already considering paying the scalper inflated prices for a Raspberry

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Pi 4 then our pick has got to be the orange Pi 5 at 7 bucks for the 4 Gig

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model it is a big jump in price from the MSRP of the pi4 but it blew away all of

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our other contenders in terms of performance and with the additional

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connectivity and expansion options over the pi 4 it seems like a no-brainer if

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you guys enjoyed this video maybe go check out our PI KVM video where we show

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you how to turn a pi into a remote access KVM so you can do anything you

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would need to do on a remote computer even things like updating the BIOS