Raspberry Pi Alternatives
A small comparison of current board models.
| Raspberry Pi Model B | Odroid U2 | ASRock AD2550-ITX | BeagleBone Black | Cubieboard 2 | Gooseberry Board | Hackberry A10 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1 x 700 MHz | 4 x 1,7 GHz | 2 x 1.86 GHz Intel Atom D2550 | 1 x 1 GHz AM3359 | 2 x 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A7 | 1 x 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 | 1 x 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 |
| GPU | Broadcom VideoCore IV | Mali 400 Quad Core 440MHz | PowerVR SGX545 | PowerVR SGX530 | Mali 400mp2 | Mali 400 | Mali 400 |
| RAM | 512 MB SD | 2 GB DDR2 | 0 / 4 GB DDR3 | 512 MB DDR3 | 1 GB DDR3 | 512 MB ? | 1 GB DDR3 |
| Video Output | HDMI | Micro HDMI | VGA, DVI-D, HDMI | Micro HDMI | HDMI | Micro HDMI | HDMI |
| LAN | 10 / 100 | 10 / 100 | 10 / 100 / 1000 | 10 / 100 | 10 / 100 | WiFi 802.11 b/g/n | 10 / 100, 802.11n WiFi |
| USB | 2 x USB 2.0 | 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x Micro USB | 4 x USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.0 | 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x Micro USB | 2 x USB 2.0 | 1 x Micro USB | 2 x USB 2.0 |
| Storage | SD, MMC, SDIO | Micro SD | 2 x SATA2 | 2 GB OnBoard, Micro SD | 4 GB OnBoard, SATA, Micro SD | 4 GB OnBoard, Micro SD | 4 GB OnBoard, SDHC |
| Audio Output | 3.5mm Jack, HDMI | 3.5mm Jack | 3.5mm Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone | Micro HDMI | 3.5mm Jack, HDMI | 3.5mm Jack | HDMI |
| OS | Linux | Android 4.0.x | All | Linux | Linux, Android | Android 4 | Android 4, Ubuntu |
| PCB Size | 86 x 54 x 17 mm | 48 x 52 mm | 170 x 170 mm Mini-ATX | 86 x 53 mm | 100 x 60 x 37 mm | ? | 86 x 54 mm |
| Power Supply | 5V 1.2A, 4-7 EUR | 5V 2A, 9 USD | 32 EUR incl. case | USB, 5V 1A optional | 5V 2A, 7 EUR | USB, 5V optional | included |
| Price | 38 EUR | 89 + 30 USD | 65 EUR | 50 EUR | 52 EUR | 47 EUR + shipping | 50 EUR + 26 USD |
Remarks
- BeagleBone Black only supports output resolutions of 1280 x 1024 and 1440 x 900 but lacks processing power to decode full HD videos anyway.
- While the Raspberry PI has a rather slow CPU, it comes with hardware acceleration for popular video codecs and supports 1920 x 1080.
- The ASRock AD2550-ITX is a full blown Mini-ATX board and therefore doesn’t really qualify for this test. It comes with an onboard-CPU but no RAM. However, I think it’s interesting to see what you get for your money when not buying a PC (well, apart from “a lot smaller”).
- There are no local Odroid distributors. Odroid prefers shipping from Korea to the rest of the world, even if it costs a bazillion dollars.
- Shipping costs for the Cubieboard 2 apply for shipping from Switzerland to Germany. I couldn’t find a german shop with a better total price.
- The Mali 400 GPU is well known from Samsung’s S3 smartphone.
- Only 500 Gooseberry boards have been produced so far, so currently there is not much I can say about it. It seems to be limited to Android 4.0, RAM type unknown, board size unknown. Since it’s actually designed for tablets, it’s got WiFi but no LAN connector. Interesting board, good hardware, but lacks availability and support. Not yet a Raspberry Pi alternative.
- Some boards can be powered via USB, hence a separate power supply is optional. The Hackberry is shipped with an included power supply. If a separate power supply is required, I tried to find a reasonable price.
- There is a good (german) tutorial on how to set up a HTPC on fynder.de.
Conclusion
The BeagleBone fails to deliver full HD, so despite being an interesting board it’s not a real RaspPi alternative. The Odroid U2 is shipped with a beautiful aluminium case, infinite processing power and is half the size of a Pi. Probably the sexiest-board-alive, but it costs 120 USD. That could be enough to buy the ASRock Mini-ATX board, some cheap DDR3 RAM and a case with included power supply. Definitely bigger, but extendable. The Gooseberry board is currently not available and the Hackberry board offers a weaker performance than the Cubieboard 2 for the same price. So the only real alternative to a Raspberry Pi seems to be the Cubieboard 2. It offers more processing power and costs only ~ 15 EUR more than the Pi. Depending on the use case it might be a good choice, though I don’t know how well it performs as a media center and full HD player yet. From what I have read, there has been no initial XBMC support for the Allwinner CPUs, which have become very popular for cheap Android boards these days. But there has been some progress regarding XBMC lately and after all the Cubieboard 2 is still a brand new product.
Update 1
Added the Hackberry A10 board. This is a really interesting board with a competetive price.
Update 2
I found a store that sells the Cubieboard for 52 EUR incl. shipping (it was 70 EUR before). It think the board is now beating all of it’s competitors.