Recently, if you want to buy a development board and want it to be cheaper, which one would you choose? If it were before, I would definitely recommend the Orange Pi Zero 3, which uses SoCs like Allwinner H618. However, as more development boards with the RK3566 chip have become available, the price of RK3566 has dropped to a level that we can fully accept, with a development board available for just over 100.
Currently, I believe the best cost-performance RK3566 development boards are the Radxa Zero 3W and Radxa Zero 3E.
The difference is that the Zero 3E uses a Gigabit Ethernet port.
Supports PoE, which needs to be used with PoE HAT.
The Radxa Zero 3W comes with an onboard Wi-Fi module.
Supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4
On the interface, it has a USB2.0 OTG Type-C interface, supporting data transmission and power supply. It requires at least 5V2A power supply.
It has a USB3.0 Host Type-C interface.
It has a Micro HDMI interface, supporting 1080P 60FPS.
It has a MIPI CSI 4-channel camera interface.
It has a Micro SD card interface.
It also has the same size and the same 40Pin I/O interface as the Raspberry Pi Zero.
The size is 65mm x 30mm, the same size as the Raspberry Pi Zero.
It supports Debian 12, Ubuntu 22.04, and Android 11.
The RK3566 used in the Radxa Zero 3 is slightly different from that used in other development boards, with a frequency reduced from quad-core Cortex-A55 1.8GHz to quad-core Cortex-A55 1.6GHz.
Currently, I believe that the tutorials from Ruisa are also quite good, one of which is that Radxa finally has a Chinese tutorial, which looks clear and straightforward.
I looked at it, and currently, there is still a lot of content to be improved, and some content is a bit too simple. But compared to the previous English documentation and the rudimentary webpage, it has improved a lot.
The Zero 3W 1GB version is currently only sold for
120.99, free shipping
The downside is that there is no soldered 40Pin header, you need to solder it yourself (other configuration versions do not need to solder the header). Other configurations are not as appealing, with 2GB + 32GB eMMC priced at 255.99. The top configuration can be selected with 8GB + 64GB, even reaching 532.99, which completely loses its cost performance.
The cost performance of the Zero 3E is much higher,
1GB memory, 128.99
2GB memory, 169.99
4GB memory, 249.99
However, there is no eMMC version available.
This configuration and price are also a bit awkward. Currently, I recommend the Zero 3W 1GB version, which is the cheapest, has a Wi-Fi module, and the eMMC version is not recommended, as the cost performance is greatly reduced. If you want better I/O performance, you can try faster SD cards.
If you can accept using a wired connection, then you can choose Zero 3E freely.
In general, compared to the Orange Pi Zero2W and Orange Pi Zero3, you can get stronger performance with just an additional twenty or thirty.
It also has 1TOPS AI computing power, which increases playability during the current AI boom.
Quad-core Cortex-A55, updated architecture, I believe system support will also be longer.
The interfaces are basically sufficient for now, the only issue is that there is only a USB Type-C interface. If you have many USB devices, you will need an adapter or a USB HUB, which is a bit troublesome.
In contrast, development boards like the Orange Pi Zero3 with rich interfaces do not have to worry about these issues.
The Radxa Zero 3 E/W, which has a name very similar to the Orange Pi Zero 3, is actually positioned similarly to the Orange Pi Zero2W, but uses the better RK3566, and its cost performance is also due to the RK3566.
If the Radxa Zero3 had richer interfaces, that would be great, I think. But at this size, it is estimated that the most it can do is replace the Type-C interface with USB Type-A. So, are there any development boards based on RK3566 with richer interfaces and cheaper? Yes, there are.
Radxa Rock 3C
The size of the Raspberry Pi 5, currently the 2GB version is priced at 239, and there is a 1GB version that has not been released. In foreign countries, I see that on some websites, the 2GB version is priced at 185, which means that the 1GB version may be around 150.
If it can reach this price, I think it is worth buying, very good.
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