Speaking of single-board computer, we are not familiar with, what raspberry pi, banana pi, BeagleBone Black and so are all the classic open-source hardware board. Recently I got a handsome name more exaggerated open source hardware board - Graperain, I believe that once heard of the engineers to its unforgettable. Graperain specifically for embedded beginners and embedded developers to customize the open-source hardware board, so from its service object, we also do not look forward to Graperain how high performance, more powerful features, in fact, More like a special field in some specific research and development board, of course, their own characteristics certainly yes, first to understand the next.

Graperain also comes with a lot of accessories, such as 5V / 2A adapter, serial cable, Ethernet cable, as well as a MicroSD card and TF card reader, these accessories make the basic functions of the board is not what problem.

Graperain appearance and open source hardware on the market similar to the board, but the workmanship is very elegant, 8-layer board, Shen Jin PCB process, look at the words, there are obvious their own unique style. For example, 9-pin serial interface, usually this small size (95mm * 62mm) development board rarely carry such a volume of the interface, which can be seen that the industrial properties of this board style is obvious.

As you can see from the board, Graperain is designed to be compatible with Flash or eMMC storage, but the board is not patch, it can only use a unique MicroSD card for storage media. In addition, Graperain some of the interfaces are not described with the silk screen, a lot of time not to see the user manual you can not directly determine what interface on the board, very inconvenient. The last one to Tucao is the expansion of network interface 1 and JTAG interface, using the FPC connector design structure, what is this? Do not understand the original intention of such a design.

From peripheral resources, Graperain integrates Gigabit Ethernet interface, USB2.0 interface, MicroSD card, RS232 interface, HDMI interface, LCD interface and SPI, I2C, UART, CAN and other common communication interface, flexible, compact, Resource-rich and other characteristics..........

A single board computer (SBC for short) is a computer built on a single main circuit board which usually includes a microprocessor (or multiple), RAM and I/O interfaces. These are all the minimal requirements to have a fully functional computer. They are ARM based Single Board Computers with various price, I/Os, processors, size and operating systems. You can choose any System on Module/Computer on Module and a compatible carrier board, to create a Singe Board Computer that is tuned to your needs.

How many of these have you tried and what has been your experience of them? if you are the same looking for a low cost and high-performance SBC either for your work or hobby, can check this article about Single Board Computer here, I have made the single board computers comparison.

1. Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU, 1 GB RAM

802.11n Wireless LAN, 10/100Mbps Lan Speed

Bluetooth 4.1, Bluetooth Low Energy

4 USB ports, 40 GPIO pins, Full HDMI port, Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite video

Camera interface (CSI),Display interface (DSI), Micro SD card slot (now push-pull rather than push-push), VideoCore IV 3D graphics core

Setting up a Raspberry Pi is easy enough even for people who have not installed an OS before. The official documentation is very detailed in explaining how to install the official Raspberry Pi OS, called Raspbian and even a beginner can follow it without a problem.

The Pi 3 may start getting too warm when pushed to its limits.

2. HummingBoard-i1

1GHz Freescale i.MX6 Solo single-core processor

Vivante GC880 graphics core, with 512MB of memory,

expansion interface, there are two native USB 2.0 interface, microSD card reader, HDMI video output interface, GPIO generic expansion interface

10 / 100Mbps network cable interface and coaxial S / PDIF audio output.

Since the HummingBoard Gate comes with different versions, including different CPU versions, it can also run the same software without any problem on any CPU regardless of the number of cores.

Starting at $70, prices can go up to $235 depending on the model and the components that users choose to add to the board. For these prices it's rather expensive relative to other single board computers.

3. BeagleBone Black

Processor: AM335x 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8

512MB DDR3 RAM

4GB 8-bit eMMC on-board flash storage

3D graphics accelerator

NEON floating-point accelerator

2x PRU 32-bit microcontrollers

There are 92 expansion pins, with 46-pin female connectors on both sides of the board with other 6 serial pins to be used for debugging.

There's only one USB port available for peripherals, which is a bit annoying considering how two USB ports is a minimum to have a keyboard and a mouse hooked up without having to use a powered USB hub.

4. BPI-M2+

Allwinner H3 quad-core chips

Quad-core 1.2GHz CPU.

1 GB DDR3 memory.

Mali-400 MP2 with Open GL ES 2.0 / 1.1.

8 GB eMMC storage.

Onboard Wifi.

Onboard Bluetooth

5. Graperain G6818 Android Single Board Computer

ARM Cortex-A53 octa core;

1.4G+Hz*8；

1GB DDR3， 2GB DDR3 optional；

4GB/8GB/16GB eMMC optional，standard 8GB eMMC；

WIFI/Bluetooth onboard

Gigabit Ethernet

OS: Android5.1, Linux3.4.39 + QT5.4, Ubuntu12.04.

Performance upgrade to the A31s (quad-core Cortex-A7), an increase of the USB interface, remove the hard disk interface, etc., if BPI-M1+ bias network server applications, BPI-M2+ should be more inclined to the field of multimedia entertainment. However, for the board, manufacturers of this rapid iterative update is not so significant, this is not consumer electronics, more engineers to use the board or to learn, develop, software, information and other aspects of the Upgrading efforts should be the manufacturers concerned, this point, raspberry pie to do a good job, hope that domestic manufacturers to imitate the external at the same time, to accelerate the internal promotion.