Orange PI - overview of the various boards

There are a bewildering array of models -- and more all the time.

• Orange PI (Hackaday)
• H3 board buyers guide (good)
• Pi PC 2 (cnx-software)
• Back in the oven

• Orange Pi One
• Orange Pi PC (H3)

• Orange PI Zero, 256M
• Orange PI Zero, 512M

• Orange Pi PC 2

The "PC 2" is bleeding edge, using the H5 chip.

I am pleased by the devices with onboard eMMC since they can ultimately be used without an SD card. All of these have shipping charges in the $3 to $4 range and may require a microSD card (another $6 or so).

Allwinner SoC chip info

• Orange Pi main site
• linux-sunxi
• Linux-sunxi Fex Guide

H2 based devices

The Zero is $6.99 and uses the Allwinner H2 chip (32 bit Cortex-A7).

The Zero with 512M is $8.99 (spend the extra $2).

H3 based devices

• The Pi PC plus costs $20, and has Wifi and 8G of eMMC flash.
• The Pi PC costs $15, and seems to be the same thing with 1G of ram.
• The Pi One costs $10 (this has been around the longest of the H3 boards).
• The Pi Lite for $12, has Wifi, and 512M of ram.

I bought a pair of the Pi PC to get started. One also has to buy some 8G microSD cards which cost about $5 each, bringing the true cost up to $20. When you consider this, the Pi PC Plus looks quite attractive.

H5 based devices

The Pi PC 2 is $20 and uses the Allwinner H5 chip (64 bit Cortex A53). The word is that the H5 is very similar to the A64, for which data sheets are available. I bought one of these in 11-2016.

H6 based devices

They also have an Allwinner H6 based model (the PC 3). This adds 8G of eMMC and has 2G of ram. The price is $40. The H6 is essentially the same as the H5, but with a different GPU, which I could care less about. You can get it with less ram or without emmc for less money.

• Orange Pi 3 on AliExpress

Rockchip based devices

• Orange Pi 4 on AliExpress

• Orange Pi 4B review
• Orange Pi 4B on AliExpress