I do have Orange Pi Lite, which is a cheaper version, I believe the hardware is similiar, except I got only 512 RAM, two USB ports (in which one of them doesnt seem to work at all !), no LAN port, but with WiFi. I couldnt configure the Raspbian properly, it didnt seemed to cooperate with onboard WiFi, so you are not alone with the WiFi problems. So I installed Armbian, which runs perfectly, and Im planning to check out Android OS soon, but not the chinese one offered by the OrangePi site. I asked you previously about the power supply, because I was worried if the computer itself would power more connected devices, and yes, 5V 2A would be enough, but I got my hands on the 3A charger with the 3.9/1.7 DC output - it also fits, and was way cheaper than 4.0/1.7 DC. Thank you very much for the video it seems that all Orange Pi computers have similiar issues. The best thing about it is that it actually works fine with Armbian, and (in my country) it was cheaper than Raspberry Zero.
After writing the image file to micro SD card, please try this: Open the drive and create a .txt file. Then write network={ ssid="wifiname" psk="wifipassword" key-mgmt=WPA2-PSK } Then save it. Now change the file extension from .txt to .conf Thus making it a configuration file. I hope the WiFi will work.
It just goes to show that it's not difficult to build a Pi-alike single board computer, but supporting it to the same high standard takes more effort. I am heartened to see Mr Scissors once again, however.
I have watched several of your SBC (Raspberry Pi, LattePanda etc) videos. They are always informative and clearly articulated. I particularly appreciate the fact that you don't use the word 'awesome' in every other sentence :)
Sounds to me they do what a lot of Android companies do, release a product and then walk away leaving customers without any software updates. My Samsung phone is stuck on 5.0...... As we all know, it's the software of the RPi that allowed it to win as people had confidence in supporting it as they knew it was not going to fade away any time soon. Thanks for the video Chris. :)
All the nice hardware in the world is useless without proper software for it. Best thing about this video is finding out disk imager is at v1.0, thanks mate!
Very interesting Christopher - thank you! I also wanted to thank you. Based on a few of your old videos I bought two Rii K01X1s for two projects and I couldn't be happier with them. Thank you!
Thanks SO MUCH for saving my time with this review. I hadn't heard about this device before, but if I had I am pretty sure I would've made the same assumptions about Wi-Fi as you. Additionally, with the drivers being so lacking in functionality, I would have felt totally taken!
I love this guy. He's like the exact British equivalent to Stewart Cheifet from The Computer Chronicles on PBS (my fellow American geeks who were 1980's kids will no doubt remember Mr. Cheifet from the show -- he's very much still around today)
Have been going through your catalog of old videos and there are so many boards that you have covered. Would be very useful if you did a flashback of all of these SBCs that were comparable to a pi and seeing where they are now. Have most of them seem to have gone out of production or have stagnated, or have kept up with the raspberry Pi, etc. Not so much a spec comparison, but development pipeline comparison.
Thanks for this, which is a BRILLIANT suggestion for a video! :) I've just put a note in my "Video Slate" document, and I've even opened a script file. So this will happen, probably Jan 2022.
Strange, even though I know off almost everything you make videos about (wrote a thesis on various uses of Raspberry Pi), I still find them very enjoyable. Also, you look like Vincent Valtieri
I've heard of Orange Pi having software issues. You definitely proved that it dose. Even though it's a bit cheaper than a Raspberry Pi 3. I'll buy a R.Pi 3 first.
Cheap isn't always cheerful! The cost of ownership is not just the purchase price but reliability, support and a large user base to help you out when problems arise. So far Raspberry have this sewn up. Bob
Thank you for this video. I was going to buy Raspberry Pi. Instead I have just ordered Orange Pi PC Plus (1gb ram, h3, emmc 8gb) for a good price. I am looking forward to installing Armbian.
To change Android to English.... Look for the Android Settings icon, it looks like a grey wheel or gear. Click on it and open the settings menu. On the left of the screen scroll down to find the Language icon, it looks like a capital 'A' with a box around it or a letter 'A' keycap. Click on it then click on the top line of text on the right side, not the first check box but the line of test above it at the very top of the list. This will pop up a menu you can scroll to find your language.
Great video, as always Chris. I will pay more and get an SBC with better support for now as it appears that this one is not a great choice if you want WIFI connectivity, as I would. Sorry for all of the immaturity that seems to always make its way into comment sections! These childish little trolls seem to have nothing better to do in the basement of their parents homes. You always make very professional, informative videos that help the rest of us save time and money when it comes to tech decisions. Thank you
Thank you for the review. Please kindly head to orange pi pc group in Facebook and there you can see the latest OS's that are pretty much compatible with Orange Pi boards. Armbian and Retrorange Pi are so far the best OS's for these boards.
Retrorangepi is a great package for these boards, based on Armbian and getting more development effort than the OSs you tested. Also a 2.5Ah+ psu is a good idea with orangepi. Your USB device issues could be power based?
Hello, I have an orange pi pc and I have gotten wifi to work on the board. Basically all the images that they provide are crap, they have issues with overheating and usb drivers. In order to get them to work perfectly you will have to use the Armbian images of Ubuntu and Debian. They worked perfectly for me and I can confirm that wifi and usb works. I used that same image to make a small "nas" with the orange pi that I kept running for months with a usb hdd connected to it.
Looking forward for armbian which seems to be the best fitting os for the orange pi. Not an os but exceptional good working is the openelec port. Thanks for another enjoyable video.
Hi. I think your review was fair and open minded as well as being informative and entertaining. Like you I feel that if a product such as this one is to be offered for sale in a English speaking countries, it should have a Working English language distro. I cannot speak for all other manufacturers but this one seems to be offered a little too early in its development cycle. Clearly this sbc is unacceptable as is. I hope that this will be remedied in the near futrure.
pls,pls use armbian and don't let this great board suicide its core... it's confirmed this H3 CPU's 1.6GHz is an overclocked value (1.3GHz is default) and heatsink is necessary(at least a small native cooling one), and also their provided OSs are mostly outdated and unstable...
It's really annoying that they won't put a PCI express on these things. I reckon they could squeeze a pci-e4x on it. With 1.6ghz, you'd be able to play blu-ray with even just 2cores. With just a gen2 pci-e running at 4x you'd be able to have a video encoder card (HDMI input) for it.
+TableWolfMusic that's because its CPU(allwinner H3) can't support PCIe as well it's just a $20 cheapo ARM SBC, what can you expected for. Or buying a UHS1 micro SD could be better?
I've had zero issues with multiple WiFi adapters. The MT7601 $2.80 on Aliexpress and was plug and play using the Armbian image for Orange Pi. I've gotten the Ralink RT3572L working plug and play for dualband for $12. The Atheros AR9271 for $6 on Aliexpress was plug and play. But again only for Armbian which was command line only.
Nice video tutorial, mate. I love all your videos. Yes, he is a British university professor; University of Cambridge, I think. If you view some of his previous videos, he tells what university he is at.
Oops! Sorry about that, mate. I knew you were at some British university and I thought it was Cambridge. Now I remember that you said Nottingham. Am glad you posted so quickly to correct me. I was reading some of the posts (which I do on all your videos) and some posters were inquiring at where you were a professor. Your friend from across the ¨pond¨. :-) Rusty
excellent! Thank you for a great video. I'm glad to know that regular Wi-Fi dongles don't work on that particular orange pi. So I can grab the one with wireless on board.
Armbian is definitely worth taking a look at if you have this board. With the nightly builds you can even run Docker images, which makes this thing a beast of a server.
I find myself skipping parts of your videos at the start, but I do like how much detail you go into. Can you review the GPD Win? It's awesome, but very gaming centric, which might not suit you. It has many uses, but you may prefer the GPD Pocket.
There are way too many Orange Pi versions for me to figure out which one I need for projects. I would like to try some projects with Orange Pi but only really understand how RPi boards relate to each other not mentally capable of comparing them with boards developed by other companies and the Orange Pi documention on their site just makes my head hurt. I am still a no.Ob when it comes to microcontrollers and SMB's but I think maybe I could try these if I knew which one to use in place of the RPi boards I'm used to. Easiest way to express what I need in hopes of getting answers ... How do they all relate to Raspberry Pi versions? --- OR --- Which OPi is most like the RPi 1 A+? Which OPi is most like the RPi 1 B+? Which OPi is most like the RPi 2 B+? Which OPi is most like the RPi 3 B? Which OPi is most like the RPi 3 B+? Which OPi is most like the RPi Zero? Which OPi is most like the RPi Zero W? I presume that in some cases OPi and RPi can't be directly compared and there may be several OPi boards that equate well with one of the 7 RPi flavors since there are so many OPi versions. I also expect that since many of the boards are or started as open source designs that some of the OPi boards will more closely resemble boards from other companies I may be more familiar with from your channel so my final question would be ... Which OPi boards, if any, more closely resemble other boards that you have covered?
My Orange Pi PC died after a month, refused to get through booting, just froze part way through, tried different OS's and a different SD card but to no avail. I'd avoid these personally they are such a headache, may as well fork out the bit extra for a Raspberry.
Squiggleblorg Have you tried using a different power supply? I've heard Orange Pi's are pretentious when it comes to those and not booting with cheap ones.
True for the middle class editions, but if you want something really powerful (gigabit ethernet, SATA, 2GB RAM…) Raspberry Pi won't cut it. And if you want something really cheap, Raspberry Pi is also not an option because the Zeros are constantly sold out everywhere. Orange Pi covers both of these areas.
I bought 2 and one stopped working when my kids tripped on the power cable. It wouldn't boot for weeks and then as if by magic it started working again. I looked it up and it turns out these things have a poly fuse that trips to protect the board on a power surge/spike and they say the fuse resets after a day or two. Well it took more than a few days, but I have both boards again. Hope you kept your board -might be worth trying again.
Default kernel of official Linux distros tries to run the CPU on maximum possible speed, it may be the reason of the hardware death. I run Armbian, which cuts CPU speed not more than 1.3GHz, it works just smooth one year so far
You made the comment that you liked the spring-loaded SD card slot, but I believe that the rPi uses a friction fit now because people had issues where they accidentally bumped their card and ejected it pre-maturely.
Thanks for the review, due to the lack of functional WiFi I feel like this is even going to underlie the Banana Pi which actually functions quite well as long as one doesn't try to connect a smart device to it.
DoubleBubble28 RUclips was always a business. Why would google buy it off if there was no way to make money. Also, how would we have so much great content if they never made money to pay the creators?
There actually is no way of making money so far. Since Google bought RUclips, they haven't made a single cent. It's basically a charity until further notice. (My info is a bit old, but I'd be surprised if it changed since then.)
I got both raspberry pi 3 and orange pi pc, both run well, the speed is similar. just community contribution for raspberry pi 3 much more than orange pi pc, but orange pi pic is only $15, so worth to have a try.
Try using armbian - its like linux and most probably the wifi usb driver can work. www.armbian.com/orange-pi-pc/ Also you can change the language on android by going to settings then to a keyboard icon by scrolling down and choose the first option. You'll find english, press on it and your done. You can also use RetroPiOrange to play old school games using emulator. I hope you make an update on the orange pi even though I don't own it. Hope to get a reply from you :)
Nightly image has kernel 4.10.1 insted of 3.4. So it should have better driver support. Hardware accelerated video and gpio is probably still limitted. But at least you can turn the board into a server for streaming, donwloading or other stuff.
Peter Griffin I don't get it. My Raspberry Pi is Raspberry colored, I expect my Blueberry Pi to be blue, and my Orange Pi had better be orange, dammit.
Chris, I have just bought an OPi PC just like yours, and should be here soon. It is just that I was assured that I could put the Android OS and then run Kodi. A simple test. I sure hope I have better experience. It kind of gives me this sick feeling. Their slogan is "Beyond Rasp Pi" ..really?Would have bought the Asus Tinker had it been available.
could you make a video about explaining how a motherboard works? i would love it, because there is not so many videos of this, and the only ones doesn´t explain it well enough.
Excellent bag-on O Pi prof. I bought five last year for 8+usd per unit. One I gave away One I tried on a small cnc all still waiting for an assignment.I recommend a good bike ride peddle,electric or gas to keep your mind from....I like a good old KZed650. much love from the outer rings Bubba
Just a quick tip, I would not display the front of the box with the QR code showing as you can scan it with a mobile phone barcode scanner app and your address shows up.
Good tip. I've just applied a very large blur filter. Will implement fairly soon. Arrgghh! Important learning point for me here. Thanks. I never even considered scanning of an onscreen QR code.
ExplainingComputers I only know as I'm a postie and it's something I discovered by accident when we first started using those QR codes, so don't beat yourself up to much. I learn enough from you so it's nice to return the favour.
Because they're square and use dot patterns, most people assume that square 2D codes are all "QR" codes. If you want to be absolutely correct, the codes on this box are actually Data Matrix codes, not QR Codes. Same result (your address info), but different symbology. Most postal services don't use QR as they're often printed on many consumer items for information URLs and could be mistaken or misscanned. Barcode scanners can be easily configured to ignore QR and focus on the Aztec, Datamatrix, or MaxiCode (UPS) symbologies most shippers use.
Hi Christopher! I'd like to refresh a topic regarding Orange Pi vs. Banana Pi. Currently there are a newer versions of each boards. Orange Pi seems to improved software (according to buyers opinions). I'd like to know is it worth it to get either of this minicomputer (as alternative to Raspberry Pi 3 which I already have)? Purpose is installing OctoPrint on it, record video during 3d printing procces using some nice -not dedicated usb cam like ELP, store that video files on attached 2,5'' HDD and maybe play around from time to time. Best would be to get high resolution (let's say 4k, or at least HD in the worst case scenario). But as always there some cons. Some people are convinced it cannot be done, while others believe it should work :) What is the right answer? :) There isn't any instruction how to install Octoprint on BPi (while for RPi there is planty, and just a few for OPi). I'm searching solutions but in case of Orange or Banana it's not so obviouse. What about different boards (like Asus Tinker boards, Odroid or Rock)? In yours videos I've found something great about each one! Would love to have them all :) but geting just for testing it's crazy idea :P Could you maybe do test comparison about running octoprint on that devices, please? Another one -Latte Panda , is also sweet! But in that case it's to pricy to use it for a such purpose, and it's pure Windows.. Another question: is it possible to install Octoprint on system like Android or even Rasbian for not Raspberry devices?
I was so happy when they removed the click-in click-out sd card holder on the rpi3. The number of times I picked up a rpi2 or 1 and accidently popped out the card, stopping boot or corrupting the card. Pressing on the rpi3 sd card keeps it where it should be. Hopefully orange pi will upgrade to a 'stay-in' sd-card holder soon ;-)
@explaining computers please can you try to get an Udoo x86 Ultra for demonstration. It's got a 2.56GHz intel quad core CPU and 8GB RAM. Also features Micro SD, EMMC slots and SATA port plus USB and HDMI ports. Accessories include WIFI, a case, fan, and various cables. It promises to be the most powerful board of them all!
Yup, Tip. Ring 1, Ring 2, Sleeve (TRRS) www.provideocoalition.com/ts-trs-trrs-trrrs-combating-the-misconnection-epidemic/ Yet, there is a TRRRS! ;D Dunno where this is gonna end! TR∞S! Remember TRRS got 2 Standards OMTP & CTIA, among other ones too, that site explains them.
I think I may know the reason why you couldn't get the WiFi dongles to work-at least in Lubuntu, but possibly Raspian as well. I encountered this issue with my mobile-broadband data-stick. However, after performing the following steps, it worked like a charm, and I only had to do this once for Network Manager to be able to manage it: 1. In a Terminal, enter the following while the dongle is plugged-in: nmcli connection (This will list all local networking devices.) 2. Identify the device you are trying to use to connect (in this case, your Wi-Fi dongle). Copy its UUID. 3. Paste its UUID into the following command on the same line: nmcli connection up uuid Hopefully, this will work for you.
Classic hardware-vendor syndrome: good hardware. bad software. The folks behind the orange pi should design their hardware to run stock images directly from os vendors (canonical, debian, etc) if they aren't going to put in the effort beyond providing the bare minimum, just leave the software to those who are.
The SoC in those boards are absolutely not supported by mainline kernel when the hardware arrives. It needs years and lot of community work to get basic things work. The SoC manufacturer provides an old, custom hacked kernel that works with the hardware. This is why all distros and android based on the same shitty 3.4 modified kernel. Also the boot flow is various SoC-by-Soc. There is no universal standard for arm devices. So these hardware will never be able to run stock linux distributions out of the box.
While the boot process does currently very from one SoC to another, there is nothing that prevents SoC firms from agreeing to a single boot process and a standard peripheral layout (like how intel and AMD have done for both x86 and x86_64). It doesn't even have to be the default behavior as long as it can be enabled by pulling up some pin or something. If such an agreement is made, then distros will include basic support for these chips out of the box (even new hardware). I think ARM should mandate a compatibility mode for ARM chips. These firms are too selfish and shortsighted to do the right thing on their own.
I have to agree, I has someone push this guy over the regular pi, then watch this video and say hmm. i might play with one one day, it just comes down to a proven piece of hardware or try to save a buck
billfusionenterprise I don't agree. I wanted to buy Raspberry Pi. Instead of it I have just ordered Orange PI PC Plus. Better specs (1gb, 8gb storage, 4 USB without internal hub like in RPI) and lower price. Of course I first checked if it is supported by Debian (because I am it's fan). Great community support (Armbian and dedicated RetroPI version).
Armbian support is really good for Orange Pi and you get an up-to-date Linux mainline kernel 4.14.y with Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS. It has worked flawlessly for me though it's command line only which is all I use. Network commands are a little different with Ubuntu 18.04 since you use nmcli instead of the old method of editing config text files. Just use this command to connect to WiFi. nmcli device wifi connect SSID-Name password wireless-password
I just got this thing and installed their official linux OS from their website. My wifi+bt combo dongle worked. They also have an android os there and the language can be changed to english.
Yes Sir, you ought to try armbian ! These Orange Pi PCs are very nice indeed and work very very well but xulong's distros are a disaster, use armbian instead and your conclusions will be quite different. Nice videos by the way.
~Buys cheap Chinese knockoff~ Money wasted = 16.49 GBP People surprised = 0 But jokes aside, thank you for this informative video.. I was considering the Orange Pi but after watching this I'll definitely spend the extra and go for a good ol' Rasp.
Can't say how much I appreciate you making this video. I was going to order an Orange Pi PC to tinker with it (mostly because I collect Pi boards), but after seeing this I think I'm much better to use other Pi boards. I wish you would've tested the IR receiver and the microphone though. Probably use LIRC or Audacity in the next videos. Thanks again for the video!
Hey Christopher just wanted to say another great video :). I also have a question, I bought a cheap prebuilt pc at a great price of $80 dollars and it comes with an i3 2120 3.3 ghz. but it only came with two gb of ram and it says on Lenovo webpage that the supported ram is pc3-10600 ddr3 1333 mhz. can I use different ram but at the same supported speed or does it have to be pc3-10600 ddr3 ram?
Orange PI pc H3. Network light *ok* Power = 5V dc 2000mA No light indicates it is on/off on the board HDMI picture = none SD = RISC OS Arm SD boot image What do you do?
9:25 the issue was also notable on our Raspberry Pi 1 B(yes we own one of those) but I think it's just because of the older version of Raspbian as Ethernet worked just fine though it wasn't cutting edge to any extent
I'm tempted to get one to play with but I think the software issues are a real show stopper! I would have thought they would have made a better job if they're seriously trying to persuade buyers to move from a tried and tested product like the raspberry pi! ;-)
Chris, do you happen to live or regularly walk past a train station in a town that starts with B and ends in N in a county that starts with N and ends in M? I've seen someone that looks like yourself on two occasions, one being yesterday.
I have an Orange Pi One and an Orange Pi Lite. The best OS is Armbian which, until recently, wasn't even listed on the Orange Pi website. I was able to get my WiFi USB dongle to work on my One and the onboard WiFi also works on the Lite using Armbian. It's possible to switch Android to English (I used Google Translate to help with that), but sadly it doesn't work well at all.
I do have Orange Pi Lite, which is a cheaper version, I believe the hardware is similiar, except I got only 512 RAM, two USB ports (in which one of them doesnt seem to work at all !), no LAN port, but with WiFi. I couldnt configure the Raspbian properly, it didnt seemed to cooperate with onboard WiFi, so you are not alone with the WiFi problems. So I installed Armbian, which runs perfectly, and Im planning to check out Android OS soon, but not the chinese one offered by the OrangePi site.
I asked you previously about the power supply, because I was worried if the computer itself would power more connected devices, and yes, 5V 2A would be enough, but I got my hands on the 3A charger with the 3.9/1.7 DC output - it also fits, and was way cheaper than 4.0/1.7 DC.
Thank you very much for the video it seems that all Orange Pi computers have similiar issues. The best thing about it is that it actually works fine with Armbian, and (in my country) it was cheaper than Raspberry Zero.
This guy explains things nicely
hat hat he's a university professor! EDIT: AND he's British.
lol @ the edit
JohnnyNismo Which university?
hat hat Mr Stanley
JohnnyNismo yep British so he doesn't shout all! the time or lose focus every 10 seconds
I am new to SBC's...and I find them fascinating.
I had no idea they were SO capable at such incredibly cheap prices.
Whenever Chris says "let's go and take...a closer look" you know the video's about to get GOOD
After writing the image file to micro SD card, please try this:
Open the drive and create a .txt file. Then write
network={
ssid="wifiname"
psk="wifipassword"
key-mgmt=WPA2-PSK
}
Then save it.
Now change the file extension from .txt to .conf
Thus making it a configuration file.
I hope the WiFi will work.
didn't work
i want a tiny 5" touchscreen pc with WiFi. what's best way to go ? i would like it to be in a nice sealed case too. with air vents
Tangobaldy try a mobile phone
It just goes to show that it's not difficult to build a Pi-alike single board computer, but supporting it to the same high standard takes more effort. I am heartened to see Mr Scissors once again, however.
I have watched several of your SBC (Raspberry Pi, LattePanda etc) videos. They are always informative and clearly articulated. I particularly appreciate the fact that you don't use the word 'awesome' in every other sentence :)
I like the way Chris does not say "Hay what's up RUclips"
Sounds to me they do what a lot of Android companies do, release a product and then walk away leaving customers without any software updates. My Samsung phone is stuck on 5.0......
As we all know, it's the software of the RPi that allowed it to win as people had confidence in supporting it as they knew it was not going to fade away any time soon.
Thanks for the video Chris. :)
All the nice hardware in the world is useless without proper software for it.
Best thing about this video is finding out disk imager is at v1.0, thanks mate!
So happy you mentioned the SD slot has a spring this time. Can't wait for the Tinkerboard video.
Very interesting Christopher - thank you!
I also wanted to thank you. Based on a few of your old videos I bought two Rii K01X1s for two projects and I couldn't be happier with them. Thank you!
Christoffer is the last remnant of the 80s humans.
Ted Cruz is still alive...
Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer.
Snowflake Na he is just a wannabe. Christoffer here is the real deal
swedisch elite hacker system!!!!!! I suspect he is actually a remnant from the 60's
The 8bit guy is reliving the 80s
This guy never came out of them
You sound like a very calm and friendly person. That makes me happy :)
His hair should be a national treasure, Chris has taught me more in the past 6 months than anyone in the past 6 years
The USB and wireless issues are dealbreakers. Thank you so much for the honest review.
Another great video Chris. The format and your delivery style is fab mate. Thanks for taking the time to make this. 👍🏻
Much appreciated!
Thanks SO MUCH for saving my time with this review. I hadn't heard about this device before, but if I had I am pretty sure I would've made the same assumptions about Wi-Fi as you. Additionally, with the drivers being so lacking in functionality, I would have felt totally taken!
I love this guy. He's like the exact British equivalent to Stewart Cheifet from The Computer Chronicles on PBS (my fellow American geeks who were 1980's kids will no doubt remember Mr. Cheifet from the show -- he's very much still around today)
Have been going through your catalog of old videos and there are so many boards that you have covered. Would be very useful if you did a flashback of all of these SBCs that were comparable to a pi and seeing where they are now. Have most of them seem to have gone out of production or have stagnated, or have kept up with the raspberry Pi, etc. Not so much a spec comparison, but development pipeline comparison.
Thanks for this, which is a BRILLIANT suggestion for a video! :) I've just put a note in my "Video Slate" document, and I've even opened a script file. So this will happen, probably Jan 2022.
You are my new favorite channel! Great content, informative and fun.
Many thanks. :)
Mr Scissors!
:)
Give the utensil a BAFTA!
beware of the Daleks though :)
Yes, always beware of the Daleks!
Scissors are obviously female.
Strange, even though I know off almost everything you make videos about (wrote a thesis on various uses of Raspberry Pi), I still find them very enjoyable. Also, you look like Vincent Valtieri
I've heard of Orange Pi having software issues. You definitely proved that it dose. Even though it's a bit cheaper than a Raspberry Pi 3. I'll buy a R.Pi 3 first.
Cheap isn't always cheerful! The cost of ownership is not just the purchase price but reliability, support and a large user base to help you out when problems arise. So far Raspberry have this sewn up. Bob
By the Mr. Scissors now has his own RUclips channel and guest hosts here occasionally.
I like your videos. Your explanation is very clear with focus on topic. Good job and keep going.
Many thanks.
Thank you for this video. I was going to buy Raspberry Pi. Instead I have just ordered Orange Pi PC Plus (1gb ram, h3, emmc 8gb) for a good price. I am looking forward to installing Armbian.
Enjoy your new SBC.
To change Android to English....
Look for the Android Settings icon, it looks like a grey wheel or gear. Click on it and open the settings menu. On the left of the screen scroll down to find the Language icon, it looks like a capital 'A' with a box around it or a letter 'A' keycap. Click on it then click on the top line of text on the right side, not the first check box but the line of test above it at the very top of the list. This will pop up a menu you can scroll to find your language.
Thanks! :)
Great video, as always Chris. I will pay more and get an SBC with better support for now as it appears that this one is not a great choice if you want WIFI connectivity, as I would. Sorry for all of the immaturity that seems to always make its way into comment sections! These childish little trolls seem to have nothing better to do in the basement of their parents homes. You always make very professional, informative videos that help the rest of us save time and money when it comes to tech decisions. Thank you
I really like watching your videos, it's nice how you take the time to explain and showcase everything.
Thank you for the review. Please kindly head to orange pi pc group in Facebook and there you can see the latest OS's that are pretty much compatible with Orange Pi boards. Armbian and Retrorange Pi are so far the best OS's for these boards.
Retrorangepi is a great package for these boards, based on Armbian and getting more development effort than the OSs you tested. Also a 2.5Ah+ psu is a good idea with orangepi. Your USB device issues could be power based?
Good point on the PSU.
Hello, I have an orange pi pc and I have gotten wifi to work on the board. Basically all the images that they provide are crap, they have issues with overheating and usb drivers. In order to get them to work perfectly you will have to use the Armbian images of Ubuntu and Debian. They worked perfectly for me and I can confirm that wifi and usb works. I used that same image to make a small "nas" with the orange pi that I kept running for months with a usb hdd connected to it.
Looking forward for armbian which seems to be the best fitting os for the orange pi. Not an os but exceptional good working is the openelec port. Thanks for another enjoyable video.
he explains this orange software disaster in fine english. No shouting, no swearing...although it really earns a "What a cr*p!"
As always, great video!!
Easter Sunday,hands covered in chocolate yet he uploads another infotastic video.
Hi. I think your review was fair and open minded as well as being informative and entertaining. Like you I feel that if a product such as this one is to be offered for sale in a English speaking countries, it should have a Working English language distro. I cannot speak for all other manufacturers but this one seems to be offered a little too early in its development cycle. Clearly this sbc is unacceptable as is. I hope that this will be remedied in the near futrure.
I can't wait for the Asus tinkerboard video. I hope it comes soon :)
that censorship during the scene where Ms. Cutter murdered the box
pls,pls use armbian and don't let this great board suicide its core...
it's confirmed this H3 CPU's 1.6GHz is an overclocked value (1.3GHz is default) and heatsink is necessary(at least a small native cooling one), and also their provided OSs are mostly outdated and unstable...
It's really annoying that they won't put a PCI express on these things. I reckon they could squeeze a pci-e4x on it. With 1.6ghz, you'd be able to play blu-ray with even just 2cores. With just a gen2 pci-e running at 4x you'd be able to have a video encoder card (HDMI input) for it.
+TableWolfMusic
that's because its CPU(allwinner H3) can't support PCIe as well
it's just a $20 cheapo ARM SBC, what can you expected for. Or buying a UHS1 micro SD could be better?
I've had zero issues with multiple WiFi adapters. The MT7601 $2.80 on Aliexpress and was plug and play using the Armbian image for Orange Pi. I've gotten the Ralink RT3572L working plug and play for dualband for $12. The Atheros AR9271 for $6 on Aliexpress was plug and play. But again only for Armbian which was command line only.
I love this channel, you sir have earned a sub
Many thanks -- and welcome aboard! :)
I like the way he say asoos instead of a s us.. thanks for all of your great information.. you spark the imagination my friend..
Nice video tutorial, mate. I love all your videos. Yes, he is a British university professor; University of Cambridge, I think. If you view some of his previous videos, he tells what university he is at.
I was at the University of Nottingham. Well, I am still teaching there freelance for a little bit longer . .
Oops! Sorry about that, mate. I knew you were at some British university and I thought it was Cambridge. Now I remember that you said Nottingham. Am glad you posted so quickly to correct me. I was reading some of the posts (which I do on all your videos) and some posters were inquiring at where you were a professor. Your friend from across the ¨pond¨. :-) Rusty
excellent! Thank you for a great video. I'm glad to know that regular Wi-Fi dongles don't work on that particular orange pi. So I can grab the one with wireless on board.
Thank you for a great review and for taking the time to share it with the community - very informative, Ciao, L
Armbian is definitely worth taking a look at if you have this board. With the nightly builds you can even run Docker images, which makes this thing a beast of a server.
I find myself skipping parts of your videos at the start, but I do like how much detail you go into. Can you review the GPD Win? It's awesome, but very gaming centric, which might not suit you. It has many uses, but you may prefer the GPD Pocket.
I'd love to see one your week long test videos on one of those.
There are way too many Orange Pi versions for me to figure out which one I need for projects. I would like to try some projects with Orange Pi but only really understand how RPi boards relate to each other not mentally capable of comparing them with boards developed by other companies and the Orange Pi documention on their site just makes my head hurt. I am still a no.Ob when it comes to microcontrollers and SMB's but I think maybe I could try these if I knew which one to use in place of the RPi boards I'm used to.
Easiest way to express what I need in hopes of getting answers ...
How do they all relate to Raspberry Pi versions?
--- OR ---
Which OPi is most like the RPi 1 A+?
Which OPi is most like the RPi 1 B+?
Which OPi is most like the RPi 2 B+?
Which OPi is most like the RPi 3 B?
Which OPi is most like the RPi 3 B+?
Which OPi is most like the RPi Zero?
Which OPi is most like the RPi Zero W?
I presume that in some cases OPi and RPi can't be directly compared and there may be several OPi boards that equate well with one of the 7 RPi flavors since there are so many OPi versions. I also expect that since many of the boards are or started as open source designs that some of the OPi boards will more closely resemble boards from other companies I may be more familiar with from your channel so my final question would be ...
Which OPi boards, if any, more closely resemble other boards that you have covered?
My Orange Pi PC died after a month, refused to get through booting, just froze part way through, tried different OS's and a different SD card but to no avail.
I'd avoid these personally they are such a headache, may as well fork out the bit extra for a Raspberry.
Squiggleblorg Have you tried using a different power supply? I've heard Orange Pi's are pretentious when it comes to those and not booting with cheap ones.
I have a RPi 3 and it boots from a 500 mA USB Port on a telly. So for those things Raspberry Pis are almost always better.
True for the middle class editions, but if you want something really powerful (gigabit ethernet, SATA, 2GB RAM…) Raspberry Pi won't cut it. And if you want something really cheap, Raspberry Pi is also not an option because the Zeros are constantly sold out everywhere. Orange Pi covers both of these areas.
I bought 2 and one stopped working when my kids tripped on the power cable. It wouldn't boot for weeks and then as if by magic it started working again. I looked it up and it turns out these things have a poly fuse that trips to protect the board on a power surge/spike and they say the fuse resets after a day or two. Well it took more than a few days, but I have both boards again. Hope you kept your board -might be worth trying again.
Default kernel of official Linux distros tries to run the CPU on maximum possible speed, it may be the reason of the hardware death. I run Armbian, which cuts CPU speed not more than 1.3GHz, it works just smooth one year so far
You made the comment that you liked the spring-loaded SD card slot, but I believe that the rPi uses a friction fit now because people had issues where they accidentally bumped their card and ejected it pre-maturely.
Thanks for the review, due to the lack of functional WiFi I feel like this is even going to underlie the Banana Pi which actually functions quite well as long as one doesn't try to connect a smart device to it.
hey why dont you open a patreon account?
I agree, I pay a few you tubbers a couple bucks each, each month and for that I get excellent content without tons of adverts.
DoubleBubble28 RUclips was always a business. Why would google buy it off if there was no way to make money. Also, how would we have so much great content if they never made money to pay the creators?
+DoubleBubble28 Oh yeah, I miss those days so much! /s
There actually is no way of making money so far. Since Google bought RUclips, they haven't made a single cent. It's basically a charity until further notice. (My info is a bit old, but I'd be surprised if it changed since then.)
Það er Ghetelen
I got both raspberry pi 3 and orange pi pc, both run well, the speed is similar. just community contribution for raspberry pi 3 much more than orange pi pc, but orange pi pic is only $15, so worth to have a try.
"50/50 chance; you always get it wrong!" - funny because it's true.
Actually I think USB connectors are tri-state: first try wrong, flip, still wrong, flip back, yes now it fits
Interesting information with Orange PI PC. I live in a reduce space, so this is very beneficial to have to free up computer hardware space.
Try using armbian - its like linux and most probably the wifi usb driver can work.
www.armbian.com/orange-pi-pc/
Also you can change the language on android by going to settings then to a keyboard icon by scrolling down and choose the first option. You'll find english, press on it and your done.
You can also use RetroPiOrange to play old school games using emulator. I hope you make an update on the orange pi even though I don't own it. Hope to get a reply from you :)
Thanks, i own an Orange Pi and I'll try those images, but as i have it for over a year and tried lot of systems, i'm quite sceptical :)
Nightly image has kernel 4.10.1 insted of 3.4. So it should have better driver support. Hardware accelerated video and gpio is probably still limitted. But at least you can turn the board into a server for streaming, donwloading or other stuff.
Great video Christopher!
Did you end up buying and testing one with the WiFI?
I have an Orange Pi 3 waiting to feature in a review video fairly soon.
@@ExplainingComputers Awesome, I will be eagerly waiting for that
I don't know why but when you said, "As you can see, this is Chinese." it made me lol
wow it is not even orange
what is the raspberry pi red then
why is the latte panda not black and white?
or latte colored?
not orange the colour, its the fruit. rasberry, orange, get it?
Peter Griffin I don't get it. My Raspberry Pi is Raspberry colored, I expect my Blueberry Pi to be blue, and my Orange Pi had better be orange, dammit.
Good show. Was going to get one i may still but wifi and usb is a game changer.
Chris, I have just bought an OPi PC just like yours, and should be here soon. It is just that I was assured that I could put the Android OS and then run Kodi. A simple test. I sure hope I have better experience. It kind of gives me this sick feeling. Their slogan is "Beyond Rasp Pi" ..really?Would have bought the Asus Tinker had it been available.
Hi, thanks for your explanation. But I wonder could we make computer using orange pi zero? Because it is smaller and cheaper.
Simple use retrorange pi, great desktop computing, awesome retropie, good kodi 17.4 all in one, I even like it better than my pi 3b
Another great review! Thank you!
Biuld a High-End PC!, love your videos man!
Thanks. I built an i7 a few months ago, if only with onboard graphics.
could you make a video about explaining how a motherboard works? i would love it, because there is not so many videos of this, and the only ones doesn´t explain it well enough.
Excellent bag-on O Pi prof. I bought five last year for 8+usd per unit. One I gave away One I tried on a small cnc all still waiting for an assignment.I recommend a good bike ride peddle,electric or gas to keep your mind from....I like a good old KZed650.
much love from the outer rings
Bubba
Just a quick tip, I would not display the front of the box with the QR code showing as you can scan it with a mobile phone barcode scanner app and your address shows up.
Good tip. I've just applied a very large blur filter. Will implement fairly soon. Arrgghh! Important learning point for me here. Thanks. I never even considered scanning of an onscreen QR code.
ExplainingComputers I only know as I'm a postie and it's something I discovered by accident when we first started using those QR codes, so don't beat yourself up to much. I learn enough from you so it's nice to return the favour.
Because they're square and use dot patterns, most people assume that square 2D codes are all "QR" codes. If you want to be absolutely correct, the codes on this box are actually Data Matrix codes, not QR Codes. Same result (your address info), but different symbology. Most postal services don't use QR as they're often printed on many consumer items for information URLs and could be mistaken or misscanned. Barcode scanners can be easily configured to ignore QR and focus on the Aztec, Datamatrix, or MaxiCode (UPS) symbologies most shippers use.
Had problems with wifi previously running ubuntu on a laptop. Went down a few versions down till it got working. Did a selective update.
Hi Christopher! I'd like to refresh a topic regarding Orange Pi vs. Banana Pi. Currently there are a newer versions of each boards. Orange Pi seems to improved software (according to buyers opinions). I'd like to know is it worth it to get either of this minicomputer (as alternative to Raspberry Pi 3 which I already have)? Purpose is installing OctoPrint on it, record video during 3d printing procces using some nice -not dedicated usb cam like ELP, store that video files on attached 2,5'' HDD and maybe play around from time to time. Best would be to get high resolution (let's say 4k, or at least HD in the worst case scenario). But as always there some cons. Some people are convinced it cannot be done, while others believe it should work :) What is the right answer? :) There isn't any instruction how to install Octoprint on BPi (while for RPi there is planty, and just a few for OPi). I'm searching solutions but in case of Orange or Banana it's not so obviouse. What about different boards (like Asus Tinker boards, Odroid or Rock)? In yours videos I've found something great about each one! Would love to have them all :) but geting just for testing it's crazy idea :P Could you maybe do test comparison about running octoprint on that devices, please? Another one -Latte Panda , is also sweet! But in that case it's to pricy to use it for a such purpose, and it's pure Windows.. Another question: is it possible to install Octoprint on system like Android or even Rasbian for not Raspberry devices?
I was so happy when they removed the click-in click-out sd card holder on the rpi3. The number of times I picked up a rpi2 or 1 and accidently popped out the card, stopping boot or corrupting the card. Pressing on the rpi3 sd card keeps it where it should be. Hopefully orange pi will upgrade to a 'stay-in' sd-card holder soon ;-)
@explaining computers please can you try to get an Udoo x86 Ultra for demonstration. It's got a 2.56GHz intel quad core CPU and 8GB RAM. Also features Micro SD, EMMC slots and SATA port plus USB and HDMI ports. Accessories include WIFI, a case, fan, and various cables. It promises to be the most powerful board of them all!
Tech Truth How much does it cost?
229 bux. An arm n a leg.
Wow, I was just looking to see if you made a video on the Orange Pi
tyvm for another excellent review :)
Looks like you got a lemon disguised as an orange. The lesson learned here ... Don't mix raspberries with oranges or you will end up with bananas. :)
Very detailed nice review!
On the Android setup page the switch just below the WLAN had two talk balloons next to it. Perhaps it switches languages?
4:56 You said TTRS instead of TRRS. But anyway great video as always.
You are too observant! :)
Yup, Tip. Ring 1, Ring 2, Sleeve (TRRS)
www.provideocoalition.com/ts-trs-trrs-trrrs-combating-the-misconnection-epidemic/
Yet, there is a TRRRS! ;D Dunno where this is gonna end! TR∞S!
Remember TRRS got 2 Standards OMTP & CTIA, among other ones too, that site explains them.
I think I may know the reason why you couldn't get the WiFi dongles to work-at least in Lubuntu, but possibly Raspian as well. I encountered this issue with my mobile-broadband data-stick. However, after performing the following steps, it worked like a charm, and I only had to do this once for Network Manager to be able to manage it:
1. In a Terminal, enter the following while the dongle is plugged-in:
nmcli connection
(This will list all local networking devices.)
2. Identify the device you are trying to use to connect (in this case, your Wi-Fi dongle). Copy its UUID.
3. Paste its UUID into the following command on the same line:
nmcli connection up uuid
Hopefully, this will work for you.
Classic hardware-vendor syndrome: good hardware. bad software.
The folks behind the orange pi should design their hardware to run stock images directly from os vendors (canonical, debian, etc) if they aren't going to put in the effort beyond providing the bare minimum, just leave the software to those who are.
The SoC in those boards are absolutely not supported by mainline kernel when the hardware arrives. It needs years and lot of community work to get basic things work. The SoC manufacturer provides an old, custom hacked kernel that works with the hardware. This is why all distros and android based on the same shitty 3.4 modified kernel.
Also the boot flow is various SoC-by-Soc. There is no universal standard for arm devices. So these hardware will never be able to run stock linux distributions out of the box.
While the boot process does currently very from one SoC to another, there is nothing that prevents SoC firms from agreeing to a single boot process and a standard peripheral layout (like how intel and AMD have done for both x86 and x86_64). It doesn't even have to be the default behavior as long as it can be enabled by pulling up some pin or something. If such an agreement is made, then distros will include basic support for these chips out of the box (even new hardware).
I think ARM should mandate a compatibility mode for ARM chips. These firms are too selfish and shortsighted to do the right thing on their own.
I have to agree, I has someone push this guy over the regular pi, then watch this video and say hmm. i might play with one one day, it just comes down to a proven piece of hardware or try to save a buck
billfusionenterprise I don't agree. I wanted to buy Raspberry Pi. Instead of it I have just ordered Orange PI PC Plus. Better specs (1gb, 8gb storage, 4 USB without internal hub like in RPI) and lower price. Of course I first checked if it is supported by Debian (because I am it's fan). Great community support (Armbian and dedicated RetroPI version).
Armbian support is really good for Orange Pi and you get an up-to-date Linux mainline kernel 4.14.y with Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS. It has worked flawlessly for me though it's command line only which is all I use. Network commands are a little different with Ubuntu 18.04 since you use nmcli instead of the old method of editing config text files. Just use this command to connect to WiFi. nmcli device wifi connect SSID-Name password wireless-password
I just got this thing and installed their official linux OS from their website. My wifi+bt combo dongle worked.
They also have an android os there and the language can be changed to english.
Yes Sir, you ought to try armbian ! These Orange Pi PCs are very nice indeed and work very very well but xulong's distros are a disaster, use armbian instead and your conclusions will be quite different. Nice videos by the way.
This I will try. :)
~Buys cheap Chinese knockoff~
Money wasted = 16.49 GBP
People surprised = 0
But jokes aside, thank you for this informative video.. I was considering the Orange Pi but after watching this I'll definitely spend the extra and go for a good ol' Rasp.
He just had to install Armbian and everything would have been working smoothly... his mistake.
by the way : Armbian runs on Orange Pi PC with newest Kernel - so the hardware-software-chaos seems to be solved - what do you say?!
Can't say how much I appreciate you making this video. I was going to order an Orange Pi PC to tinker with it (mostly because I collect Pi boards), but after seeing this I think I'm much better to use other Pi boards.
I wish you would've tested the IR receiver and the microphone though. Probably use LIRC or Audacity in the next videos.
Thanks again for the video!
Chris went orange 🍊 around the gills!
Hey Christopher just wanted to say another great video :). I also have a question, I bought a cheap prebuilt pc at a great price of $80 dollars and it comes with an i3 2120 3.3 ghz. but it only came with two gb of ram and it says on Lenovo webpage that the supported ram is pc3-10600 ddr3 1333 mhz. can I use different ram but at the same supported speed or does it have to be pc3-10600 ddr3 ram?
Orange PI pc H3.
Network light *ok*
Power = 5V dc 2000mA
No light indicates it is on/off on the board
HDMI picture = none
SD = RISC OS Arm SD boot image
What do you do?
Great video, sad that you had problems with the OS'. Thanks for testing the Orange Pi so we know not to buy it if we except WiFi or good software.
Thanks for the great video. How did you record the PI PC's screen?
9:25 the issue was also notable on our Raspberry Pi 1 B(yes we own one of those) but I think it's just because of the older version of Raspbian as Ethernet worked just fine though it wasn't cutting edge to any extent
I'm tempted to get one to play with but I think the software issues are a real show stopper! I would have thought they would have made a better job if they're seriously trying to persuade buyers to move from a tried and tested product like the raspberry pi! ;-)
happy easter ;)
And to you too! :)
Chris, do you happen to live or regularly walk past a train station in a town that starts with B and ends in N in a county that starts with N and ends in M? I've seen someone that looks like yourself on two occasions, one being yesterday.
Indeed, it sounds like you have seen me. I regularly use that station and was there yesterday -- and today!
Hello-
Very good review, Thanks!
Did you try to do a 'shutdown -h now' in the Root screen on the Raspian image?
on raspian why didn't you go to terminal and do a sudo halt or sudo shutdown?
I have an Orange Pi One and an Orange Pi Lite. The best OS is Armbian which, until recently, wasn't even listed on the Orange Pi website. I was able to get my WiFi USB dongle to work on my One and the onboard WiFi also works on the Lite using Armbian. It's possible to switch Android to English (I used Google Translate to help with that), but sadly it doesn't work well at all.