In my opinion this computer is more suited to industrial applications than home computer or robotics use -- which is great. Years ago when I worked in industrial chemical engineering as an electronics technician, this board with its hardware power would have easily been able to control the entire program logic circuits (PLC) for the entire plant. Installing an operating system on this board is a crime as it has the potential to do so much more. The LattePanda Alpha takes small scale single board computing out of the hands of hobbyists and into the world of mainstream industrial application. My career in industrial electronics ended 23 years ago, but watching this review has truly made me jealous of what the future now holds in this field. At approximately $400 a board, this product is a total steal as many circuits can often run into the thousands of dollars. I love all the ports it has and I could easily see this board being a mainstream staple in manufacturing extremely quickly. Thank you Chris for your channel and introducing me to this great product. I wish that I still had a boss whose office I could run into on Monday morning to talk about this with.
There is absolutely zero chance an engineer worth his/her salt will use a Latte Panda in manufacturing or serious automation. Industrial automation is done with industrial grade components. I can't tell from this video if the components are industrial grade (I'll eat my hat if they are), but I can tell you the connectors will never pass an industrial application quality control test. Assembly lines or manufacturing plants are not controlled via DuPont wires inserted in GPIO connectors w/o secured, latch mechanisms. Industrial automation require redundant systems which this board doesn't have. I doubt the cooling solution on this board uses sealed ball bearings. Also, in industrial automation unnecessary subsystems are never installed, as they increase the failure rate. For example, you don't wire an audio port if you don't need one. Finally, industrial products have detailed specs that include things like MTBF, environmental conditions, stress tests, etc. I can go on and on. So don't kid yourself... this is still an amateur/hobbyist product and a pricey one for what it does.
yup, shame how shit-slow computers have got over the years isn't it? Of course the Hardware is mechanically faster, much faster. But the OS efficiency is inexcusable, over-burdened nonsense. My #smartfone is at least 4x the speed of my 1996 T-series RISC workstation and what can it do? Nuffin, nothing useful at all really. And in use, that workstation is still more responsive than a 10ghz solid quad. I still do layouts on it 20 years later... What a f-in waste...
I work in IT. And I will admit Chris has opened my mind to some awesome 3d printing and openmediavault. Things I hadn't played with before. Very good channel.
This is a really powerful little computer! I would love to see you do a video where you use it for a week as your daily computer. For my personal projects I would be hard pressed to move away from the Raspberry Pi, but I think this could actually be used as a small personal computer. Please make a video where you give us your feelings about its use as an everyday PC.
little by little the world of singleboard computers begins to become interesting and worthy precursors of computers that will arrive in a futuristic cybernetic 2020
This has been one of my favorite RUclips Channel for tech. You don't and have never made junk videos such as what the popular channels does like those "Is it worth it" videos. Been watching you since 2011-2012ish. I remember when you USB 3 and Nas videos were new. They havn't really dated. Your old content is still relevant. Good job on that!
This is great ! You even got the DaVinci Resolve working ! Personally I didnt had that much luck, I got the latest version but couldnt get it to run on Intel gpu. Altough I did manage to run Avid, and I think you could try that too ! This SBC doesnt only perform well, it even looks like a hi-end product. They did a really good job. Thank you for the great review, especially in my birthday !
I also forgot to mention, i really enjoy your video's, very interesting and once you start talking i go into some sort of trance and absorb everything i can like a sponge. So thank you very much sir for doing an excellent service and keep up the fantastic work.
Hi Chris. A nice video. I'm going to have to take a course on the newer types of memory. This Latte Panda sure packs a lot as you pointed out. Good video. This Panda seems to be on a completely different upgrade path than the Pi. Cheers.
Wow, i sure love the new Latte Panda Alpha, I own one of the early model Panda's and love it also, but this one is drool worthy. Well done to those who had a hand in it's development at DF Robot.
This Latte Panda is great contender to an Intel NUC. It’s not as fast as the latest NUC or have Thunderbolt 3. But it has GPIO ports that you could use for many projects.
The Intel + AMD Vega will likely have better graphics power, so it depends on the application that you're using it for. I would imagine for most users, who don't need very much power to begin with, you're going to have enough power in a device like this for most of their needs. If you just run a browser, RUclips, and basic office applications; it's all you need. I have a laptop that's in the same spec range (in fact, closer to the 432 model) and it's great for a cheap ultra portable option. It runs for about 7-8 hours with Ubuntu Mate. I don't use it for a lot of power intensive things but the built in HEVC helps battery life with video processing. The basic applications (word processors, spreadsheet apps, etc) will give you closer to 10 hours of run time. All of that being said, if I was buying a console killer / media center device, I might opt for the new NUC, just because it's got beefier specs for 3D graphics.
Brilliant videos and quality of information. I often use your videos in my btec classes and the students are always blown away. Saying you explain things well doesn't do justice. Thank you and I pray your channel continues to grow.
yea well it targets people that dont really care about money and want a powerful single board computer with lots of connectivity and options,you can do a bunch of stuff that you cant on a laptop here,i think it will sell well since no one occupies that market.
connectorxp :) I think SBC itself is not like a product but like a part of product! Maybe that is why. But as a developer even if I have lower spec macbook, I would buy this SBC over macbook for upgrade, mainly because I already have one to work with.
Thank you so much for your excellent review of the LattePanda Alpha. Once again I am thankful for your continued willingness to review SBC in a thoughtful way. Keep up the excellent work.
Another great review. I was going to ask how noisy the cooling fan was but you answered that in the video by saying you didn't know the fan was running unless you looked at it. If I had an extra $400 laying around I might pick up such a sweet piece of hardware but you can get a cheap laptop for that kind of money.
I will almost certainly try Linux Mint on the SSD board in a future video. And I will also be covering GPIO (Arduino) programming on a LattePanda (any model).
ExplainingComputers Hi, I'm looking for a computer just to web browsing, watch movies and simple things, I do not know anything about computers, do you think that this is a good option for me?
+Cashel - it's just a link to the microsoft store where you could then optionally download candy crush. But yes I agree, adverts shouldnt be in the start menu anyway. If you notice, windows is getting better all of the time. The installation size is now reduced from 20GB to 12GB. You can also run a linux cli shell on windows 10 (pro) which is what I do mostly, so we get the best of both worlds now. Windows for business compliance and policy reasons along with a unix-like shell for the open source world.
For what it's worth Chicuace, I'm thinking that something like this, in an enclosure and hook-and-loop fastened to the back of a big TV and with BT/wireless keyboard/mouse, is what I'd like to give to my parents for their next computer. They browse the World Wide Web, send and receive emails, and watch streaming video sites. The use-case, IMO, fits quite well with wanting something small, energy-efficient, and quiet/unobtrusive. The first step for us both is to look at enclosure options--you wouldn't want to just hang a board out in the open. If nothing else, I hope this vote of confidence is at least useful for you to dial-in the fact that you're not crazy for thinking such a thing and for asking your question. :)
It's a really incredible board with a lot of features. One of the problems you have with lesser known ARM boards is that Linux images are often outdated, or have bugs, but with this you can use whatever x86 distro you like.
Beautiful computer indeed! 🤩 All that great power packed in such small board! I can see it in few of my projects already! Vision ahead! Thank you Chris! I enjoyed every micro/nano/atosecond of video!
the idea of the single board computer is to make it small and cheap not big and expensive, for 400$ i can get a full laptop ... Thanks for the reviews, it was still interesting.
again, refurb 3770 or 4790 quad at 3.4ghz+ is a 10,000 rated machine (on cpu benchmarks) = about £400 with a half decent gfx card and storage and an upgrade path and a box...~ These things feel much more like proof of concept than useful equipment.
I don't need half a grand of wallet sized PC in my back pocket. Very few people do. I'm not an astro-mountaineer doing bulk satellite retrieval at 20,000ft. SBC's have fixed specs, making them CHEAPER to manufacture - the whole point is that you get more power for your money, not catastrophically less. and... I can remote my PC can't I? If i really want to, I can spend £400 on more computing power than was on the whole planet in 1970 - and 4G my fone to it. #smartarse :P
I'm trying to use my d435 intel 3d camera. i need it to be portable and I need a intel cpu to run it. this sbc seems a little under powered but maybe it will due. I will try to make a star trek triquarter with it.
To be fair all that was done there was install the program and load a saved project. No editing (let alone rendering) took place from what I can see. Completely moot point IMHO
These boards must be very well optimized, it is impressive how it works, shows how much work is to be done on other single board computers, my phone has 8 cores at 2ghz , my phone wouldn't touch it for performance, intel look a generation ahead, but I'm sure these arm devices will get there one of the days.
I'd all but forgotten about the LattePanda. This SBC looks pretty slick overall but the price seems a bit on the steep side. For $400 I would more likely put that on a laptop which would (obviously) include everything needed for computing. Still, I can appreciate getting so much computing in such a small package, just wish the cost itself was equitably smaller. Thanks for the review!
A laptop doesn’t have a GPIO port. The GPIO is one reason why people buy SBC for their projects. For some users this may actually be a contender to an Intel NUC.
I hear you, and since I'm not a maker/tinkerer I suppose I overlook the value of the GPIO. The barebones NUC could be a contender, at least a case is included and mounts for HDD.
The Delta 432 for $188 is a pretty solid deal. The CPU isn't as good, but still a monster as far as SBCs go. I opted for the Alpha 864, should be arriving this week!
it does completely belie the whole point of sbc's - fixed specs and a single board is supposed to make things cheap to make. So you get More power for your money.. not dramatically less, in a small package...
There are legitimate uses for SBCs this powerful. Maybe not as many as for a FAR cheaper rpi3 or tinkerboard, but I suspect most purchases of the new LattePanda will be just for the awesome factor rather than actually wanting to use it in a project. This includes me. This is a cool piece of technology, mine should arrive this week!
Wow, kudos LattePanda! I know this is a more expensive board, but they are showing a very interesting path of evolution there... I'm hoping you'll be testing this one further Chris, too good a thing to stop here. xD Linux, some gaming, stuff like that. Also, thanks for bringing this up for us who don't follow this stuff closer. Very very interesting stuff going on in the are of sbcs.
This is the perfect SBC for my projects! Good CPU, great RAM capacity and good GPU for this tiny package. I never though that my CPU- and GPU-intensive tasks would run on a tiny package like this, but now I think they can!
Which games do you guys suggest? I thought in GTA2 initially as it is free to download. However the boards seems to be very capable. Its GPU supports DX12 and OpenGL 4.5
rickster4k True, I just checked the price and at $358 It isn't that great of a price to performance ratio imo, especially when you compare it to a custom built PC of rhe same price
Wow! Am I the only one who felt genuine arousal during the actual unboxing? But in my heart I knew that this board was going to be pricey. I mean worth it if you have the use for it... But I can't justify it! Thanks for another winner though Chris!
Great review as always, thanks Chris 😀. As someone who backed the LattePanda Alpha on Kickstarter but is still waiting for mine to arrive, it's great to see a solid, no issues found, review from a trusted and independent source. It's hugely reassuring 😀 Are you going to do a follow on up on the Arduino co-processor side of things, and the other connectivity?
The LattePanda Alpha is better than ever! I can see one of those SBCs running as SignalR and WebAPI server in a lot of security systems, embedding biometric features (facial, iris, digital) communicating clients, serial cameras, sensors as temperature and/or RFID sensors, IP Cameras, and controlling gates, doors... And we can store very large amount of data locally, is something so easy... Is expensive, yes, but is very powerfull, is not? Is it a dream?
I don't understand why this is so expensive? The specs are ok, but nothing groundbreaking. Also, the power needed to run this must be excessive. And, why would you use Windows 10 on an SBC? Windows 10 is a HUGE bottle neck. It's great for desktops, but my laptop is Linux Mint. I have had Windows 10 on it but it ran slower than a 386 sx 25. Thank you for your videos! It took me a while to warm to you (sorry.) But you dry sense of humour is great! Also, I love the way you use Open Source and free software that anyone can download and use.
EXACTLY. That is my thinking as well. Running Linux Mint (or any other flavor of Linux) would have been far better than trying to run Windows 10, which is basically spyware masquerading as an operating system.
Chris, I would be really grateful if you could do a video showing how to put Lineage OS on Raspberry Pi 3. It is not nearly as straightforward as for other OS. We need your crystal clear instructions and clarity to make sure that it is done right. Thanks so much for considering this!
Hi Chris, nice review. Was wondering why not run the gimp test on the same OS? That would be a better apples-to-apples, that you anyways, will go over and order one to replace my other SBC as a single home automation server. Nice find!
I did not have Linux installed! :) But will I am sure test it out soon. And, as I discussed in the six ARM SBC test video I showed the GIMP results from, running the same OS on a range of non x86 SBCs is both technically problematic and not necessarily a good way to compare best real-world performance. I can imagine this as a great home automation server.
I really loved the original latte panda, and I even used it to make a tablet pc project so seeing a newer, more powerful, slimmer version of the latte panda on the market is pretty exciting. Only problem is that the pricing is way higher too.
Don't know why, but my first thought when I seen it in the box was if you could maybe mount it to some DIY VESA mount & place it on the back of a monitor, making it a DIY AIO computer?
cleanmgr is your friend here. What you still have is all the old files and the updates still on the C drive. Retail windows comes with loads of garbage care of ContentManager >_
No scissors were harmed in the making of this video. Well, I suppose you get what you pay for, but it's insanely expensive. Still, looking forward to ETA Prime doing a video on this to see what its retrograming emulation capabilities are.
I think it would be very interesting to see lattepanda alpha's gaming performance connected to an external GPU via the M.2 to push this device to it's limit. Maybe it can run this way even modern games with fancy graphics.
Competition is great but I wonder how this will hold into 2019 ( which is only months away ), I feel that price might be the only real big killer with this board. Remember we have 7nm CPU's across the board coming ( Arm and AMD ) on the Arm side we have A76 which is by all accounts comparable with current I3/5/7 tech with the bonus of alot lower power ( again another big issue with x86 ). I am wondering if and when AMD might join the Arm fray, I mean imagine it an AMD/Arm SoC with Vega GPU which already is supported 100% with open drivers, I would imagine its a revenue stream under consideration. With that said though its making for interesting times.
I keep putting more thought into the various utilities this thing can cover with it's functions. That little thing could run hundreds of different businesses and any machine a single man could possibly dream of building. It's just so close to that ethereal "perfect" digital handheld multitool.
I'm building a holodeck.. not joking xx full 3D room space, so you can overlap and sit with your mate overseas. Play Elite with a floating holographic cockpit and space-surround 3D etc. Ok, you do have to wear light glasses right now - but I'm afraid it needs more gfx grunt than this sbc xx It is a lot of power in a small package, but where does it actually fit? A small Pi cluster will out-gun it dramatically and I really don't need a soggy PC in my pocket, when I can build a AAA gaming rig for maybe £100 more (and that's just to have a good gfx card, so you'd be paying that anyway to take the Alpha up to spec..)
@@pdjames1729 No, I know, it isn't perfect yet, but it's an image of what can be packed in at that price point and it's inspiring to extrapolate and infer about what could be done. We're coming up on essentially arbitrary storage and RAM specs, and processor power is still being pushed along its improvement curve in spite of people claiming that moore's law is dead for the better part of a decade, and with new materials showing promise in labs. For the question of where it currently fits, the answer is anywhere that doesn't require real time 3D rendering of a high resolution immersive environment, or similar supercomputational needs, that's still the realm of task designed systems, but it could potentially serve as the entire control and diagnostics system for a small factory with little modification, It could effortlessly coordinate a large farm of autonomous tractors and irrigation equipment with trivial effort, stuff like that where traditionally you have a closet of equipment and a very expensive technician to manage it.
I have to disagree. You need Proven, industrial-spec systems for all of those things and size isn't really an issue. Not when you can get 4x the power for half of the price - multiplied by however many factory systems you're running. You're right, this is essentially a promising prototype. One that is obviously on a short-run, Latte themselves know there really isn't a market for this that makes any sense. BUT - I'm not trying to slam it, it's brave of them to develop something So far off-the-curve. It's just not what SBC's are about at all. Fixed specs = MORE power for your money. That's the whole point. Comparing these things with $15-$60 of Pine64 leaves a nasty dent in your wallet for basically zero gain - let me hit a rather odd curve-ball... If Latte had put the same effort into a Distro that was designed to cluster existing SBC's in a more accessible way, god forbid to let them live-compile x86 and x64 code. We'd have something truely revolutionary. Potentially infinitely upgradable but without all of the BOIC cluster-pigness ;oD As it is they've worked their socks off to make a consumer-grade piece of wunderlust. It looks great, ignoring the price, but doesn't really DO anything. Especially not with x86 rapidly limping into obscurity (which i hate btw, my perfect functional win7 machines are being force-obsoleted by a refusal to compile for them) I sort of get what they are trying to do here, trouble is it just isn't an SBC, any more than the motherboard of your laptop is. Cramming power into a small package is only half or the deal. SBC's are Cheap to mass-manufacture, you then work on performance without compromising that premise. This is why we are all itching for a Pi4 (with a pcie slot? like Ebon will ever do that -lol) I can't take an ITX motherboard, rip the socket off, chop all the expensive power management components out, rewire the ram and sata's onto the back and call it an SBC, even though all the bits are now soldered to one board. Unfortunately that isn't far from what Latte have done here. And given the awful price proposition, cheap parts, inability to revise and lack-lustre performance. Me, and I think about half of the people in these comments are just left asking Why... other than just to do it, what is it for? Non-tech #EarlyAdopters with too much money... My only hope, Obi-wan, is that they make enough from it to squidge the next version much closer to the SBC market. But when you can buy a god-awful win10 stick for £30 they are gonna have to work Really, really hard... There probably is room for a posh board. Just not this posh, or this not-posh... struggling here, really struggling. Not least with the Huge price gap between their top-end and the entry level... What they have essentially made is a pretty damp NUC.. is it even any smaller? xxPD
This is way beyond what the engineer designed the product for, but, since there is a 4x PCIe slot in the form of m.2... There are various riser cards that will convert that to a 4x normal pcie slot that would give the option to slot in a graphics card nothing too powerful, let's say a gt1030 or a gtx 750ti. I'm not suggesting it would be a gaming machine (although it would run a few games with acceptable performance), what about specific scenarios? Lets say this is a control unit for a robot, CUDA is what most scientists use for computer vision computations. I'm wondering how that would fare.
This has been done! The LattePanda Alpha engineers have connected in a GT1030 via an M.2 slot and have even played game! ruclips.net/video/fMh04-Bnwtc/видео.html
I started with a Commodore VIC 20 then a 64, then building tower PC's. How great and simple technology has become. Thank You, Christopher, for the great videos.
It is interesting to compare these bigger SBC's with the lower end conventional desktop PC's pushed out the door by more mainstream PC builders. For example quad core Celerons with 4gb RAM (1600mhz DDR3) and 120Gb SSD SATA3; the one I am looking at from a UK builder costs £340. But the Alpha board with 8Gb DD3 1866Mhz and with 512Gb M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs can be purchased for only about £360. My experience suggests to me that is the storage that throttles low end Intel CPUs and so perhaps the Alpha is a much better buy. Or I could be wrong. :)
This more for me is the first to really blur the lines between a conventional desktop and an SBC. Using GPIO, another USB port could be added, and if powered by the 12 volt connector, that would leave 3 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, and the USB C for either USB 3.0 or DP, so allowing dual monitors -- and the power as you note. I think we will see many LattePanda Alpha/Delta cases.
I get your point. But I was comparing new boxes with similar performance. You can get all manner of different options buying secondhand. Especially if like me your main use is office.
This is ideal for supermarket ticket stations. RS232 for fiscal printers, USB for keyboard, mouse and barcode scanners, optionaly electronic scales or credit card readers. RJ45 or wifi to access remote data bases and a HDMI mini display. All packaged in small box. I need to know what power consumption is.
Perhaps the lattePanda Alpha could handle a external graphics card on the PCI-E lanes using a special adapter! It sure would be interesting to see that happen.
It can. There is adapter called the EXP GDC beast v9.5 that will work. It costs over $100 depending on where you get it. I will prob put a RX Vega 56 on mine. (Latest Nvidia cards are a pain to get working due to driver issues) A 750 Ti would work fine but what the heck, more power.
Careful that you don't kill it, I've experienced cheap knockoffs getting slipped into genuine packages when dealing with Amazon and I overloaded and fried the display relays of my PC. Because remember it's PCI-E X4 not X16 cheap knockoffs will cause computer death.
Well I will power the GPU with an ATX power supply. Yes I realize that there is an 4X bottleneck with the PCIe. It shouldn't kill the computer a modern GPU will run at less than a 16x connection just fine. The GDC beast has been shown to work with this lattepanda.
This little board and video have peaked my desire to build a NAS Chris your videos are awesome my friend, you do such a great job at getting your point across. I love how Linux has really become a cool hobby nowadays Back in the day I mean in the early to late 2000’s I bought a bevy of boxed retail releases of Suse, Mandrake, Corel and Red Hat Linux All in the name of projects. We’ve come a long way to today. I’m currently using nothing but Linux I bought myself a pinebook pro And a large sum of SBCs So I’m set to tinker with Linux for years to come. I’ve also got a small but might data center I built from old Dell Optiplex Systems and Xeons to make myself feel like they were server lol The Xeons are so cheap, or were so why not. Most of the machines I’ve done that too are turned into small nodes in a small data center like configuration. Not a ton of space is on them. But they work beautifully 😊
Looks good!! Yeah the price is high but your getting what you paid for. I would love to see if linuxcnc or machinekit will run on it with out too much latency. With having on board pcie you could add a parallel ports or a mesa card for running a cnc. I would like to how well zbrush and OBS runs on it too.
My new LattePanda Alpha 864 was delivered on Oct 31/18. Over a very nice unit. The system works well in (unattractived) Windows 10 Pro. As a new system on the market I understand that it will take time for the manufacture to get up to speed in providing information on how to add basic components like a SSD drive and how to install Ubuntu. I'm not one to complain on RUclips but in this case I must ask for your help. There are a few RUclips presenters like yourself that are our only lifeline on getting any real detailed help on the Alpha . DFRobot at this time are not providing detailed instructions on how to go about installing Ubuntu (18.04 or whatever the latest release that's out) I'm sure they will get back on track soon, but in the meantime would it be possible for you to do full Ubuntu install. Thanks Chris.;)
I am planning a Linux install video at some point. But basically you need to enter the BIOS (esc key on boot) and set the board to boot from USB. Then create a Linux USB boot drive -- as in my recent Linux Mint 19 video -- and boot from that to install Linux. The LattePanda Alpha is just like any other x86 PC.
Thanks for your feedback Chris. I'm sure you will have a lot of Alpha users signing on to watch your Ubuntu installation video. Maybe DFRobot will post it along side your LattePanda Alpha review. 😀
Would be awesome if AMD could come out with a Ryzen 7 gen2 SOC with something like 8 gigs of RAM on a SB form factor, one with high range Vega graphics on board... THAT would be SWEET!
Nice video Chris. Next time try not to make it so obvious that it's sponsored. I think we have our first contender for an Explaining Computers drinking game. Simply take shot everytime Chris says Latte Panda...😁
Mine's in shipping. Should be at my house in a couple days, I can't wait! The first LP is great, but this looks to be a whole new, and much better beast!
There are two rows of pins on each GPIO connector -- those on the other side are labelled with other things! You can see this when the connector is in the background on the reverse angle shot. This is a final board.
finally, a _real_ computer that's an SBC. I've been waiting for pretty much exactly this. My need is a 2nd full computer I can slip inside my actual desktop and still has GPIO pins and the like
also, if you think 6 gigs of windows updates is laughable, try installing MSVC, just the "free" home developer version with all the goodies I wanted was about 100 gigs from an original 17 gig install.
Looks like a great internet and basic task runner for those who need a small machine for RVs N' such. Who need to keep everything including power to a minimum.
Before watching your video, I was about to get an Arduino Uno but after seeing the possibilities offered by the LattePanda Alpha especially after attaching a GTX 1050TI I will have to review my decision. If by luck I won this LattePanda, my problem would be solved.
Thanks for this. Note that the original LattePanda is still available (starting at $89), and includes the same Arduino controller. More info here: ruclips.net/video/z5EXNfHYPfQ/видео.html Good luck with your decision! :)
@@walrus0008 A Ryzen laptop would annihilate any rig with this and probably cost the same. Forget if you go up to ~450$ where the LattePanda is realistically going to be costing due to accessories, case, etc., you could get a laptop with a dedicated GPU at that point.
Thanks for being honest and starting the video out by telling us that the LattePanda was supplied FREE for review purposes. I agree that the Pandas are all wonderful values if supplied FREE. On the other hand, if you have to pay for them, not really such a great deal - and checking their web site, DF Robot seems to be pushing their already ridiculous prices even HIGHER than those quoted in this review. Sorry DF Robot, you are going the wrong way...
@@ExplainingComputers In general you would think a chip with a higher 'turbo' clock would always benchmark higher, but with Intel's arcane TDP based throttling it's never that simple. In the old days it _was_ simple, a chip would be specified to run at clock rate X and that was that - but NOW Intel specifies a max 'turbo' clock that it's internal governor _might_ use (or maybe not). They say this is to let them dynamically manage TDP, but I'm not sure that Intel isn't just using it to increase their yields by internally programming the governors of each chip at test time to keep those chips from getting into trouble if they are sub-par. The web site www.cpubenchmark.net collects real world performance data in the wild, and publishes the average for each CPU type, and here are the current numbers for the old and new LattePanda Alpha CPU: m3-8100Y = 3489 m3-7Y30 = 3554 So despite a much more impressive "turbo" clock specification, real world scores look roughly the same. I wonder if perhaps DFrobot's impressive Geekbench comparison scores were based on simple random variations, or was it something they were doing _wrong_ on the original m3-7Y30 (slow or single channel RAM for example, or their original stupidly inadequate passive thermal design). In any case, their new fan based m3-8100Y boards should be nice I3 class performers, but they are I3 class boards, not I7 class boards, so I still think the prices are way the hell out of line. DFRobot can spew all the silly kick-starter hype they want calling it "the soul of a powerbook" - doing a comparison to another over-priced product that is literally Apple Laptop to SBC Oranges -- but this doesn't impress me much considering that two years ago, during an Amazon Black Friday sale, I bought an Acer Aspire E 15 Full 1080 HD Gaming Laptop with an I5-6200U CPU, 8Gigs of RAM, a fast 256GB M.2 SSD, and NVIDIA 940MX 2GB Graphics, and of course Windows 10 - and paid almost exactly what they are asking for this silly little toy with Win10 and 64G eMMC- So *YES* I think it's overpriced. At $199 USD in it's minimal No-OS, No-eMMC configuration it would be a bargain, at $249, it would still get a grudging buy recommendation from me - but at $379 ? - Who are they kidding???
Wow...18GB for a "fresh" install of Windows 10? What a pig of an OS. The board looks like it would be a great Linux machine though, especially with maybe an m.2 UART in the second slot.
Chris, is there a way for the on-board Arduino unit to communicate with the i3 CPU? For a robotics project, a person might want a bit of a distributed control system--the i3 would be the central communications and control device, while the Arduino MCU would be the peripheral controller (PWM, sensors, etc). Normally I do that either over a UART or an i2c bus, but other than using an m.2 UART, is there any way to get the two processors to exchange data? Maybe DMA or something?
The Intel computer here can certainly talk to the Arduino. I intended to dig into this and make a video. Here is some (based on the first LattePanda, but I'm sure control will be just the same): www.dfrobot.com/blog-893.html
It's that size and intendant slowness of Windows that caused me to try out Linux Mint after watching the Explaining Computers videos on Mint. I'm loving Linux Mint! If I ever try out a Latte Panda, it probably won't be running Windows.
Been toying with these small formats and a big issue I never thought about is the heatsink fan/cooling. It's usually custom and impossible to source. I found laptop parts are the best place to source for a suitable replacement when/if OEM has issues.
In my opinion this computer is more suited to industrial applications than home computer or robotics use -- which is great. Years ago when I worked in industrial chemical engineering as an electronics technician, this board with its hardware power would have easily been able to control the entire program logic circuits (PLC) for the entire plant. Installing an operating system on this board is a crime as it has the potential to do so much more. The LattePanda Alpha takes small scale single board computing out of the hands of hobbyists and into the world of mainstream industrial application. My career in industrial electronics ended 23 years ago, but watching this review has truly made me jealous of what the future now holds in this field. At approximately $400 a board, this product is a total steal as many circuits can often run into the thousands of dollars. I love all the ports it has and I could easily see this board being a mainstream staple in manufacturing extremely quickly. Thank you Chris for your channel and introducing me to this great product. I wish that I still had a boss whose office I could run into on Monday morning to talk about this with.
There is absolutely zero chance an engineer worth his/her salt will use a Latte Panda in manufacturing or serious automation. Industrial automation is done with industrial grade components. I can't tell from this video if the components are industrial grade (I'll eat my hat if they are), but I can tell you the connectors will never pass an industrial application quality control test. Assembly lines or manufacturing plants are not controlled via DuPont wires inserted in GPIO connectors w/o secured, latch mechanisms. Industrial automation require redundant systems which this board doesn't have. I doubt the cooling solution on this board uses sealed ball bearings. Also, in industrial automation unnecessary subsystems are never installed, as they increase the failure rate. For example, you don't wire an audio port if you don't need one. Finally, industrial products have detailed specs that include things like MTBF, environmental conditions, stress tests, etc. I can go on and on. So don't kid yourself... this is still an amateur/hobbyist product and a pricey one for what it does.
What's to stop you from offering sound solutions advice as an independent advisor/consultant?
It more targeted for consumer and hobbyist only, not much for industrial
yup, shame how shit-slow computers have got over the years isn't it?
Of course the Hardware is mechanically faster, much faster. But the OS efficiency is inexcusable, over-burdened nonsense.
My #smartfone is at least 4x the speed of my 1996 T-series RISC workstation and what can it do? Nuffin, nothing useful at all really.
And in use, that workstation is still more responsive than a 10ghz solid quad. I still do layouts on it 20 years later... What a f-in waste...
P D James : well, it’s got to do all the marketing and surveillance logging and reporting back!
I work in IT. And I will admit Chris has opened my mind to some awesome 3d printing and openmediavault. Things I hadn't played with before. Very good channel.
I am watching you SBC reviews for years now, and still haven't bought one. Great video as always!
every sunday afternoon i wait for you to upload and then amaze myself at how times flies remembering last video as if it was yesterday!
Sunday morning. Thanks giving in Canada. Espresso in hand. And video from Chris. Now this a good day!!!
very nice SBC board and i hope to keep us updated for any thing new in SBC world
This is a really powerful little computer! I would love to see you do a video where you use it for a week as your daily computer. For my personal projects I would be hard pressed to move away from the Raspberry Pi, but I think this could actually be used as a small personal computer. Please make a video where you give us your feelings about its use as an everyday PC.
Great idea. Noted. :)
This tiny thing is more powerful than my secondary laptop which is fast enough for most of my tasks.
I love it!
I usually don’t write comments I just watch your amazing footage but there’s a first time in years to write a comment thanks for the content
Nice to know you acknowledged my comment 😮 thanks for the heart
little by little the world of singleboard computers begins to become interesting and worthy precursors of computers that will arrive in a futuristic cybernetic 2020
Impressive performance from that little sbc! Thanks as always for another great video.
This has been one of my favorite RUclips Channel for tech. You don't and have never made junk videos such as what the popular channels does like those "Is it worth it" videos.
Been watching you since 2011-2012ish. I remember when you USB 3 and Nas videos were new. They havn't really dated. Your old content is still relevant. Good job on that!
Thanks for this kind feedback.
I am being serious. This is one of my favorite channels. You get right into the point which I like.
Your channel is one of a kind on RUclips, at least what I have seen.
This is great ! You even got the DaVinci Resolve working ! Personally I didnt had that much luck, I got the latest version but couldnt get it to run on Intel gpu. Altough I did manage to run Avid, and I think you could try that too !
This SBC doesnt only perform well, it even looks like a hi-end product. They did a really good job. Thank you for the great review, especially in my birthday !
Happy Birthday! :)
The latest version requires CUDA.
I also forgot to mention, i really enjoy your video's, very interesting and once you start talking i go into some sort of trance and absorb everything i can like a sponge.
So thank you very much sir for doing an excellent service and keep up the fantastic work.
Thanks.
Waited 6 days for a new video.
The video didn’t disappoint. 😁
The size of this board is everything. So excited to see what this can do!
Hi Chris. A nice video. I'm going to have to take a course on the newer types of memory. This Latte Panda sure packs a lot as you pointed out. Good video. This Panda seems to be on a completely different upgrade path than the Pi. Cheers.
Wow, i sure love the new Latte Panda Alpha,
I own one of the early model Panda's and love it also, but this one is drool worthy.
Well done to those who had a hand in it's development at DF Robot.
This Latte Panda is great contender to an Intel NUC. It’s not as fast as the latest NUC or have Thunderbolt 3. But it has GPIO ports that you could use for many projects.
You sum this up perfectly.
You can use eGPU on this board if that's what you want TB for.
The Intel + AMD Vega will likely have better graphics power, so it depends on the application that you're using it for. I would imagine for most users, who don't need very much power to begin with, you're going to have enough power in a device like this for most of their needs. If you just run a browser, RUclips, and basic office applications; it's all you need.
I have a laptop that's in the same spec range (in fact, closer to the 432 model) and it's great for a cheap ultra portable option. It runs for about 7-8 hours with Ubuntu Mate. I don't use it for a lot of power intensive things but the built in HEVC helps battery life with video processing. The basic applications (word processors, spreadsheet apps, etc) will give you closer to 10 hours of run time.
All of that being said, if I was buying a console killer / media center device, I might opt for the new NUC, just because it's got beefier specs for 3D graphics.
Intel NUC --> USB --> Arduino Mega, or USB hub to 5 Arduino Mega's.
Brilliant videos and quality of information. I often use your videos in my btec classes and the students are always blown away. Saying you explain things well doesn't do justice. Thank you and I pray your channel continues to grow.
Thanks.
This is more like laptop without display :O its spec and price is not like another 'single' board computer ...
Kesus Kim the specs are similar to the 12 MacBook that Apple sells for 4 times the money.
yea well it targets people that dont really care about money and want a powerful single board computer with lots of connectivity and options,you can do a bunch of stuff that you cant on a laptop here,i think it will sell well since no one occupies that market.
It's going to be the base for my diy laptop!
connectorxp :) I think SBC itself is not like a product but like a part of product! Maybe that is why. But as a developer even if I have lower spec macbook, I would buy this SBC over macbook for upgrade, mainly because I already have one to work with.
The Kickstarter campaign for this used an interesting slogan : "Soul of a MacBook in a Pocket-sized Board".
Thank you so much for your excellent review of the LattePanda Alpha. Once again I am thankful for your continued willingness to review SBC in a thoughtful way. Keep up the excellent work.
I wouldn’t mind seeing another video on this SBC! For example, how does it do on Linux? Maybe have it you only computer for a week.
I expect I will do more LattePanda Alpha/etc videos. :)
Another great review. I was going to ask how noisy the cooling fan was but you answered that in the video by saying you didn't know the fan was running unless you looked at it. If I had an extra $400 laying around I might pick up such a sweet piece of hardware but you can get a cheap laptop for that kind of money.
Yes, $400 is a lot, though the Delta model starting at $188 is a good board too. It all depends what requirements people have, and funds available.
Chris's voice there @ 1:21 lol - You'd think somebody had just given him a big bowl of jelly and ice cream :D.
Love this video. Gonna search round.
Finally, there is a real productivity pocket PC on market. Nice job, Panada ! Thx for the video.
If you ever revisit this, try a linux install on the ssd (if possible) . Any popular ver is fine. We trust you. You know what you are doing.
I will almost certainly try Linux Mint on the SSD board in a future video. And I will also be covering GPIO (Arduino) programming on a LattePanda (any model).
ExplainingComputers Hi, I'm looking for a computer just to web browsing, watch movies and simple things, I do not know anything about computers, do you think that this is a good option for me?
good idea, that windows bloatware looks crazy! imagine them thinking you want candy crush haha
+Cashel - it's just a link to the microsoft store where you could then optionally download candy crush. But yes I agree, adverts shouldnt be in the start menu anyway.
If you notice, windows is getting better all of the time. The installation size is now reduced from 20GB to 12GB. You can also run a linux cli shell on windows 10 (pro) which is what I do mostly, so we get the best of both worlds now. Windows for business compliance and policy reasons along with a unix-like shell for the open source world.
For what it's worth Chicuace, I'm thinking that something like this, in an enclosure and hook-and-loop fastened to the back of a big TV and with BT/wireless keyboard/mouse, is what I'd like to give to my parents for their next computer.
They browse the World Wide Web, send and receive emails, and watch streaming video sites. The use-case, IMO, fits quite well with wanting something small, energy-efficient, and quiet/unobtrusive.
The first step for us both is to look at enclosure options--you wouldn't want to just hang a board out in the open.
If nothing else, I hope this vote of confidence is at least useful for you to dial-in the fact that you're not crazy for thinking such a thing and for asking your question. :)
It's a really incredible board with a lot of features. One of the problems you have with lesser known ARM boards is that Linux images are often outdated, or have bugs, but with this you can use whatever x86 distro you like.
I totally agree. :)
Beautiful computer indeed! 🤩
All that great power packed in such small board!
I can see it in few of my projects already! Vision ahead!
Thank you Chris!
I enjoyed every micro/nano/atosecond of video!
In spite of the price tag, I am very impressed. I've been hoping for a while for an SBC like this to arrive.
the idea of the single board computer is to make it small and cheap not big and expensive, for 400$ i can get a full laptop ...
Thanks for the reviews, it was still interesting.
This board is mainly for applications where a small form-factor and/or GPIO connectivity is needed -- eg in robotics or advanced IoT.
size being a bit factor. (said as I hear a second tower chugging away under the desk that's doing nothing but running a MUD server)
I want one! Soon we won't need laptops and SBCs will do the trick! Great vid.
This SBC is an absolute beast!
Today I See This video In 1080p with popcorn and relax myself.☺
Video editor on SBC.... When you replied on your post that "it is serious SBC " I though you were kidding.
again, refurb 3770 or 4790 quad at 3.4ghz+ is a 10,000 rated machine (on cpu benchmarks) = about £400 with a half decent gfx card and storage and an upgrade path and a box...~
These things feel much more like proof of concept than useful equipment.
I don't need half a grand of wallet sized PC in my back pocket. Very few people do.
I'm not an astro-mountaineer doing bulk satellite retrieval at 20,000ft.
SBC's have fixed specs, making them CHEAPER to manufacture - the whole point is that you get more power for your money, not catastrophically less.
and... I can remote my PC can't I? If i really want to, I can spend £400 on more computing power than was on the whole planet in 1970 - and 4G my fone to it. #smartarse :P
I'm trying to use my d435 intel 3d camera. i need it to be portable and I need a intel cpu to run it. this sbc seems a little under powered but maybe it will due. I will try to make a star trek triquarter with it.
To be fair all that was done there was install the program and load a saved project. No editing (let alone rendering) took place from what I can see. Completely moot point IMHO
Prices have changed since this was made, always check current prices. Thanks Chris.
These boards must be very well optimized, it is impressive how it works, shows how much work is to be done on other single board computers, my phone has 8 cores at 2ghz , my phone wouldn't touch it for performance, intel look a generation ahead, but I'm sure these arm devices will get there one of the days.
You are comparing x86 and ARM platform.... A very different beast overall...
That "Ohhh ! " at 1:23 mimicked my exact "niiiice ! " .
I'd all but forgotten about the LattePanda. This SBC looks pretty slick overall but the price seems a bit on the steep side. For $400 I would more likely put that on a laptop which would (obviously) include everything needed for computing. Still, I can appreciate getting so much computing in such a small package, just wish the cost itself was equitably smaller. Thanks for the review!
A laptop doesn’t have a GPIO port. The GPIO is one reason why people buy SBC for their projects. For some users this may actually be a contender to an Intel NUC.
I hear you, and since I'm not a maker/tinkerer I suppose I overlook the value of the GPIO. The barebones NUC could be a contender, at least a case is included and mounts for HDD.
The Delta 432 for $188 is a pretty solid deal. The CPU isn't as good, but still a monster as far as SBCs go. I opted for the Alpha 864, should be arriving this week!
it does completely belie the whole point of sbc's - fixed specs and a single board is supposed to make things cheap to make.
So you get More power for your money.. not dramatically less, in a small package...
There are legitimate uses for SBCs this powerful. Maybe not as many as for a FAR cheaper rpi3 or tinkerboard, but I suspect most purchases of the new LattePanda will be just for the awesome factor rather than actually wanting to use it in a project. This includes me. This is a cool piece of technology, mine should arrive this week!
I can't wait for your UDOO Bolt video,this SBC is crazy
Me too! :)
Wow, kudos LattePanda! I know this is a more expensive board, but they are showing a very interesting path of evolution there...
I'm hoping you'll be testing this one further Chris, too good a thing to stop here. xD
Linux, some gaming, stuff like that.
Also, thanks for bringing this up for us who don't follow this stuff closer. Very very interesting stuff going on in the are of sbcs.
This is the perfect SBC for my projects! Good CPU, great RAM capacity and good GPU for this tiny package. I never though that my CPU- and GPU-intensive tasks would run on a tiny package like this, but now I think they can!
This board opens up many possibilities.
Do you think it could be used in a industrial space, running 24 hours every single day in a intensive task? Or it may just not handle?
Do a video of games in this board. It would be nice
SO MANY VIEWS!!!!!!! PLEASE CHRISTOPHER
Which games do you guys suggest?
I thought in GTA2 initially as it is free to download. However the boards seems to be very capable. Its GPU supports DX12 and OpenGL 4.5
Games would be kind of interesting and all, but it makes no sense to buy one of these for games.
rickster4k True, I just checked the price and at $358 It isn't that great of a price to performance ratio imo, especially when you compare it to a custom built PC of rhe same price
this is basically a gpd win 2 but without screen/keyboard
Most excellent.. I love these mini micro computers.. in the 70s and 80s I worked on main frames.
What you used to work on in a room now goes in a pocket! :)
Wow! Am I the only one who felt genuine arousal during the actual unboxing? But in my heart I knew that this board was going to be pricey. I mean worth it if you have the use for it... But I can't justify it! Thanks for another winner though Chris!
Great review as always, thanks Chris 😀.
As someone who backed the LattePanda Alpha on Kickstarter but is still waiting for mine to arrive, it's great to see a solid, no issues found, review from a trusted and independent source. It's hugely reassuring 😀
Are you going to do a follow on up on the Arduino co-processor side of things, and the other connectivity?
Thanks for this. I will indeed do an Arduino programming on a LattePanda video.
The LattePanda Alpha is better than ever!
I can see one of those SBCs running as SignalR and WebAPI server in a lot of security systems, embedding biometric features (facial, iris, digital) communicating clients, serial cameras, sensors as temperature and/or RFID sensors, IP Cameras, and controlling gates, doors...
And we can store very large amount of data locally, is something so easy...
Is expensive, yes, but is very powerfull, is not?
Is it a dream?
Whoa. Description on connectors. This is luxury.
I don't understand why this is so expensive? The specs are ok, but nothing groundbreaking. Also, the power needed to run this must be excessive. And, why would you use Windows 10 on an SBC? Windows 10 is a HUGE bottle neck. It's great for desktops, but my laptop is Linux Mint. I have had Windows 10 on it but it ran slower than a 386 sx 25. Thank you for your videos! It took me a while to warm to you (sorry.) But you dry sense of humour is great! Also, I love the way you use Open Source and free software that anyone can download and use.
EXACTLY. That is my thinking as well. Running Linux Mint (or any other flavor of Linux) would have been far better than trying to run Windows 10, which is basically spyware masquerading as an operating system.
@@menguardingtheirownwallets6791 Thank you. I wanted to say this. You already did. Have a blue thumbs up internet point.
Chris, I would be really grateful if you could do a video showing how to put Lineage OS on Raspberry Pi 3. It is not nearly as straightforward as for other OS. We need your crystal clear instructions and clarity to make sure that it is done right. Thanks so much for considering this!
Noted!
Hi Chris, nice review. Was wondering why not run the gimp test on the same OS? That would be a better apples-to-apples, that you anyways, will go over and order one to replace my other SBC as a single home automation server. Nice find!
I did not have Linux installed! :) But will I am sure test it out soon. And, as I discussed in the six ARM SBC test video I showed the GIMP results from, running the same OS on a range of non x86 SBCs is both technically problematic and not necessarily a good way to compare best real-world performance. I can imagine this as a great home automation server.
Thanks for the quick reply...I try not to miss any of your videos..
Here in my garage, sipping on some Latte and watching Lattepanda!
wow.. this thing is very powerful for it's size
Great video, Chris. Amazing tehnology
I really loved the original latte panda, and I even used it to make a tablet pc project so seeing a newer, more powerful, slimmer version of the latte panda on the market is pretty exciting. Only problem is that the pricing is way higher too.
Don't know why, but my first thought when I seen it in the box was if you could maybe mount it to some DIY VESA mount & place it on the back of a monitor, making it a DIY AIO computer?
A very nice idea.
I backed this kickstarter and that was my exact plan for it.
I can't see what would stop you from trying that, It'd actually work quite well.
I'm sure you can 3d print a quick mount for something like this! Maybe make a cover for the board while you are at it?
cleanmgr is your friend here. What you still have is all the old files and the updates still on the C drive.
Retail windows comes with loads of garbage care of ContentManager >_
No scissors were harmed in the making of this video.
Well, I suppose you get what you pay for, but it's insanely expensive. Still, looking forward to ETA Prime doing a video on this to see what its retrograming emulation capabilities are.
MarkTheMorose let’s hope Mr. Hammer doesn’t get close to this SBC!
I think it would be very interesting to see lattepanda alpha's gaming performance connected to an external GPU via the M.2 to push this device to it's limit. Maybe it can run this way even modern games with fancy graphics.
You can watch that here! ruclips.net/video/fMh04-Bnwtc/видео.html
Competition is great but I wonder how this will hold into 2019 ( which is only months away ), I feel that price might be the only real big killer with this board. Remember we have 7nm CPU's across the board coming ( Arm and AMD ) on the Arm side we have A76 which is by all accounts comparable with current I3/5/7 tech with the bonus of alot lower power ( again another big issue with x86 ). I am wondering if and when AMD might join the Arm fray, I mean imagine it an AMD/Arm SoC with Vega GPU which already is supported 100% with open drivers, I would imagine its a revenue stream under consideration.
With that said though its making for interesting times.
Interestint times indeed.
AMD is already in the ARM game. Last year they launched an ARM-based Opteron SoC.
@@JackBandicootsBunker it was more of a toe dip / test the water event, the hardware was way over priced and not available.
Thanks Chris. More videos on the amazing little LP Alpha!
I keep putting more thought into the various utilities this thing can cover with it's functions. That little thing could run hundreds of different businesses and any machine a single man could possibly dream of building. It's just so close to that ethereal "perfect" digital handheld multitool.
I'm building a holodeck.. not joking xx full 3D room space, so you can overlap and sit with your mate overseas. Play Elite with a floating holographic cockpit and space-surround 3D etc.
Ok, you do have to wear light glasses right now - but I'm afraid it needs more gfx grunt than this sbc xx
It is a lot of power in a small package, but where does it actually fit? A small Pi cluster will out-gun it dramatically and I really don't need a soggy PC in my pocket, when I can build a AAA gaming rig for maybe £100 more (and that's just to have a good gfx card, so you'd be paying that anyway to take the Alpha up to spec..)
@@pdjames1729 No, I know, it isn't perfect yet, but it's an image of what can be packed in at that price point and it's inspiring to extrapolate and infer about what could be done. We're coming up on essentially arbitrary storage and RAM specs, and processor power is still being pushed along its improvement curve in spite of people claiming that moore's law is dead for the better part of a decade, and with new materials showing promise in labs.
For the question of where it currently fits, the answer is anywhere that doesn't require real time 3D rendering of a high resolution immersive environment, or similar supercomputational needs, that's still the realm of task designed systems, but it could potentially serve as the entire control and diagnostics system for a small factory with little modification, It could effortlessly coordinate a large farm of autonomous tractors and irrigation equipment with trivial effort, stuff like that where traditionally you have a closet of equipment and a very expensive technician to manage it.
I have to disagree. You need Proven, industrial-spec systems for all of those things and size isn't really an issue. Not when you can get 4x the power for half of the price - multiplied by however many factory systems you're running. You're right, this is essentially a promising prototype. One that is obviously on a short-run, Latte themselves know there really isn't a market for this that makes any sense. BUT - I'm not trying to slam it, it's brave of them to develop something So far off-the-curve. It's just not what SBC's are about at all. Fixed specs = MORE power for your money. That's the whole point. Comparing these things with $15-$60 of Pine64 leaves a nasty dent in your wallet for basically zero gain - let me hit a rather odd curve-ball...
If Latte had put the same effort into a Distro that was designed to cluster existing SBC's in a more accessible way, god forbid to let them live-compile x86 and x64 code. We'd have something truely revolutionary. Potentially infinitely upgradable but without all of the BOIC cluster-pigness ;oD
As it is they've worked their socks off to make a consumer-grade piece of wunderlust. It looks great, ignoring the price, but doesn't really DO anything. Especially not with x86 rapidly limping into obscurity (which i hate btw, my perfect functional win7 machines are being force-obsoleted by a refusal to compile for them)
I sort of get what they are trying to do here, trouble is it just isn't an SBC, any more than the motherboard of your laptop is. Cramming power into a small package is only half or the deal. SBC's are Cheap to mass-manufacture, you then work on performance without compromising that premise. This is why we are all itching for a Pi4 (with a pcie slot? like Ebon will ever do that -lol)
I can't take an ITX motherboard, rip the socket off, chop all the expensive power management components out, rewire the ram and sata's onto the back and call it an SBC, even though all the bits are now soldered to one board.
Unfortunately that isn't far from what Latte have done here. And given the awful price proposition, cheap parts, inability to revise and lack-lustre performance. Me, and I think about half of the people in these comments are just left asking Why... other than just to do it, what is it for? Non-tech #EarlyAdopters with too much money...
My only hope, Obi-wan, is that they make enough from it to squidge the next version much closer to the SBC market. But when you can buy a god-awful win10 stick for £30 they are gonna have to work Really, really hard... There probably is room for a posh board. Just not this posh, or this not-posh... struggling here, really struggling. Not least with the Huge price gap between their top-end and the entry level... What they have essentially made is a pretty damp NUC.. is it even any smaller? xxPD
You are very lucky to have all these gadgets! And thank you very much to educate us about these as well...
I am lucky indeed!
This is way beyond what the engineer designed the product for, but, since there is a 4x PCIe slot in the form of m.2... There are various riser cards that will convert that to a 4x normal pcie slot that would give the option to slot in a graphics card nothing too powerful, let's say a gt1030 or a gtx 750ti. I'm not suggesting it would be a gaming machine (although it would run a few games with acceptable performance), what about specific scenarios? Lets say this is a control unit for a robot, CUDA is what most scientists use for computer vision computations. I'm wondering how that would fare.
This has been done! The LattePanda Alpha engineers have connected in a GT1030 via an M.2 slot and have even played game! ruclips.net/video/fMh04-Bnwtc/видео.html
I started with a Commodore VIC 20 then a 64, then building tower PC's. How great and simple technology has become.
Thank You, Christopher, for the great videos.
It is interesting to compare these bigger SBC's with the lower end conventional desktop PC's pushed out the door by more mainstream PC builders. For example quad core Celerons with 4gb RAM (1600mhz DDR3) and 120Gb SSD SATA3; the one I am looking at from a UK builder costs £340. But the Alpha board with 8Gb DD3 1866Mhz and with 512Gb M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs can be purchased for only about £360. My experience suggests to me that is the storage that throttles low end Intel CPUs and so perhaps the Alpha is a much better buy. Or I could be wrong. :)
This more for me is the first to really blur the lines between a conventional desktop and an SBC. Using GPIO, another USB port could be added, and if powered by the 12 volt connector, that would leave 3 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, and the USB C for either USB 3.0 or DP, so allowing dual monitors -- and the power as you note. I think we will see many LattePanda Alpha/Delta cases.
That Celron box I mentioned doesn't have as many USB 3.0 sockets as the Alpha; in fact its connectivity on the whole is a generation or three behind.
check refurb 3770 or 4790's on ebay xx £350 will buy you a 10k rated 3.4ghz+ monster.
Yes. I can remember pricing up AMD systems with oodles of RAM for next to nothing.
I get your point. But I was comparing new boxes with similar performance. You can get all manner of different options buying secondhand. Especially if like me your main use is office.
I see great potential for this SBC, connect a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse then hide the SBC behind a monitor... Indeed very nice
This is ideal for supermarket ticket stations. RS232 for fiscal printers, USB for keyboard, mouse and barcode scanners, optionaly electronic scales or credit card readers. RJ45 or wifi to access remote data bases and a HDMI mini display. All packaged in small box. I need to know what power consumption is.
It's an overkill -- you can do point-of-sale on almost any SBC with USB, Ethernet and display output...
Agreed. A Pi Zero's probably more than you need for POS, &c., unless it's running multiple registers at once.
So it's a battery hungry device!.
Absolutely Top-Drawer presentation as always! Thorough and detailed! I plan to buy several of these! (because of your recommendation)
Several?! :)
Perhaps the lattePanda Alpha could handle a external graphics card on the PCI-E lanes using a special adapter!
It sure would be interesting to see that happen.
It can. There is adapter called the EXP GDC beast v9.5 that will work. It costs over $100 depending on where you get it. I will prob put a RX Vega 56 on mine. (Latest Nvidia cards are a pain to get working due to driver issues) A 750 Ti would work fine but what the heck, more power.
Careful that you don't kill it, I've experienced cheap knockoffs getting slipped into genuine packages when dealing with Amazon and I overloaded and fried the display relays of my PC. Because remember it's PCI-E X4 not X16 cheap knockoffs will cause computer death.
Well I will power the GPU with an ATX power supply. Yes I realize that there is an 4X bottleneck with the PCIe. It shouldn't kill the computer a modern GPU will run at less than a 16x connection just fine. The GDC beast has been shown to work with this lattepanda.
This little board and video have peaked my desire to build a NAS
Chris your videos are awesome my friend, you do such a great job at getting your point across.
I love how Linux has really become a cool hobby nowadays
Back in the day I mean in the early to late 2000’s I bought a bevy of boxed retail releases of Suse, Mandrake, Corel and Red Hat Linux
All in the name of projects.
We’ve come a long way to today.
I’m currently using nothing but Linux
I bought myself a pinebook pro
And a large sum of SBCs
So I’m set to tinker with Linux for years to come.
I’ve also got a small but might data center I built from old Dell Optiplex Systems and Xeons to make myself feel like they were server lol
The Xeons are so cheap, or were so why not.
Most of the machines I’ve done that too are turned into small nodes in a small data center like configuration.
Not a ton of space is on them. But they work beautifully 😊
the wifi standard has changed the names a few days ago 802.11 AC is wifi 5 now !!!! check it out !! and maybe a video explaining it ???
I will look info this.
As if it would change something... Pointless!
Thanks but that's kinda pointless and in fact confuses the consumer since everyone knows what 802.11 means
Yay your video fits the iPhone X so well no cut out information or anything great job ;3
I always produce for what is called STA (safe title area), so nothing is cropped on a TV or phone.
ExplainingComputers that’s a great idea! I wish more channels did the same
Looks good!! Yeah the price is high but your getting what you paid for. I would love to see if linuxcnc or machinekit will run on it with out too much latency. With having on board pcie you could add a parallel ports or a mesa card for running a cnc. I would like to how well zbrush and OBS runs on it too.
My new LattePanda Alpha 864 was delivered on Oct 31/18. Over a very nice unit. The system works well in (unattractived) Windows 10 Pro. As a new system on the market I understand that it will take time for the manufacture to get up to speed in providing information on how to add basic components like a SSD drive and how to install Ubuntu. I'm not one to complain on RUclips but in this case I must ask for your help. There are a few RUclips presenters like yourself that are our only lifeline on getting any real detailed help on the Alpha . DFRobot at this time are not providing detailed instructions on how to go about installing Ubuntu (18.04 or whatever the latest release that's out) I'm sure they will get back on track soon, but in the meantime would it be possible for you to do full Ubuntu install. Thanks Chris.;)
I am planning a Linux install video at some point. But basically you need to enter the BIOS (esc key on boot) and set the board to boot from USB. Then create a Linux USB boot drive -- as in my recent Linux Mint 19 video -- and boot from that to install Linux. The LattePanda Alpha is just like any other x86 PC.
Note that I added an M.2 SSD in this video! :)
Thanks for your feedback Chris. I'm sure you will have a lot of Alpha users signing on to watch your Ubuntu installation video. Maybe DFRobot will post it along side your LattePanda Alpha review. 😀
Was waiting for this video..
That's rather advanced for a sbc, I like it.
Good presentation, n review of LattePanda. Delivery from DFRobot is quite a late for LattePanda.
Excellent presentation again Chris. That works for me. love the fan cooler.
*'when fans are involved, it's not an SBC'*
Socrates, 573 sBC
"Don't believe anything on the internet" ~plato 100 sBC
'Amen to that'
*me, right now*
this might be my next sbc purchase. I have always used PI but this looks interesting
It is an SBC on another level! :)
Would be awesome if AMD could come out with a Ryzen 7 gen2 SOC with something like 8 gigs of RAM on a SB form factor, one with high range Vega graphics on board... THAT would be SWEET!
www.cnx-software.com/2018/06/01/udoo-bolt-amd-ryzen-embedded-v1000-sbc/
Nice video Chris. Next time try not to make it so obvious that it's sponsored.
I think we have our first contender for an Explaining Computers drinking game. Simply take shot everytime Chris says Latte Panda...😁
This video is not sponsored. I was not paid anything to make this video. I just like the product. :)
I want a Latte(coffee) now...oh look a headphone jack Apple!!!...
Mine's in shipping. Should be at my house in a couple days, I can't wait! The first LP is great, but this looks to be a whole new, and much better beast!
but WHY are all "GPIO"-Pins for DC, USB and I2C lableled GND at the one long side of the board? Preproduction-Sample?
There are two rows of pins on each GPIO connector -- those on the other side are labelled with other things! You can see this when the connector is in the background on the reverse angle shot. This is a final board.
finally, a _real_ computer that's an SBC. I've been waiting for pretty much exactly this. My need is a 2nd full computer I can slip inside my actual desktop and still has GPIO pins and the like
also, if you think 6 gigs of windows updates is laughable, try installing MSVC, just the "free" home developer version with all the goodies I wanted was about 100 gigs from an original 17 gig install.
Aww. No powerdraw test.
When you do a follow up can you discuss power draw and fan noise please? Great video.
Fan noise is minimal -- the fan is very quiet, as I think I mentioned in the video. I will look at power consumption in a future video.
it has a build in arduino !!
I am in
Looks like a great internet and basic task runner for those who need a small machine for RVs N' such. Who need to keep everything including power to a minimum.
*Let's go and take... a closer look*
That sentence never gets boring :D
Before watching your video, I was about to get an Arduino Uno but after seeing the possibilities offered by the LattePanda Alpha especially after attaching a GTX 1050TI I will have to review my decision. If by luck I won this LattePanda, my problem would be solved.
Thanks for this. Note that the original LattePanda is still available (starting at $89), and includes the same Arduino controller. More info here: ruclips.net/video/z5EXNfHYPfQ/видео.html Good luck with your decision! :)
@@ExplainingComputers Thanks for that information. I will watch the vidéo.
358$ retail? Sorry, I'm out.
Big oofs
It would be a very fancy PCL.
I don't see the point either. you get laptops with these specs for little bit more with display, keyboard and case
@@walrus0008 A Ryzen laptop would annihilate any rig with this and probably cost the same. Forget if you go up to ~450$ where the LattePanda is realistically going to be costing due to accessories, case, etc., you could get a laptop with a dedicated GPU at that point.
Finally got notified again... Thanks RUclips
Glad this happened! :)
Man you can build a laptop out of this!!!
Better that the i9 MacBook Pro
@@manolinmero Not better, but the hardware is almost the same as the 2016 Macbook (the small thinnest ones) and the Panda can indeed run MacOS Mojave.
@@SoldererOfFortune i was joking
@@manolinmero I know, but I wasn't. You can seriously run MacOS on it.
@@SoldererOfFortune Yeah i know, as you say it gas the same CPU than the previous MacBook Air i think
Thanks for being honest and starting the video out by telling us that the LattePanda was supplied FREE for review purposes. I agree that the Pandas are all wonderful values if supplied FREE. On the other hand, if you have to pay for them, not really such a great deal - and checking their web site, DF Robot seems to be pushing their already ridiculous prices even HIGHER than those quoted in this review. Sorry DF Robot, you are going the wrong way...
The higher prices are for the new "s" model, which has a faster CPU.
@@ExplainingComputers
In general you would think a chip with a higher 'turbo' clock would always benchmark higher, but with Intel's arcane TDP based throttling it's never that simple. In the old days it _was_ simple, a chip would be specified to run at clock rate X and that was that - but NOW Intel specifies a max 'turbo' clock that it's internal governor _might_ use (or maybe not). They say this is to let them dynamically manage TDP, but I'm not sure that Intel isn't just using it to increase their yields by internally programming the governors of each chip at test time to keep those chips from getting into trouble if they are sub-par.
The web site www.cpubenchmark.net collects real world performance data in the wild, and publishes the average for each CPU type, and here are the current numbers for the old and new LattePanda Alpha CPU:
m3-8100Y = 3489
m3-7Y30 = 3554
So despite a much more impressive "turbo" clock specification, real world scores look roughly the same. I wonder if perhaps DFrobot's impressive Geekbench comparison scores were based on simple random variations, or was it something they were doing _wrong_ on the original m3-7Y30 (slow or single channel RAM for example, or their original stupidly inadequate passive thermal design).
In any case, their new fan based m3-8100Y boards should be nice I3 class performers, but they are I3 class boards, not I7 class boards, so I still think the prices are way the hell out of line.
DFRobot can spew all the silly kick-starter hype they want calling it "the soul of a powerbook" - doing a comparison to another over-priced product that is literally Apple Laptop to SBC Oranges -- but this doesn't impress me much considering that two years ago, during an Amazon Black Friday sale, I bought an Acer Aspire E 15 Full 1080 HD Gaming Laptop with an I5-6200U CPU, 8Gigs of RAM, a fast 256GB M.2 SSD, and NVIDIA 940MX 2GB Graphics, and of course Windows 10 - and paid almost exactly what they are asking for this silly little toy with Win10 and 64G eMMC- So *YES* I think it's overpriced.
At $199 USD in it's minimal No-OS, No-eMMC configuration it would be a bargain, at $249, it would still get a grudging buy recommendation from me - but at $379 ? - Who are they kidding???
Wow...18GB for a "fresh" install of Windows 10? What a pig of an OS. The board looks like it would be a great Linux machine though, especially with maybe an m.2 UART in the second slot.
Chris, is there a way for the on-board Arduino unit to communicate with the i3 CPU? For a robotics project, a person might want a bit of a distributed control system--the i3 would be the central communications and control device, while the Arduino MCU would be the peripheral controller (PWM, sensors, etc). Normally I do that either over a UART or an i2c bus, but other than using an m.2 UART, is there any way to get the two processors to exchange data? Maybe DMA or something?
The Intel computer here can certainly talk to the Arduino. I intended to dig into this and make a video. Here is some (based on the first LattePanda, but I'm sure control will be just the same): www.dfrobot.com/blog-893.html
Thank you. I'll take a look at it now.
It's that size and intendant slowness of Windows that caused me to try out Linux Mint after watching the Explaining Computers videos on Mint. I'm loving Linux Mint!
If I ever try out a Latte Panda, it probably won't be running Windows.
Well, there's THAT comment I was looking for.
Been toying with these small formats and a big issue I never thought about is the heatsink fan/cooling. It's usually custom and impossible to source. I found laptop parts are the best place to source for a suitable replacement when/if OEM has issues.