Linux User & Developer, Issue 143

Linux User & Developer Issue 143In this month’s Linux User & Developer magazine you’ll find, in addition to my usual four-page news spread, a review of the Banana Pi – a ‘clone’ of the Raspberry Pi featuring upgraded specifications.

I first discussed the Banana Pi in Custom PC Issue 131, where I compared it to the impending launch of the SolidRun HummingBoard. I shied away from offering a true review of either device, however: the HummingBoard had not been released at the time and I was working on pre-production hardware, while the Banana Pi suffered from glitchy software that its creators assured me would be addressed in future updates. Sure enough, the software has now been bolstered and works like a charm – giving me the chance to really put the Banana Pi through its paces.

There’s been plenty of negative sentiment towards the Banana Pi since it hit the Chinese market, mostly centring around its clearly Raspberry Pi-inspired name and more-or-less cloned layout. I, however, welcome its release: with a more powerful Raspberry Pi at least a year or more away from release, the Banana Pi is a perfect upgrade for those who find the Raspberry’s single-core ARMv6 processor – woefully out of date by modern standards, having been near-obsolete when the board launched two years ago – lacking.

The Banana Pi isn’t just a slavish copy, either. Sure, the 26-pin GPIO header is present and correct and you’ll find the right ports in more or less the right places, but the board includes a dual-core ARMv7 processor, 1GB of RAM, SATA connectivity and even an on-board microphone. In short, it’s a serious upgrade and offers considerably more software compatibility than the device from which it takes its inspiration – including the ability to run Android, something that was promised for the Raspberry Pi shortly after launch but never materialised.

If you want to read my conclusion on whether the board is worth the £41.95 that UK reseller New IT is charging, you’ll have to pick up Linux User & Developer Issue 143 either physically or via Zinio and similar digital distribution service. If you do, you’ll also find four pages of the latest open source and open hardware news, an events calendar, and a variety of things written by people who aren’t me.

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