However it is difficult to find a board that combines the balance of hardware features and software support offered by the Pi Zero W, as is true of the more expensive Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. One of the cheapest alternatives is probably the 256MB Orange Pi Zero H2. WHAT IS THE CHEAPEST RASPBERRY PI ZERO ALTERNATIVE? So it's a reasonable choice for tinkering with hardware or prototyping simple IoT devices. A 10/100M Ethernet port will let you remotely connect to the board.
However, the Allwinner H3 processor is based on a newer architecture than the Pi Zero W and is clocked to run faster, as well as having 36 pre-soldered GPIO headers for hooking up to hardware.
One that comes close on paper is the $10 Nano Pi Neo, which will cost you the same as a Raspberry Pi Zero W but lacks the Pi's built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, has half the memory (the 512MB version costs $12) and no mini-HDMI. As such it's hard to find a machine to match it. The $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W is one of the smallest and cheapest machines available, costing roughly the same as a KFC Bargain Bucket, and packing 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. WHAT ARE CHEAP ALTERNATIVES TO THE RASPBERRY PI ZERO W? There is also the Orange Pi 3, which on paper sounds good for the price, although I have a hard time recommending that given the board's very flaky performance in testing. If 4K video playback is what you're after, then the $27 Le Potato has been praised for how it handles 4K, H.265-encoded video with a Kodi media player, but also criticized for software and operating system support being nowhere near as robust as on the Pi, so you'll have to be technically proficient to get it working.
There are also issues with driver support that affect HDMI sound and USB 3.0 working at the speed of USB 2.0, according to a recent review - although work is ongoing on improving software support. However it is some $14 cheaper than the base Pi 4, while offering the same amount of memory and Gigabit Ethernet, with a pin header that is compatible with hardware add-ons for the Pi boards - so it has some advantages over the $25 Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+.Īnd while the H64's CPU may operate at 1.8GHz, compared to 1.5GHz on the Pi, that speed bump may mean little in terms of actual performance due to the Pi 4's CPU being based on a newer Arm architecture.Ĭompounding that disadvantage is the fact the H64 has slower Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, one fewer USB 3.0 port, and doesn't support dual displays. The board was first released some years ago and is weaker than the Pi 4 in just about every respect - with a slower CPU based on an older and weaker Arm architecture, offering slower memory, inferior 802.11n Wi-Fi. If you don't mind tackling issues with software and drivers, then you could try the $21 Pine A64. Unfortunately if you want a cheaper board than the Pi you're going to have to compromise. That's especially true given that certain boards that outperform the Pi on paper are often found wanting upon testing, due to bottlenecks in the system and the frequently poor software and driver compatibility of these Pi rivals. It's hard to think of another single-board computer that offers the same features for the price as the Pi 4. The release of the Pi 4 makes many of the alternatives pretty difficult to recommend, given the marginal improvement in specs many offer for the price, especially when combined with their drawbacks. However it would have the disadvantage of not being built into the board.
The counter argument is that an SSD hooked up to the Pi 4's USB 3.0 ports could read and write data more rapidly than eMMC storage and is good enough for most use cases.
The only missing feature is the lack of an eMMC or a SATA interface for adding fast storage to the board. On paper it's also capable of video playback of H.265-encoded video, although this support is currently being added to operating systems. Not only did the newer, faster board offer superior performance, it packed in USB 3.0, dual 4K display support, and true Gigabit Ethernet. When the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B was released in June this year, it offered many features Pi users had been asking for. WHAT ARE THE SHORTCOMINGS OF RASPBERRY PI?
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