I'm glad you suffered for us in trying to get the Orange Pi to work properly. Your work saved us a lot of frustration if we had tried it for ourselves! Great video, as usual!!
Nah I think your jumping to an early conclusion, yes this board has a number of hardware errata but once perhaps a BSP is released ( might have been done for the H6 ) not sure, this one should do quite well. The hardware issues I allude to are the m.2 support and something else ( cant remember ). You should actually give a bit more respect to the sun-xi guys/devs who actually reverse engineer ( no docs ) these boards to get things working to quite a high degree.
whenever boards are released with dodgy software compatibility/ no optimisation there is one guarantee, hardly(in the grand scheme of things) anyone buys them. How long will it take for developers of these boards to hear the penny drop?
@Jeff Wolsieffer Test which test?, from what I read / understood the H6 wiring for a number of things is not standard / correct and would never work ( sun-xi ) write up. Aha! pcie ( which would probably hurt the M.2 ) linux-sunxi.org/H6 and the watchdog is broken.
I use the google translate app on my android phone to translate languages on my PC screen. You run the app, point the phones camera to screen, and translate Chinese (or any language) to English. Language settings were in the circle (world icon). Great videos! I love your channel. I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 3 because of your hardware reviews, and am loving it.
Hello Chris 👋🏻 I don't mind software itch/glitch on orange pi, it is amazing SBC! Made my Sunday. Software glitches like this just heat up my curiosity and in no time I find myself searching for OS/software problem solutions. 🤩 Mr Scissors is in good shape, as always.
You were very kind with your review, and I did enjoy it, but working 7 hours on software is something you are never getting back! Hardware no matter what what it looks like if not accessible is paper weight!
Good to see you back on the sbc's, orange pi looks nice except for the software. Looking forward to your next installment of the Raspberry Pi Devastator Robot.
Nice to see us back with SBC. I have a banana Pi knocking around somewhere that you have reminded me I should find a use for- when I played with it last that was let down by the software as well. The Orange Pi looks much better at a good price so I’ll order one. The Orange Pi represents great hardware value compared to the Raspberry- I built a Raspberry with a nice metal case and by the time I’d added the boards for RTC/Safe shut down/M.2/HDD/SSD it was well over £120. I was building it for a customer (as a paid hobby) but I felt it represented poor value for what it is- especially as they really wanted UPS as well which would have added another £30. That is bring it close to the cost of a cheap laptop/chromebook. What I really want is the Latte Panda with the i3- unfortunately it is on back order (and I have stage 4/terminal cancer so long-term plans are out) and it is going to cost £400. Instead I am going to get one of these (£130 but you have to add CPU/DDR/Storage so about £450 and upwards); www.anandtech.com/show/13830/asrock-at-ces-2019-deskmini-a300-worlds-first-amd-ryzen-mini-stx-pc-launched I’ve built one already, it is the tiny STX form factor and is interesting because of the AMD chipset, or rather lack of chipset. Most of the chipset duties are carried out by the AMD CPU, which are restricted to the new Athlon/Ryzen G CPUs for this A300 ‘chipset’. This means that there isn’t a PCIe discrete graphics option on the board (As-Rock are the only manufacturer, they do have another model, currently unavailable that does have PCIe added back in but I’m not sure how they did that or if AMD will allow them to do it again)- however I am going to try a M.2 to PCIe 8 adaptor to run a 1050Ti I have knocking around- PCie 8 won’t hit performance despite not being PCI 16, maybe 7% that is all. I’m waiting on the adaptor to come from the USA. These adaptors need careful choice, there are plenty about but most are low quality and were a result of the bit mining craze. I’m lead to believe what I have ordered is good quality. If it doesn’t work I haven’t spent much, the A300 can be built into a system and sold on, the same with the 1050Ti, and the adaptor cost me less than £15.
You could probably do better with a rolling release distro ( probably requiring a custom kernel ), I am not 100% where this H^ stands as far as kernel support in 5.x.
great to see mr scissors in action again, iv'e found retrorange pi works really well for game emulation on these boards. thanks for another great review
Good point, a few of these faulted Pi seem to redeem themselves when it comes to game emulators. There a YTber called I think ETA Prime who cover that aspect quite comprehensively. Although he has special access to quite expensive (Latte Panda) as well it must be said. Being told a £400 SBC is good at game emulation is less meaningful than being told a £50 is.
Greetings! Indeed, there are three basic rules - which you have passed on to us - in the evaluation of SBCs: first, software support, second, software support and third, software support! And when one of these three rules is missing (!), it is imperative to look elsewhere! Thank you!
Armbian. You need to look at Armbian as an OS for those SBC. They usually have better support than images from seller. Orangepi3 is listed as work in progress though.
You really crushed my hopes and dreams for making this my bedroom 4K media player! As you were going through the stats, I was like, yeah, YEAH go on, go on! But when that thing folded up like a cheap suit on the test video all that fell apart. You spent 7 or 8 HOURS and were able to get one os to boot? Gah!
This is why I, and many others, have gone with the Raspberry Pi. On paper, the Orange Pi looks like a great value for the money. If you can verify before you purchase it that the software works, it might still be. Otherwise, you're almost certainly better off with a Raspberry Pi or another system where the software actually works. Rather sad, and I definitely do hope they eventually do put the time to working these problems out. :/
@@ExplainingComputers So far my Orange Pis were only usable when using Armbian as OS. But even there not everything is perfect. And those Allwinner Boards thend to get hot.
Actually no, as a long time Orange Pi users, it's actually well documented in the forums, Orange Pi focus on getting hobbyists the best hardware they can for lowest price, they don't do much in software and instead encourage the OS community to develop software, which Armbian does really well. Actually these reviews would be significantly improved if all the SBC's were compared with the same armbian version installed, keeping the software the same means it would be a much fairer comparison with the SBC being the only variable changed.
i don't know when you filmed this but for about a week i was having a terrible time with youtube, all videos were struggling to even get 480p, for me this seems to have been fixed 1 or 2 days ago. I'm not sure what the problem was, but using a VPN improved it greatly, today its playing just fine without using the vpn.
The Orange PI should come with a warning about cooling fans being a prerequisite. Leaving an out-of-the-box OP2 running raspbian unattended made it so hot it scorched the board and was a quantifiable fire hazard. £5 on a couple of micro-fans quickly solved the issue but it would have been nice to know _before_ I nearly burned the house down.
Even though etcher says it's an unbootable image, you can still write it and install it. had the same with my odroid-N2 with etcher and android. might wanna give it a shot. great video!
I have almost entirely stopped using Etcher. So often creates an image which won't boot, when Win32 Disk Imager (v1.0 also validates) WORKS FINE! Infuriates me! Plus it will write to disk, which I do regularly for backups. images. Also, Etcher takes forever to load, which annoys me.
It seems H6 chipset have some issues, so it will never be fully supported by official kernel. www.armbian.com/orange-pi-3/ PCIe not supported ever, usb3 has issues, wifi and bt not supported. Armbian does not support BSP based kernels.
GREAT out of the box experience, Orange Pi. It really shows the pride you take in your work. Colour me impressed and sold. edit: Superb video as usual Christopher.
What a coincidence, I was just checking out the Armbian download page and they just put an experimental build for this board. I like the Orange Pi boards, good specs for the money but their software support could be better.
It made me smile when you said software support could be better. You're really being generous.. I'd like to see some of these sbc developers reach out to the maker community and find out just what we want. I for one want a high performance raspberry pi clone at a price point that I can find acceptable to incorporate into projects. I have seen so many sbc's come and go. There's already a lot sbc's lined up to take their places in the computer graveyard. I believe the raspberry pi is on the right path, but they are far too slow to provide what most people want. I was hoping the orange would make a viable alternative as subsystem controller. Anyway, I hope you have a great night. Your videos are always well done and professional. Peace.
Chris could you add having multiple USB webcams to your tests? That's a setup that people may use for surveillance or robotics, but it chokes most boards. This one would seem to have the USB throughput but without hardware acceleration it might also hang. Thanks for another excellent video 👍🍻
OK, well... The least the Orange Pi people can do at this point is offer a "build your own (Linux based) OS" kit for their sbc's. The hardware looks quite good, but if they have any ideas about the software, now's the time to share those ideas, and guide us into how it would all work. Think of it as the old "Linux From Scratch" project, with specific hardware goals. These guys don't seem to have much else going on this platform, so why not? Thanks for another great video Chris. Please continue to keep us posted on the sbc updates/upgrades.
Assuming it works like normal android, you can change the language by clicking on the world icon at 7:00 (2 rows above the time zone). After that, you can click on the 1st option, and click on the "+" button to add English language. Also, at 7:35, the app is supposed to be a file manager.
@@ExplainingComputers I uploaded a quick video on how you can change language on a device running android 7.1. You can take a look to see if it helps. th-cam.com/video/RWGX7_9GAqY/w-d-xo.html
I am a software developer. The limiting factor is not the software, but the documentation. If there is nice harrdware and it is well described, the software will get written. I ported the ciforth programming language, as a 64 bit arm first, to the Orange pi one plus, equipped with the same H6, in about a week and control a mechanical musical instrument about a week also. The 600 page H6 manual and the board layout of the Orange pi 1+ inspires developers.
I've always liked the Orange Pi line spec-wise, but the software disappointment isn't surprising. The sbc market has become so saturated, there isn't enough community support for every board to develope reliable OS's. I would love to see more companies like Udoo who have x86 models. (And expandable NICs for pfsense builds!) Thanks for the great video as always, Chris! Take care!
Thing is software is more easily improved than hardware- especially on a SBC. Just look at the amount and cost of the HATS you have to add to improve Pi functionality. I have one Pi based system that has a case over 6" tall just to contain the HATs, battery and SSD. I build may case horizontally now, they are much wider but much less tall- more like mini-server chassis. What is killing the Pi(s) is something that effects anything Linuxy- to many forks. The Raspberry Pi wins not because of hardware superiority but because it was first to market (not true SBC had been around in industry long before, and in mobile phones/tablets) so it has a great community supporting it. Something very much from China doesn't have that community support and hence it doesn't have the software support despite being an obvious choice when compared to the Pi hardware.
Hi Chris, awesome review as always. I gotta say any board without heatsinks and active cooling means low performance.. Also, lower GPIO pins not that it has ever affected me lol, but might affect others used to GPIO on similar device. To the devs, throw in a heatsink, maybe optional cooling fan and get the best out of your hardware.. We are happy, you are happy, and mainly Chris is happy! :-)
I just hope this review help these SBC makers find out a way to make this boards work properly. If they didnt watch it already, Someone please send them a link to this review!!
The language selection may be the one with the globe-like symbol on the left. The simplified chinese symbol is supposedly 语 (Google translator), you could try that.
That is correct. Select the globe. Then choose the top option. The following menu should list the language you have selected and the a + symbol that you can use to add another language. You may then have to drag the newly added language to the top of the list to make it the active one.
I've decided to forego any O Pi products due to the large number of bad reviews. Not sure what I want but currently considering nanopi m1. Or m3 , I can't remember. Wanting wifi plus 2 usb ports. Staying away from boards with broadcom SoC.
For hardware acceleration you should go to tools/codecs and select vdpau or other options.But even in that case the audio is still a problem ... and also I use linux deploy in Android to be able to use linux and watch videos in the same time
I got a Xu4, and even though they're a few years old, the software support is there, and it can run TH-cam in Kodi perfectly at 1080 60fps. Also, Waveracer 64 runs perfectly from what I can tell.
I have google translate on my phone and I pointed it at the screen while you where looking in settings to change the language. At around 7:00 below the square with a person (account) and above the cloud symbol with an up arrow is a circle with a grid in it, which I'm guessing is supposed to be the world, that one shows "language and input method" and shows Chinese as the currently being selected. Hope this helps..
I would like it very much to see you and wendell from "lvl 1 tech" meet and greet. It would be my favorite youtube video and i would watch it many many times.
In case you find yourself in Android with a Chinese language set by default, oftentimes the icon for the language setting is also a "wireframe globe" of sorts. You can find that over at the 7:00 mark, which I assume has the setting Chinese (Traditional) in there.
To be honest, XFCE has had its day. I think LXQT is the next up-coming low-resource desktop environment, and MATE is the least glitchy and slightly more fuller featured Gnome 2 fork (XFCE is a fork of Gnome 2 also). :)
@@ritikbhambhani5656 The majority here certainly, I agree. I don't mind the little detours as well though because they are usually good examples of the type- probably because of Chris' educational background. Just enough detail without descending into too much jargon or drifting off topic. I imagine many are like me, even if you yourself don't learn anything you can still enjoy a well presented topic because you can recognise the potential barriers to communication with the topic. When the internet/intranet was really becoming common I was seconded to a training department and I had to explain the technology and (why I don't know) the history of the technology within I think 6 hours- sounds plenty but I found I really wanted 12. Although I also had to cover the nuts & bolts of our Windows 3.11 based system to people, some of whom had never really used an IBM compatible as we called them. I like all the SBC channels, because I get to learn about many more SBC than I could realistically. And there are some great ideas, one here was the CCTV thing, I have partially built that then got distracted. Partial/distracted because I have stage 4 cancer but really I too many projects on the go at any one time.
Cool review. You know, small but thoughtful details ─ like adding the currency conversions for some of the main foreign currencies, such as you did ─ are noticed and appreciated. Thanks.
It would be great if you test again with Armbian. There is not yet a stable version for the OrangePi 3 right now but it works like a charm and a lot better than the official software. Very nice review :)
I remember in the old 8088 days sometimes you would have a board that had ram chips soldered onto the tops of other chips to increase total system ram. I wonder if the same can be done to modern hardware?
It would be great if they could drop one of the double USB3 and add another GB LAN. It would make a nice little pfSense or other firewall application. Another great video, thank you.
There is an Orange (I think, might be Banana) SBC which is pitched as a Router/NAS solution; from memory it falls short in a few areas but it does give you 4 LAN and a number of genuinely useful features- making a better NAS than a Raspberry. It cost around £100 though and that isn't spent on the CPU. Shop around you can get a decent ASUS Router for £100 to £150 that can do most/all of what users like us might want it to do- certainly being able to install your preferred router OS for example. That makes the SBC look poor value once you've added needed extras.
"zh" in the image download is the country code for Chinese. This distro looks exactly the same as the one on my mi box and you can change the langue on those.
I agree, there are a lot of SBCs that list impressive hardware specs but don't have good driver and firmware support. I've been able to fix some of systems by adding non-opensource repositories and other patches but it is hit or miss. I've learned that the software teams who support a device sometimes lose steam or just spend their time on other projects and the device is essentially abandoned. Buyer beware I guess?
@Max Raider - it's the age old dilemma: Hardware always leads Software. Without a grant you can only expect so much from a team of volunteer system developers. A lot of them are students too and their schedules change and workloads vary often.
Nice review as always! What about making a video about an Atomic Pi? (It seems to be a quite interesting single board computer, especially for the price)
Why all ARM based sbc still have problems with video playback in browser or in normal video playback program (like VLC)? Even the old Raspbery pi 2 can playback 1080p videos without problems, if you use weird console command.
I think my Opi PC is on version 7 too..Steven Zhao I think the CEO xunlong software..suggested to me online using android this was about 3 years ago..and sent me an image along with my OPi PC..and it was difficult to locate languages in the select menu..but Steven told me it was there..since then ive reinstalled it myself a couple of times..I kind of know roughly where to look for language option..there's a letter A top of the menu..its in that sub menu..anyway it works..its far from stable os..it crashes to homescreen every so often..but its tolerable..wouldn't suit most users though..have had a few of their pi range to date..2 pi lites and an original Opi..also have a 64bit lite2..but that has so little support I can barely use it..let's hope one day a Linux distro is refined and customised if not fully perfected..till more enthusiasts buy them not much will happen..specs
if the ram size is optional why can't I opt for 4gb! seems about the bare minimum these days for a usable (desktop) experience! entry level phones now have more than 2gb
I have an rpi2 and am looking for a new sbc. It's hard to choose between prices and performance/connectivity. This is a nice review. It takes one off of my list (although I feel a bit sorry for the developers). The product is just not up to date. Thanks EC for the video.
Fantastic presentation on the Orange Pi single board computer , from our favourite Computer tech guru Chris ! Should of called it the Durian , mostly due to the software stinks just like the fruit ! lol Thanks Scarboro
If you had followed the process included in the manual, you would have been able to switch to your Android Language with ease, or install a new system too. Processes are using different programs and needs to be respected fully if you want it working.
Very true, that is what I did, and they are worth their weight. Probably a cultural stereotype but I've found that it seems that all Chinese people are very tech literate compared to the UK. Which is sort of the motivation for Raspberry I suppose.
Hi there, please make a tutorial video for close or disable the unnecessary port on windows for more security. i mean which port we must to close on windows for more security?
Waiting for the Atomic Pi to arrive to you, i'm very interested in your opinion about that, mostly because its Intel processor is compatible with almost all operating systems, including Windows for its ~30$ price. The technology is developing, and i hope theese SBC's will not be used for wrong/illegal use cases.
I always thought that Intel would NEVER be able to compete in this space. However, if they can do it for $30, then the Atomic Pi might be a game-changer. We shall see. I'm still not sure the Atomic Pi isn't some kind of loss-leader. It somehow seems too good to be true.
Thanks for this -- I did try every option, including the globe, several times. Other comments here suggest the version of Android installed may be Chinese language only.
I'm impressed with the hardware specifications. Considering its general Raspberry Pi size, I like where SBC technology is going. I am surprised in how much difference there is in the quality and performance of the software out there for the various SBCs. All in all, Mr Scissors is the big winner in this video.
Too bad it always seems to be the case that software isn't on par with Raspberry Pi. Support from that team and the community is second to none. I wish Raspberry would come out with a board with these specs. Those are really nice!
I think I'll stick with the original Raspberries. I like that there are other options available. But software support is a serious deal breaker for me. I can tell that they have their stuff together for the android release they packed in, being able to smoothly play HD video, and even have good snappy internet usage. Though Android is so limiting for such a device, and with a processor so much more powerful than what's on the pi, and twice the available ram, If they can't get their base Linux release up to par then a lot of people are going to back away from it. On the 3rd party side of things I think the retro orange pi release for the board runs pretty good for emulation, but that's only one tiny use for a sbc. Thanks for always having good thorough reviews!
At 7:51, in the filenames of the versions of Android you attempted to download from the Orange Pi website, "Android_7.0_zh" in the file name means that it's a Chinese version of Android. So it wouldn't have mattered if you'd been able to download them. Were they an English version of Android, the filename would've contained "Android_7.0_en".
The company makes some very good single board computer hardware for their price, but yes it is the software installs that is letting them down. If they just sorted out their software I bet they could soon find themselves a market leader in cheap single board computers. I brought one of their tiny little Orang Pi Zeros to try out and was disappointed in it due to the lack of software support as I could not get the WRT image up and running on it. I did manage to get the android images for it linked on the website booted, but as with your pre-installed Android, it was also in Chinese and did not seem to have an English option. Likely they are licensed for a Chinese only version of Android.
Great review again, I’m still waiting for a single-board to come out with more than my 3 year old computer stick that has 4gigs ram with 32ssd( It was of course a lot more pricey than those great value boards) thumbs-Up
I love Mr Scissors he is not stupid he is quiet sharp in his personality and he has a heart made of steel he is my favourite puppet🤣
Never run with Mister Scissors.
Cutting-edge comments
He never gets snippy.
@@liveyourdreammedia just stop lol😂👍
Mr Scissors: He knows when to cut it out.
It's always good to see "Mr Scissors"
Was they even in this video? I don't remember seeing them
Don’t forget Stanley the Knife
@@TBMartin yes, Mr Scissors made a personal appearance to open the antistatic bag.
@@FatNorthernBigot So they did. I guess I need to go to Specsavers lol
I have never seen such a diplomatic "avoid like the plague folks!" review in my life.
awww.....i do kinda like tinkering with cantankerous stuff also though! Its the challenge that gets me! I know its stupid but.........there it is.
Famous British politeness and hedging :)
@@АлексейГриднев-и7р Lol!
And this is why we watch your reviews! Just the facts none of the BS. Thank you for making this video, it was enjoyable!
I'm glad you suffered for us in trying to get the Orange Pi to work properly.
Your work saved us a lot of frustration if we had tried it for ourselves! Great video, as usual!!
Thanks for pointing out the limitations of this single board computer.
It is, in fact, a Lemon Pi, well as far as the software goes
Nice one!
Nah I think your jumping to an early conclusion, yes this board has a number of hardware errata but once perhaps a BSP is released ( might have been done for the H6 ) not sure, this one should do quite well. The hardware issues I allude to are the m.2 support and something else ( cant remember ). You should actually give a bit more respect to the sun-xi guys/devs who actually reverse engineer ( no docs ) these boards to get things working to quite a high degree.
@Jeff Wolsieffer Not to mention just like the H3 and other allwinner parts the lack of a BSP?
whenever boards are released with dodgy software compatibility/ no optimisation there is one guarantee, hardly(in the grand scheme of things) anyone buys them.
How long will it take for developers of these boards to hear the penny drop?
@Jeff Wolsieffer Test which test?, from what I read / understood the H6 wiring for a number of things is not standard / correct and would never work ( sun-xi ) write up.
Aha! pcie ( which would probably hurt the M.2 ) linux-sunxi.org/H6 and the watchdog is broken.
Thanks for always checking on what's good and what's bad.
I use the google translate app on my android phone to translate languages on my PC screen. You run the app, point the phones camera to screen, and translate Chinese (or any language) to English. Language settings were in the circle (world icon). Great videos! I love your channel. I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 3 because of your hardware reviews, and am loving it.
Great to hear that you are doing well with a Pi. :)
Hello Chris 👋🏻
I don't mind software itch/glitch on orange pi, it is amazing SBC!
Made my Sunday.
Software glitches like this just heat up my curiosity and in no time I find myself searching for OS/software problem solutions. 🤩
Mr Scissors is in good shape, as always.
Hi Elvira! :) Sorry I'm late in replying here. You are clearly somebody who would relish the challenge of an Orange Pi. :)
ExplainingComputers
👋🏻
Glad to see you back!
Oh you can bet I relish software/hardware challenges, always. 🤩💯
You were very kind with your review, and I did enjoy it, but working 7 hours on software is something you are never getting back! Hardware no matter what what it looks like if not accessible is paper weight!
Good to see you back on the sbc's, orange pi looks nice except for the software. Looking forward to your next installment of the Raspberry Pi Devastator Robot.
Nice to see us back with SBC. I have a banana Pi knocking around somewhere that you have reminded me I should find a use for- when I played with it last that was let down by the software as well. The Orange Pi looks much better at a good price so I’ll order one. The Orange Pi represents great hardware value compared to the Raspberry- I built a Raspberry with a nice metal case and by the time I’d added the boards for RTC/Safe shut down/M.2/HDD/SSD it was well over £120. I was building it for a customer (as a paid hobby) but I felt it represented poor value for what it is- especially as they really wanted UPS as well which would have added another £30. That is bring it close to the cost of a cheap laptop/chromebook.
What I really want is the Latte Panda with the i3- unfortunately it is on back order (and I have stage 4/terminal cancer so long-term plans are out) and it is going to cost £400. Instead I am going to get one of these (£130 but you have to add CPU/DDR/Storage so about £450 and upwards);
www.anandtech.com/show/13830/asrock-at-ces-2019-deskmini-a300-worlds-first-amd-ryzen-mini-stx-pc-launched
I’ve built one already, it is the tiny STX form factor and is interesting because of the AMD chipset, or rather lack of chipset. Most of the chipset duties are carried out by the AMD CPU, which are restricted to the new Athlon/Ryzen G CPUs for this A300 ‘chipset’. This means that there isn’t a PCIe discrete graphics option on the board (As-Rock are the only manufacturer, they do have another model, currently unavailable that does have PCIe added back in but I’m not sure how they did that or if AMD will allow them to do it again)- however I am going to try a M.2 to PCIe 8 adaptor to run a 1050Ti I have knocking around- PCie 8 won’t hit performance despite not being PCI 16, maybe 7% that is all. I’m waiting on the adaptor to come from the USA. These adaptors need careful choice, there are plenty about but most are low quality and were a result of the bit mining craze. I’m lead to believe what I have ordered is good quality. If it doesn’t work I haven’t spent much, the A300 can be built into a system and sold on, the same with the 1050Ti, and the adaptor cost me less than £15.
Try Armbian.
The distros on OPi website are not that great and could have security issues.
I use Armbian whenever I can. I think those guys keep a tighter control on their releases. Too many heartaches from DietPi !
You could probably do better with a rolling release distro ( probably requiring a custom kernel ), I am not 100% where this H^ stands as far as kernel support in 5.x.
u think?
What's the main difference between Raspbian and Armbian? Almost all of my raspberrie run Raspbian
@@FieelFlying raspbian is built for raspberry pi. Armbian is built by a team that creates a distro tailored to each board they support.
nice unboxing and review mr. Scissors sure cut through that like butter 😀
great to see mr scissors in action again, iv'e found retrorange pi works really well for game emulation on these boards. thanks for another great review
Good point, a few of these faulted Pi seem to redeem themselves when it comes to game emulators. There a YTber called I think ETA Prime who cover that aspect quite comprehensively. Although he has special access to quite expensive (Latte Panda) as well it must be said. Being told a £400 SBC is good at game emulation is less meaningful than being told a £50 is.
Thank you for an honest appraisal.
Another thorough overview of a new sbc, love your coverage of these boards - I want to buy them all :)
Greetings! Indeed, there are three basic rules - which you have passed on to us - in the evaluation of SBCs: first, software support, second, software support and third, software support! And when one of these three rules is missing (!), it is imperative to look elsewhere! Thank you!
:)
Thanks for a video for comparison...I think about software optimisation, RPi should be the best choice. Anyway more developers would use RPi.
Armbian. You need to look at Armbian as an OS for those SBC. They usually have better support than images from seller. Orangepi3 is listed as work in progress though.
You really crushed my hopes and dreams for making this my bedroom 4K media player! As you were going through the stats, I was like, yeah, YEAH go on, go on! But when that thing folded up like a cheap suit on the test video all that fell apart. You spent 7 or 8 HOURS and were able to get one os to boot? Gah!
One OS in English, yes! :) Others here recommend Armbian for this board and report better experiences on Android.
These vids are so clear I feel a need to check out your books.
:)
Problem: Poor software support for decent hardware
Their solution: RELEASE MORE HARDWARE VERSIONS!!!
This is so true! :)
This is why I, and many others, have gone with the Raspberry Pi. On paper, the Orange Pi looks like a great value for the money. If you can verify before you purchase it that the software works, it might still be. Otherwise, you're almost certainly better off with a Raspberry Pi or another system where the software actually works. Rather sad, and I definitely do hope they eventually do put the time to working these problems out. :/
@@boomerkuwanger3700 Raspberry Pi 4 knocks it out of the water ! I am betting that RPi 5 will have PCIe, even if it is just for microSD Express.
@@ExplainingComputers So far my Orange Pis were only usable when using Armbian as OS. But even there not everything is perfect. And those Allwinner Boards thend to get hot.
Actually no, as a long time Orange Pi users, it's actually well documented in the forums, Orange Pi focus on getting hobbyists the best hardware they can for lowest price, they don't do much in software and instead encourage the OS community to develop software, which Armbian does really well.
Actually these reviews would be significantly improved if all the SBC's were compared with the same armbian version installed, keeping the software the same means it would be a much fairer comparison with the SBC being the only variable changed.
i don't know when you filmed this but for about a week i was having a terrible time with youtube, all videos were struggling to even get 480p, for me this seems to have been fixed 1 or 2 days ago. I'm not sure what the problem was, but using a VPN improved it greatly, today its playing just fine without using the vpn.
The Orange PI should come with a warning about cooling fans being a prerequisite. Leaving an out-of-the-box OP2 running raspbian unattended made it so hot it scorched the board and was a quantifiable fire hazard. £5 on a couple of micro-fans quickly solved the issue but it would have been nice to know _before_ I nearly burned the house down.
Even though etcher says it's an unbootable image, you can still write it and install it. had the same with my odroid-N2 with etcher and android. might wanna give it a shot. great video!
I have almost entirely stopped using Etcher. So often creates an image which won't boot, when Win32 Disk Imager (v1.0 also validates) WORKS FINE! Infuriates me! Plus it will write to disk, which I do regularly for backups. images. Also, Etcher takes forever to load, which annoys me.
You are missing the graphic driver on the Ubuntu... There is a complicated procedure to install it. Try ARMBIAN then install the drivers for CPU.
It seems H6 chipset have some issues, so it will never be fully supported by official kernel.
www.armbian.com/orange-pi-3/
PCIe not supported ever, usb3 has issues, wifi and bt not supported.
Armbian does not support BSP based kernels.
GREAT out of the box experience, Orange Pi. It really shows the pride you take in your work. Colour me impressed and sold.
edit: Superb video as usual Christopher.
Did you post this before watching the video or are you being subtley sarcastic? 😏
@@loc4725 "Subtly" 😀
@@pagiatis
+1. My normally good spelling isn't so hot when using my phone and just after working a night shift. 😃
I have used OPI zero for a ton of stuff. Enjoyed it.
like what ?
How Exciting!! Finally an SBC that can run a full ubuntu installation.
Why is that exciting?
I'm pretty sure some of the Odroid offerings have been able to do that for some time, and not have issues when doing so.
Please, try using Armbian. Armbian is available for a lot of SBCs and is more up-to-date than most manufacturer distributions.
Thanks. I will give this is go. :)
great to see this video. this is $40 I won't be ever spending !
This is graphics driver problem. Work wirhout driver, or some bug. HW is very good .
What a coincidence, I was just checking out the Armbian download page and they just put an experimental build for this board.
I like the Orange Pi boards, good specs for the money but their software support could be better.
It made me smile when you said software support could be better. You're really being generous.. I'd like to see some of these sbc developers reach out to the maker community and find out just what we want. I for one want a high performance raspberry pi clone at a price point that I can find acceptable to incorporate into projects. I have seen so many sbc's come and go. There's already a lot sbc's lined up to take their places in the computer graveyard. I believe the raspberry pi is on the right path, but they are far too slow to provide what most people want. I was hoping the orange would make a viable alternative as subsystem controller. Anyway, I hope you have a great night. Your videos are always well done and professional. Peace.
Chris could you add having multiple USB webcams to your tests? That's a setup that people may use for surveillance or robotics, but it chokes most boards.
This one would seem to have the USB throughput but without hardware acceleration it might also hang. Thanks for another excellent video 👍🍻
Try Armbian on this board
OK, well... The least the Orange Pi people can do at this point is offer a "build your own (Linux based) OS" kit for their sbc's. The hardware looks quite good, but if they have any ideas about the software, now's the time to share those ideas, and guide us into how it would all work. Think of it as the old "Linux From Scratch" project, with specific hardware goals. These guys don't seem to have much else going on this platform, so why not? Thanks for another great video Chris. Please continue to keep us posted on the sbc updates/upgrades.
Assuming it works like normal android, you can change the language by clicking on the world icon at 7:00 (2 rows above the time zone). After that, you can click on the 1st option, and click on the "+" button to add English language. Also, at 7:35, the app is supposed to be a file manager.
Ah, I think I got to where you describe, but not to the clicking the "+" button. I will try this. Thanks.
@@ExplainingComputers I uploaded a quick video on how you can change language on a device running android 7.1. You can take a look to see if it helps. th-cam.com/video/RWGX7_9GAqY/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the nice review, Chris.
I am a software developer. The limiting factor is not the software, but the documentation. If there is nice harrdware and it is well described, the software will get written. I ported the ciforth programming language, as a 64 bit arm first, to the Orange pi one plus, equipped with the same H6, in about a week and control a mechanical musical instrument about a week also. The 600 page H6 manual and the board layout of the Orange pi 1+ inspires developers.
Whilst this is a very good point indeed, even with the best documentation, somebody still has to port apps to new SBCs.
I've always liked the Orange Pi line spec-wise, but the software disappointment isn't surprising. The sbc market has become so saturated, there isn't enough community support for every board to develope reliable OS's. I would love to see more companies like Udoo who have x86 models. (And expandable NICs for pfsense builds!) Thanks for the great video as always, Chris! Take care!
I get some serious Open University at 5am on a weekend morning flashbacks from these videos (in a good way) .
Software support is important. It would turn me away . Thanks for review another SBC. Hardware part is actually great.
Because these early adoption boards are not for you
Orange Pi = great price + crap software support.
Could you elaborate a little bit? Is it the programs or the firmware? How open is the firmware?
How about no software support.
crap is a wrong description for the support and it should be No software support from them
Thing is software is more easily improved than hardware- especially on a SBC. Just look at the amount and cost of the HATS you have to add to improve Pi functionality. I have one Pi based system that has a case over 6" tall just to contain the HATs, battery and SSD. I build may case horizontally now, they are much wider but much less tall- more like mini-server chassis.
What is killing the Pi(s) is something that effects anything Linuxy- to many forks. The Raspberry Pi wins not because of hardware superiority but because it was first to market (not true SBC had been around in industry long before, and in mobile phones/tablets) so it has a great community supporting it. Something very much from China doesn't have that community support and hence it doesn't have the software support despite being an obvious choice when compared to the Pi hardware.
Thanks a lot for the honest review - you saved me from quite a few headaches.
Hi Chris, awesome review as always. I gotta say any board without heatsinks and active cooling means low performance.. Also, lower GPIO pins not that it has ever affected me lol, but might affect others used to GPIO on similar device. To the devs, throw in a heatsink, maybe optional cooling fan and get the best out of your hardware.. We are happy, you are happy, and mainly Chris is happy! :-)
May be you should have tested a server distro, because 4 USB 3 ports and a gigabit lan Port inspires me to build up a media server or a NAS.
I just hope this review help these SBC makers find out a way to make this boards work properly. If they didnt watch it already, Someone please send them a link to this review!!
The Orange isn't quite ripe is it? Still a little green...well still a very nice video indeed! Thank You!
Great comment. :)
Please also take a look at the Orange pi lite or the Orange pi 2G/3G/4G(Very good for building phones)
The processing overhead in youtube can be ridiculously high these days.
The language selection may be the one with the globe-like symbol on the left. The simplified chinese symbol is supposedly 语 (Google translator), you could try that.
That is correct. Select the globe. Then choose the top option. The following menu should list the language you have selected and the a + symbol that you can use to add another language. You may then have to drag the newly added language to the top of the list to make it the active one.
I've decided to forego any O Pi products due to the large number of bad reviews. Not sure what I want but currently considering nanopi m1. Or m3 , I can't remember. Wanting wifi plus 2 usb ports.
Staying away from boards with broadcom SoC.
Tuna Helpa Could you tell what’s bad with Broadcom chips?
@@SchoolforHackers yeah, maybe changing my mind. I should get a nanopi and a raspberry pi and see which one I work best with.
For hardware acceleration you should go to tools/codecs and select vdpau or other options.But even in that case the audio is still a problem ...
and also I use linux deploy in Android to be able to use linux and watch videos in the same time
I got a Xu4, and even though they're a few years old, the software support is there, and it can run TH-cam in Kodi perfectly at 1080 60fps. Also, Waveracer 64 runs perfectly from what I can tell.
XU4 remains a great SBC.
I have google translate on my phone and I pointed it at the screen while you where looking in settings to change the language. At around 7:00 below the square with a person (account) and above the cloud symbol with an up arrow is a circle with a grid in it, which I'm guessing is supposed to be the world, that one shows "language and input method" and shows Chinese as the currently being selected. Hope this helps..
I will try! :) Great idea with the phone and Google Translate.
I would like it very much to see you and wendell from "lvl 1 tech" meet and greet. It would be my favorite youtube video and i would watch it many many times.
Better match than with Logan! 👍
In case you find yourself in Android with a Chinese language set by default, oftentimes the icon for the language setting is also a "wireframe globe" of sorts. You can find that over at the 7:00 mark, which I assume has the setting Chinese (Traditional) in there.
You beat me to it, On the wire globe, it says Chinese in a bracket spelled the traditional way.
Great review. I have seen these on Ali Express and did wonder. I have decided to stick with the Raspberry Pi.
To be honest, XFCE has had its day. I think LXQT is the next up-coming low-resource desktop environment, and MATE is the least glitchy and slightly more fuller featured Gnome 2 fork (XFCE is a fork of Gnome 2 also). :)
'Explaining SingleBoard Computers' this name suited much because we love to watch the content title single board computers and robotics.
But man can not live by Pi alone.
@@twmbarlwmstar yes but majority love single board computer
@@ritikbhambhani5656 The majority here certainly, I agree. I don't mind the little detours as well though because they are usually good examples of the type- probably because of Chris' educational background. Just enough detail without descending into too much jargon or drifting off topic. I imagine many are like me, even if you yourself don't learn anything you can still enjoy a well presented topic because you can recognise the potential barriers to communication with the topic. When the internet/intranet was really becoming common I was seconded to a training department and I had to explain the technology and (why I don't know) the history of the technology within I think 6 hours- sounds plenty but I found I really wanted 12. Although I also had to cover the nuts & bolts of our Windows 3.11 based system to people, some of whom had never really used an IBM compatible as we called them.
I like all the SBC channels, because I get to learn about many more SBC than I could realistically. And there are some great ideas, one here was the CCTV thing, I have partially built that then got distracted. Partial/distracted because I have stage 4 cancer but really I too many projects on the go at any one time.
@@twmbarlwmstar Jesus will help you a lot.
Amen
Where are you from
Hi Chris. I like the amount of USB's but the software support as you have demonstrated is lacking, unfortunately. Good review.
Cool review. You know, small but thoughtful details ─ like adding the currency conversions for some of the main foreign currencies, such as you did ─ are noticed and appreciated. Thanks.
It would be great if you test again with Armbian. There is not yet a stable version for the OrangePi 3 right now but it works like a charm and a lot better than the official software. Very nice review :)
I remember in the old 8088 days sometimes you would have a board that had ram chips soldered onto the tops of other chips to increase total system ram. I wonder if the same can be done to modern hardware?
Sadly I don't think this can work here. :(
It would be great if they could drop one of the double USB3 and add another GB LAN. It would make a nice little pfSense or other firewall application.
Another great video, thank you.
There is an Orange (I think, might be Banana) SBC which is pitched as a Router/NAS solution; from memory it falls short in a few areas but it does give you 4 LAN and a number of genuinely useful features- making a better NAS than a Raspberry. It cost around £100 though and that isn't spent on the CPU. Shop around you can get a decent ASUS Router for £100 to £150 that can do most/all of what users like us might want it to do- certainly being able to install your preferred router OS for example. That makes the SBC look poor value once you've added needed extras.
"zh" in the image download is the country code for Chinese. This distro looks exactly the same as the one on my mi box and you can change the langue on those.
I agree, there are a lot of SBCs that list impressive hardware specs but don't have good driver and firmware support. I've been able to fix some of systems by adding non-opensource repositories and other patches but it is hit or miss. I've learned that the software teams who support a device sometimes lose steam or just spend their time on other projects and the device is essentially abandoned. Buyer beware I guess?
@Max Raider - it's the age old dilemma: Hardware always leads Software. Without a grant you can only expect so much from a team of volunteer system developers. A lot of them are students too and their schedules change and workloads vary often.
Nice review as always! What about making a video about an Atomic Pi? (It seems to be a quite interesting single board computer, especially for the price)
Why all ARM based sbc still have problems with video playback in browser or in normal video playback program (like VLC)?
Even the old Raspbery pi 2 can playback 1080p videos without problems, if you use weird console command.
It has to do with driver support.
I use android 7.0 on Orange Pi PC and it works great.
This is very good to hear.
I think my Opi PC is on version 7 too..Steven Zhao I think the CEO xunlong software..suggested to me online using android this was about 3 years ago..and sent me an image along with my OPi PC..and it was difficult to locate languages in the select menu..but Steven told me it was there..since then ive reinstalled it myself a couple of times..I kind of know roughly where to look for language option..there's a letter A top of the menu..its in that sub menu..anyway it works..its far from stable os..it crashes to homescreen every so often..but its tolerable..wouldn't suit most users though..have had a few of their pi range to date..2 pi lites and an original Opi..also have a 64bit lite2..but that has so little support I can barely use it..let's hope one day a Linux distro is refined and customised if not fully perfected..till more enthusiasts buy them not much will happen..specs
if the ram size is optional why can't I opt for 4gb! seems about the bare minimum these days for a usable (desktop) experience! entry level phones now have more than 2gb
I fully agree with that!
I have an rpi2 and am looking for a new sbc. It's hard to choose between prices and performance/connectivity. This is a nice review. It takes one off of my list (although I feel a bit sorry for the developers). The product is just not up to date. Thanks EC for the video.
Fantastic presentation on the Orange Pi single board computer , from our favourite Computer tech guru Chris ! Should of called it the Durian , mostly due to the software stinks just like the fruit ! lol Thanks Scarboro
Greetings from YEMEN ! , such an amazing board :D
Hello back from the UK. Here we are again meeting electronically from all over the world. :)
语言和输入法 means language and input method, you might be able to change language there. And there is an globe icon.
the orange pi you showed in your Google drive had zh in the title, that might be in Taiwan traditional Chinese. zh is zhuyin.
Let's go and take
a closer look.
If you had followed the process included in the manual, you would have been able to switch to your Android Language with ease, or install a new system too. Processes are using different programs and needs to be respected fully if you want it working.
You need to make a Chinese friend. :D The language setting got passed when you were in the setting menu. Thanks for showing the detail of the Pi!
Very true, that is what I did, and they are worth their weight. Probably a cultural stereotype but I've found that it seems that all Chinese people are very tech literate compared to the UK. Which is sort of the motivation for Raspberry I suppose.
Hi there, please make a tutorial video for close or disable the unnecessary port on windows for more security. i mean which port we must to close on windows for more security?
It looks like much more interesting than RPi 3 B+
Finally MR.SCISSORS on stage :)
see that globe thingy at 7:00? that's the setting for language!
You would think -- but there are no English option in there I could find. :(
Waiting for the Atomic Pi to arrive to you, i'm very interested in your opinion about that, mostly because its Intel processor is compatible with almost all operating systems, including Windows for its ~30$ price.
The technology is developing, and i hope theese SBC's will not be used for wrong/illegal use cases.
I always thought that Intel would NEVER be able to compete in this space. However, if they can do it for $30, then the Atomic Pi might be a game-changer. We shall see. I'm still not sure the Atomic Pi isn't some kind of loss-leader. It somehow seems too good to be true.
Good review Chris Thanks
7:00 The globe symbol where you can change the languages, thanks for the informative video.
Thanks for this -- I did try every option, including the globe, several times. Other comments here suggest the version of Android installed may be Chinese language only.
I'm impressed with the hardware specifications. Considering its general Raspberry Pi size, I like where SBC technology is going. I am surprised in how much difference there is in the quality and performance of the software out there for the various SBCs. All in all, Mr Scissors is the big winner in this video.
Akhirnya ilmu saya bertambah..
Terima kasih banyak atas ilmunya..
Mr. Chris..
I still favour the rockpro64 above the Orange Pi 3 but given there are a few OS you can try with scbs, making your own would be fun.
Too bad it always seems to be the case that software isn't on par with Raspberry Pi. Support from that team and the community is second to none.
I wish Raspberry would come out with a board with these specs. Those are really nice!
Try Installing armbian instead. That did the trick for me last year with an Orange Pi 2+.
Hi, great video! Can we make video looper work on orange pi? Thank you
Hey I’m trying to get my orange Pi pc to work but i don’t know what os to use please help me?
Others here suggest Armbian.
I think I'll stick with the original Raspberries. I like that there are other options available. But software support is a serious deal breaker for me. I can tell that they have their stuff together for the android release they packed in, being able to smoothly play HD video, and even have good snappy internet usage. Though Android is so limiting for such a device, and with a processor so much more powerful than what's on the pi, and twice the available ram, If they can't get their base Linux release up to par then a lot of people are going to back away from it. On the 3rd party side of things I think the retro orange pi release for the board runs pretty good for emulation, but that's only one tiny use for a sbc. Thanks for always having good thorough reviews!
At 7:51, in the filenames of the versions of Android you attempted to download from the Orange Pi website, "Android_7.0_zh" in the file name means that it's a Chinese version of Android. So it wouldn't have mattered if you'd been able to download them. Were they an English version of Android, the filename would've contained "Android_7.0_en".
Very helpful info, thanks for sharing here. :)
The company makes some very good single board computer hardware for their price, but yes it is the software installs that is letting them down. If they just sorted out their software I bet they could soon find themselves a market leader in cheap single board computers. I brought one of their tiny little Orang Pi Zeros to try out and was disappointed in it due to the lack of software support as I could not get the WRT image up and running on it. I did manage to get the android images for it linked on the website booted, but as with your pre-installed Android, it was also in Chinese and did not seem to have an English option. Likely they are licensed for a Chinese only version of Android.
Armbian works. Run docker, etc w/ Pi hole, a vpn, etc
Great review again, I’m still waiting for a single-board to come out with more than my 3 year old computer stick that has 4gigs ram with 32ssd( It was of course a lot more pricey than those great value boards) thumbs-Up