Mysterious new Raspberry Pi alternative is the size of an SD card
At a time when consumers are finding it difficult to get their hands on a new Raspberry Pi, MangoPi is teasing a new single-board computer that is slightly smaller than an SD card.
In a recent post on Twitter, MangoPi showed off several pictures of its new unnamed module that features a Linux-capable SoC and no ports whatsoever. In addition to being much smaller than the Raspberry Pi 4B, the new device is actually even smaller than the Raspberry PiZero 2 W.
According to a new report from Tom’s Hardware though, MangoPi’s new single-board computer could be called the ‘Linux Box” as there is both a blank product page with the name on the company’s site as well as a discussion about it on its forum.
Based on the photos shared by MangoPi, the so-called Lunch Box will feature four Arm Cortex-A53 cores just like the Raspberry Pi 3 and the Zero 2 W. The device will also run Allwinner’s embedded Tina Linux distro which is based on OpenWRT.
Carrier board required
MangoPi’s post highlights the fact that the Lunch Box is capable of outputting 1080p video at 60Hz over HDMI but as the board itself doesn’t have any ports, this will likely be done via a carrier board.
The Linux Box is powered by the Allwinner H616 just like the Orange Pi Zero 2 and the processor has a Vulkan 1.1-capable GPU that can decode H.264, H.265, VP9 and more. In terms of memory, the device supports a maximum of 4GB of DDR3 or DDR4 RAM.
The chip powering the Lunch Box also supports full disk encryption with AES, XTS and other comparable algorithms. On the security front, tamper-proofing using MD5 and other methods will be supported while there is even a 160-bit hardware pseudo-random number generator and an integrated EFUSE chip for both ID and security.
The Lunch Box’s carrier board could potentially include gigabit Ethernet, USB 2/OTG, a second 100MBs Ethernet interface, UART, a PWM controller and SDIO ports. However, as the board itself is tiny, all of these ports along with power delivery will need to be provided by a carrier board.
While MangoPi’s new single-board computer isn’t on sale just yet, the company is currently in the process of testing it and we’ll likely hear more once it’s available for purchase.
Via Tom’s Hardware
Audio player loading… At a time when consumers are finding it difficult to get their hands on a new Raspberry Pi, MangoPi is teasing a new single-board computer that is slightly smaller than an SD card. In a recent post on Twitter, MangoPi showed off several pictures of its new…
