Tuesday, May 28, 2013: When Raspberry Pi computer was launched, the technology world was taken by surprise. The low cost computer offered great functionality. Taking it a step ahead, here comes another tiny computer (aka developer board) named Wandboard. It looks pretty much like our Raspberry Pi, but the starting price is much higher and so is the power of the device.
While Raspberry Pi has an ARM11 single-core processor, the Wandboard comes with a super fast Freescale i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 processor. Also, gone are the days of single and dual-core versions, Wandboard offers quad-core model. Additionally it has 2GB of RAM, 2 microSD card slots, HDMI and USB ports, and Gigabit Ethernet as well as built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
The quad core Wandboard is priced at $129 and the single and dual-core models are retailing at $79 and $99, respectively.
Besides having more processor cores than its low cost counterparts, the tiny computer also has greater memory, and it can easily be called as the only model with a SATA connector to help you attach a hard drive or solid state disk.
Expected to ship around June this year, these boards are aimed at developers, hackers, and DIY computing enthusiasts. “The Freescale i.MX6 Quad is a 1 GHz processor with Vivante GC2000 graphics. It’s not the fastest ARM Cortex-A9 chip around, but it offers decent overall performance. It’s also a good choice for this type of developer board because not only does it support Google Android, but Freescale offers plenty of documentation for the chipset and developers are able to run Ubuntu and other Linux-based operating systems on devices with Freescale chips,” Liliputing reported.
