Radxa is accepting preorders for a compact, open, Android- and Linux-ready single board computer based on a 1.6 GHz quad-core Rockchip RK3188 SoC. The $89 and $69 Radxa Rock and Rock Lite SBCs offer up to 2GB RAM and 8GB flash, WiFi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity, real-world ports for HDMI, Ethernet, USB, and S/PDIF, and numerous other interfaces on a pair of expansion headers.
Shenzhen China startup Radxa is another open SBC project from CubieBoard founder Tom Cubie. Whereas the latest CubieBoard2 is based on the dual-core, Cortex-A7 Allwinner A20 system-on-chip, the Radxa Rock moves up to Rockchip’s quad-core SoC clocked at 1.6GHz, according its schematic and specs. The two board versions differ only in their respective memories: 2GB or 1GB of DDR3 RAM, and 8GB or 4GB of NAND flash.
The Radxa boards’ HDMI port can output 1080p video at 60Hz. An AV output and optical S/PDIF audio port are also available, and there’s an input for an IR receiver. The boards are limited to 10/100 Ethernet, but offer 802.11b/g/n (150Mbps) WiFi and the increasingly common Bluetooth 4.0. USB 2.0 host and OTG ports are provided, and both models ship with a microSD slot that can hold up to 128GB. A pair of 40-pin expansion connectors carry a wide variety of additional I/O interface signals. Board ships with a 5V, 2-Amp DC power supply.
SBCs run both Android and the Ubuntu-based PicUntu OS.
Specifications listed for the Radxa Rock and Radxa Rock Lite include:
- Processor — Rockchip RK3188 (4x Cortex-A9 cores @ 1.6GHz) with 533MHz Mali 400 MP4 GPU
- RAM — 2GB (Rock) or 1GB (Rock Lite) DDR3 RAM @ 800MHz
- Flash — 8GB (Rock) or 4GB (Rock Lite) NAND flash; microSD SDXC slot for up to 128GB
- Wireless — 802.11b/g/n (150Mbps) with antenna; Bluetooth 4.0
- Networking — 10/100 Ethernet
- I/O connectors:
- USB 2.0 host
- Micro-USB 2.0 OTG
- HDMI 1.4
- AV out
- Serial console for debug
- IR receiver
- S/PDIF optical audio
- I/O expansion via two 40-pin headers — LCD I/F, SPI, USB 2.0, line-in, UART, GPIO, I2C, PWM, ADC, GPS
- Dimensions — 100 × 80 × 12 mm
- Power — 5V/2A DC jack
- Operating temperature — 0 to 80°C
- Operating system — Android; PicUntu Linux
Pre-orders are available for the $89 Radxa Rock and $69 Radxa Rock Lite at the Radxa site. No ship date was listed.
