I am quite sure that many of us have heard about Raspberry Pi, the tiny single board computer module that has made it possible to come up with some zany computing solutions. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, here we are with the Banana Pi, a $57 clone of the Raspberry Pi. The Banana Pi sports a 1GHz Allwinner A20 dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, while sporting double the amount of the Raspberry Pi’s RAM at 1GB.
Other hardware specifications of the Banana Pi include an SD memory card slot, HDMI and composite video jacks, a 3.5mm audio jack and a built-in microphone, Gigabit Ethernet, a couple of USB 2.0 ports, a micro USB port for power, an IR receiver, and even Raspberry Pi compatible headers such as a 26-pin header and camera connector among others.
To put it in perspective, it ought to be simple enough to use majority of Raspberry Pi-compatible hardware with a Banana Pi, and considering how the Banana Pi is more powerful than its fruity counterpart, it would be useful in the construction of a home theater PC or even a general purpose computer. What do you think of the Banana Pi so far? Personally, it might not end up being as successful as the Raspberry Pi due to the latter’s authenticity status.
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