Khadas Mind 2 AI Maker Kit – An Intel Core Ultra 7 258V “Lunar Lake” mini PC for developers

Khadas Mind 2 AI PC Dev Kit

Khadas recently announced the Mind 2 mini PC with an Intel Core 5 or 7 “Meteor Lake” mini PC. But the company is prepping the launch of another similar device called the “Khadas Mind 2 AI Maker Kit  Dev Workstation” or “Intel Core Ultra Processor (Series 2) AI PC Dev Kit” with a 15th Gen Intel Core Ultra 7 258V “Lunar Lake” processor offering up to 115 TOPS of AI performance. I’ll just call it “Khadas Mind 2 AI Maker Kit” for shorts. The system ships with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, and Khadas says the new system is designed specifically for developers working on AI PC applications, but apart from the faster SoC, it comes with similar features as the Mind 2. This includes HDMI 2.0 video output, two 40Gbps USB4 ports, Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, as well as two USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports […]

Raspberry Pi 500 review with Raspberry Pi Monitor and teardown

Raspberry Pi 500 review with Monitor Speaker

The Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard PC is just out along with the 15.6-inch Raspberry Pi Monitor and received samples from Raspberry Pi for review a few days ago.  I’ve had time to play with both, so in this review, I’ll go through an unboxing of the kit I received and report my experience with both the keyboard PC and monitor. Unboxing I received two packages. The first one with the Raspberry Pi Monitor, and the second with a Raspberry Pi 500 (UK layout), a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro HDMI to HDMI cable. So not quite a full Raspberry Pi 500 Desktop Kit since there’s no mouse and beginner’s manual but close to it. Let’s start with the keyboard PC. The bottom side of the package has some specs and a logo for the keyboard layout, in this case “UK”. There’s only the keyboard PC in the package. […]

GEEKOM GT1 Mega review with Ubuntu 24.10 – Part 3: Linux on an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H “Meteor Lake” mini PC

GEEKOM GT1 Mega Ubuntu 24.10 Linux review

We’ve already had a look at GEEKOM GT1 Mega’s hardware with an unboxing and a teardown before following up with a thorough review of the Intel Core 9 Ultra 185H mini PC with Windows 11 Pro. After being interrupted by some Raspberry Pi reviews, I finally had the time to test the GEEKOM GT1 Mega with Ubuntu 24.10 to check out how well (or not) it works with a recent Linux distribution. I’ve tested the features of the Meteor Lake mini PC in Linux, ran some benchmarks, evaluated storage and network performance, played 4K and 8K videos on YouTube at various frame rates, went through a stress test to check its thermal design, and finally measured the mini PC’s fan noise and power consumption. Ubuntu 24.10 installation I would usually review mini PCs with the latest Ubuntu LTS version which would currently be Ubuntu 24.04.1. However, since the Intel Core […]

SONOFF CAM Slim Gen2 Review – A tiny indoor security camera tested with eWeLink and Home Assistant

SonoffCAMSlim2 Cover

We have received the latest tiny indoor security camera from SONOFF: the second generation of the CAM Slim series known as the CAM Slim Gen2 (or CAM S2 for shorts). Some of you might remember the first-generation CAM Slim model reviewed by Jean-Luc about two years ago. The Gen2 version keeps the same 1080p resolution but comes with several upgraded features, including AI algorithms to distinguish living beings, customizable detection zones, customizable privacy zones, sleep mode, enhanced low-light image quality, and flexible storage management. Although it’s packed with several enhancements, its price is lower than the Gen1. Let’s delve into the details! SONOFF CAM Slim Gen2 unboxing Inside the box, you’ll find a compact manual, a USB-C cable, a mounting kit, and a sticker template acting as a drilling guide. The camera is smaller than your palm and comes mounted on a versatile, rotatable base, making installation in various positions […]

Android 15 runs on Linaro development boards based on Qualcomm and HiSilicon chips

Android 15 Hikey960 development board

Android 15 source code was just pushed to AOSP last week, and Linaro has already ported it to four reference development boards based on Qualcomm and HiSilicon/Huawei chips namely Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 devboard (SM8550-HDK), Qualcomm Robotics Board RB5, Qualcomm Dragonboard 845c (DB845c, aka RB3) and HiSilicon Hikey960. Recent Google Pixel phones can already get Android 15 beta, but that makes the aforementioned development boards some of the first hardware platforms running Android 15 which could be useful to app developers and people wanting to customize Android 15 OS for their target product(s). Android 15 worked on the same day as the release to AOSP thanks to a collaboration between Linaro and Google to make sure reference boards get support as soon as possible, and in this case, we had a “0-day boot” as Linaro puts it. This collaboration started in 2022 with Qualcomm Robotics RB3 and RB5 platforms getting […]

Orange Pi KunPeng Pro SBC features a quad-core Huawei CPU with an 8 TOPS AI accelerator

Orange Pi Kunpeng Pro

Orange Pi KunPeng Pro is a single board computer powered by an unnamed KunPeng quad-core processor from Huawei that features an 8 TOPS NPU for AI workloads. It’s not the first time Orange Pi has launched an SBC based on a Huawei SoC, as the company introduced the Orange Pi AIPro last year with another unnamed Huawei Ascend SoC with a 20 TOPS NPU. The new Orange Pi KunPeng Pro board has basically the same layout as the AIPro model, but with lower specs overall, although it still comes with 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4x memory. Orange Pi KunPeng Pro specifications: SoC – Unnamed Huawei Kunpeng quad-core 64-bit SoC with unnamed GPU, 8 TOPS AI accelerator System Memory – 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4X Storage 32MB SPI flash connector for 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB eMMC flash module MicroSD card slot M.2 2280 socket for SATA/NVMe drive Video Output 2x HDMI 2.0 […]

Orange Pi Developer Conference 2024, upcoming Orange Pi SBCs and products

Orange Pi Developer Conference 2024

Orange Pi held a Developer Conference on March 24, 2024, in Shenzhen, China, and while I could not make it, the company provided photos of the event where people discussed upcoming boards and products, as well as software support for the Orange Pi SBCs. So I’ll go through some of the photos to check out what was discussed and what’s coming. While Orange Pi is mostly known for its development boards the company has also been working on consumer products including the Orange Health Watch D Pro and the OrangePi Neo handheld console. The Orange Pi Watch D Pro is said to implement non-invasive blood glucose monitoring, blood pressure monitoring, one-click “micro-physical examination” and other functions to to help users monitor their health monitoring. The Watch D Pro uses a technique that emits a green light to measure glucose levels in the blood, and we’re told it’s accurate enough to […]

Orange Pi AIPro SBC features a 20 TOPS Huawei Ascend AI SoC

Orange Pi Huawei Ascent SBC

Orange Pi AIPro is a new single board computer for AI applications that features a new (and unnamed) Huawei Ascend AI quad-core 64-bit processor delivering up to 20 TOPS (INT8) or 8 TOPS (FP16) of AI inference performance. The SBC comes with up to 16GB LPDDR4X and a 512Mbit SPI flash but also supports other storage options such as a microSD card, an eMMC flash module, and/or an M.2 NVMe or SATA SSD. The board also features two HDMI 2.0 ports, one MIPI DSI connector, and an AV port for video output, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion. Orange Pi AIPro specifications: SoC – Huawei Ascend quad-core 64-bit (I’d assume RISC-V) processor delivering up to 20 TOPS (INT8) or 8TOPS (FP16) AI performance and equipped with an unnamed 3D GPU System Memory – 8GB […]

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