Using a laptop shell with a smartphone is not a new concept, but products like Motorola Lapdock were eventually phased out. But some people think there’s a market here, that Lapdock may just have been ahead of it time, and with smartphone faster than ever, it now makes more sense to use them as laptop too. That’s probably why the Superbook, allowing you to connect your smartphone to a larger screen and keyboard via a USB OTG cable, has just launched on Kickstarter. Superbook specifications: Display – 11.6″ LCD display; 1366×768 resolution Keyboard – QWERTY keyboard with multi-touch trackpad USB – USB type-C port (smartphone with micro B USB are also supported via an adapter) Misc – Android-specific navigation keys (Home, Back, Menu, Recent) Custom Charging Port w/ Standard US charger Battery – Good for 8 hours or more Dimensions – 19.3 x 28.7 x 1.8cm Superbook also charges your smartphone. […]
Review of GOLE1 mini PC with 5″ Display – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown
GOLE1 is a portable mini PC running Windows 10 and Android 5.1, featuring a 5″ touchsceen display, and powered by an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 “Cherry Trail” processor. The device was launched on Indiegogo, and the project raised close to $300,000. I’ve now received an early sample with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage for review, with – I was told – a 1,800 mAh battery instead of the 2,600 mAh battey backers will receive. I’ll do a 2 or 3 parts review, starting by checking out the hardware, before testing both Windows 10 and Android 5.1 on the platform. GOLE1 Unboxing The device is packed into a simple white box with “GOLE1 Designed by GOLE” string. The mini PC ships with a 5V/3A power supply which should be powerful enough to connect a USB 3.0 hard drive, an HDMI cable, and a user’s manual in English. The device looks a little […]
Onion Omega2 is a $5 Linux WiFi IoT Board (Crowdfunding)
Onion Omega board was first introduced in 2015. The tiny OpenWrt Linux board featured an Atheros AR9331 processor with GPIO headers, and various baseboards and add-ons. The company has now launched a Kickstarter campaign for the second versions – Omega2 & Omega2 Plus – with a faster processor @ 580 MHz, compatible with docks and add-ons boards used for Omega, and a much lower price with $5 for the Omega2, and $9 for Omega2 Plus with more storage and memory. Omega2 & Omega2 Plus specifications: WiSoC – 580 MHz processor, possibly Mediatek MT7688 MIPS processor used in LinkIt Smart 7688 System Memory Omega2 – 64MB Omega2 Plus – 128MB Storage Omage2 – 16MB flash Omega 2 Plus – 32MB flash + micro SD slot Connectivity Built-in – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with on-board and external antenna support Via add-on boards – Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS, and 2G/3G Expansion – 15x GPIO, […]
ArduCAM has designed a Tiny Coin-Sized Raspberry Pi Compatible Module
Now you can design your own custom hardware and leverage Raspberry Pi software, by integrating Raspberry Pi Compute module (and soon Raspberry Pi 3 Compute module) into your custom designed baseboard. But if you’d like something more compact, and even more compact than a Raspberry Pi Zero or RPi Compute module, ArduCAM has been developing a 24x24mm Raspberry Pi compatible system-on-module powered by Broadcom BCM2835 processor. ArduCAM has also designed a small adapter board “UC-343 Rev. A” for the module with the following specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 Processor @ 700 MHz (or 1GHz?) with Videocore IV GPU System Memory – 256MB/512MB LPDDR2 Storage – micro SD card slot USB – 2x micro USB ports including one for power only Camera – 1x MIPI CSI connector supporting 5MP or 8MP Pi cameras (dual camera support) Expansion – AV output header 16-pin and 8-pin headers (unpopulated) with GPIOs, 2x I2C, […]
Mini M8S II TV Box (Amlogic S905X) Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown
Amlogic S905X powered TV boxes have now hit the market, and compared to existing Amlogic S905 devices add VP9, and provided your TV can handle it, HDR (High Dynamic Range) support. GearBest sent me one of the cheapest S905X TV Box with Mini M8S II, and in the first part of the review, I’ll take some picture of the device, and tear it down, while the second part will be posted later, and focus on testing the firmware. MINI M8S II Unboxing The package was slightly damaged, but nothing to bad. The top reads “Mini TV Box” with some icons describing the main feaures like 4K & H.265/HEVC support, WiFi, and so on. I’ve recently realized that logos and trademarks may cause problems with customs in some countries, and the package does have several potentially problematic trademarks like HBO and Netflix, as well as logos for Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo…. In […]
$99 MATRIX Creator Raspberry Pi Add-on Board Features Plenty of Sensors, a 2.4 GHz Radio, and More
MATRIX Creator is a round-shaped add-on board for Raspberry Pi boards with various sensors, a microphone array, an LED array, a Xilinx FPGA, an Atmel Cortex-M3 MCU, wireless connectivity via Z-Wave, ZigBee, Thread, and NFC, as well as various I/Os…. MATRIX Creator specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA MCU – Atmel ATSAM3S2C Cortex-M3 MCU Connectivity – ZigBee, Thread, Z-Wave and NFC Sensors – Ultraviolet, pressure, humidity, temperature, 3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope, 3D magnetometer Audio – 8x MEMs microphone array with Alexa support Expansion – 2x ADC, 17x digital GPIOs, SPI, I2C, UART; 40-pin connector for Raspberry Pi 2/3 Misc – 35x RGBW LEDs array, IR Rx/Tx, infrared ring for the Raspberry Pi NoIR camera I can’t think of the single application that would make use of all features of this board, but the least we can say is that it’s extremely versatile. The developers are providing MATRIX OS based […]
WiReboot is a Watchdog Device Rebooting Your Router if the WiFi Connection is Lost (Crowdfunding)
Routers are usually pretty stable devices, but sometimes they still hang, and I think I must reboot my router about 2 to 3 times a year as I lose (Ethernet) connectivity. I’m usually at home, so it’s not really an issue as I can just walk a few meters to manually reboot the router. But if you are often on the go, and have a few WiFi devices such as smoker alarms, smart lights, and other home automation products that you may want to control over the Internet, if WiFi goes down nothing works. Luckily there’s a solution: WiReboot, a small device powered by ESP8266 that will check your WiFi and Internet connection, and automatically restart the router if it fails.Key features of WiReboot: ESP8266 module for 802.11 b/g/n WiFi connection USB – 1x USB input port to connect your router power supply, and 1x USB output to connect to […]
Review of Vorke V1 mini PC Powered by Intel Celeron J3160 Processor
After checking out Vorke V1 mini PC hardware in the first part of the review, it’s now time to publish the review starting with system information, benchmarks, and user testing. The device competes with similarly priced devices based on Intel Atom x7 processor such as Voyo V3 and Beelink BT7, so I’ll also include some comparisons to those in the review. Setup and System Information I connected USB keyboard and mouse, an Ethernet cable, HDMI and VGA cables to check dual display support, as well as the power supply. I did not connect my USB 3.0 hard drive since, I’ve already fitted the mini PC with an internal 1TB hard drive. Pressing on the large power button on the top of the device will boot it, and after a few seconds, you’ll get to go through Windows 10 setup by first accepting the EULA. The next steps are Custom or […]