Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro compact Amlogic S905X3 SBC launched for $61

Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro

Banana Pi has already designed an Amlogic S905X3 SBC with Banana Pi BPI-M5 that closely follows Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor, but they’ve now launched a more compact model with Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro that follow the design of the company’ earlier BPI-M2+ SBC powered by the good old Allwinner H3 processor. BPI-M2 Pro comes with 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC storage, HDMI video output, Gigabit Ethernet, Wifi & Bluetooth connectivity, as well as two USB 3.0 ports. Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Cortex A55 @ up to 2.0 GHz with an Arm Mali-G31 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.1 up to 4Kp60 with HDR, CEC, EDID support Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet Dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 1×1 and Bluetooth 4.2 via Realtek RTL8821CU module USB – 2x USB 3.0 […]

Beelink GKmini Review – An Intel Celeron J4125 mini PC reviewed with Windows 10 Pro, Ubuntu 20.04

Beelink GKmini Review

Beelink have recently released another small form factor (SFF) design similar to the traditional Intel ‘NUC’ called the GKmini which they have provided for review. Available as a fully configured Windows 10 Pro mini PC means it can be up and running straight out of the box. Hardware Overview The Beelink GKmini physically consists of a 115mm x 102mm x 43mm (4.53 x 4.02 x 1.69 inches) rectangular plastic case. It is an actively cooled mini PC and uses Intel’s 14 nm J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh processor which is a quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz processor boosting to 2.70 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics 600. The front panel has a power button, a headphone jack, two USB 3.0 ports, and a ‘CLR CMOS’ pinhole that leads to a button which when pressed clears the CMOS. The rear panel includes the power jack, dual HDMI ports, a gigabit Ethernet port, a further […]

MediaTek Dimensity 900 6nm SoC brings UFS 3.1, LPDDR5 to mid-range 5G smartphones

Mediatek Dimensity 900

Arm Cortex-A78 and LPDDR5 would have been premium features not so long ago, but time flies, and the just-announced MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G SoC for mid-range smartphones includes two Cortex-A78 cores, six Cortex-A55 cores, support for LPDRR5/4 memory, UFS 3.1 storage, and of course 5G cellular connectivity up to 2.77Gbps. The mobile processor’s multimedia capabilities are pretty good as well with support for displays up to 2520 x 1080 resolution at 120 Hz, up to 108MP camera, 4Kp30 video with H.265, H.264, AV1, as well as an Arm Mali-G68 MC4 GPU and third-generation APU 3.0 AI accelerator. MediaTek Dimensity 900 specifications: CPU – Octa-core DynamIQ processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A78 @ Up to 2.4GHz, 6x Arm Cortex-A55 @ Up to 2GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G68 MC4 AI Accelerator – MediaTek APU 3.0 VPU Video Encoding – H.264, H.265 / HEVC up to 4K @ 30FPS Video Playback – H.264, H.265 […]

Mecool KT1 4K AV1 capable Android TV STB ships with DVB-T2 tuner

Mecool KT1

Amlogic S905X4 TV boxes such as Mecool KM6 have already been available for a few months with the main selling being support for 4K AV1 video hardware decoding. But if you’d like to watch AV1 YouTube or Netflix videos, and also get free-to-air channels using older codecs, Mecool KT1 adds a DVB-T2 TV tuner that works in the EMEA region, some Asian countries, Oceania, and a few other countries that adopted the standard. Mecool KT1 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X4 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G31MP2 supporting OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.1, and OpenCL 2.0 System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD/SDXC card socket Video & Audio Output HDMI 2.1 up to 4K @ 60Hz with CEC, HDCP2.2, HDR AV output with composite video and analog stereo audio Video Playback Codecs AV1 up to 4K @ 60 fps H.265 HEVC […]

T95 Plus Android 11 TV Box features Rockchip RK3566 AIoT processor, 8GB RAM

T95 Plus RK3566

Last month, we wrote about the first Rockchip RK3566 TV box we had seen so far with a new version of the H96 Max TV box running Android 11 with up to 8GB RAM. While Rockchip RK3566 processor has multimedia capabilities with 4K HDR video playback and output, it has many other interfaces such as native PCIe and SATA that would not make it as cost-effective as TV Box SoC’s like Rockchip RK3328 or Amlogic S905X4. But this does not stop companies from making TV boxes with the AIoT processor, and T95 Plus TV box offers another option, again with up to 8GB RAM. T95 Plus specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 EE GPU, 0.8 TOPS NPU/AI accelerator System Memory – 4GB, 6GB, or 8GB RAM Storage – 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0a […]

MECOOL KM2 – Netflix 4K certified, Amlogic S905X2-B TV Box runs Android TV 10

Mecool KM2 Netflix 4K TV Box

There are plenty of Amlogic TV boxes around, but unless you buy from the big players, most devices won’t support Netflix FullHD/4K because certification is hard to get for smaller companies. The Hailstorm device scaling program launched in 2018 aimed to make the process easier on Amlogic and Hisilicon processors, and HiMedia S1 TV dongle was one of the first to get approved. But now MECOOL KM2 joins the rank of Netflix 4K certified devices. The TV box is powered by an Amlogic S905X2-B processor running Android TV 10, also known as Android TV on Android 10. MECOOL KM2 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X2-B quad-core Cortex-A53 processor System Memory – 2GB DDR4 Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.1 up to 4Kp60 with HDCP 2.3, HDMI-CEC support Codecs – H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, VP8 & VP9 HDR – HDR10+, HDR & HLG DRM – Widevine […]

AMD Ryzen 5 4500U Mini PC offers triple 4K display support, 2.5GbE

AMD Ryzen 5 4500U mini PC

AMD Ryzen 4000-U series 15W processors were announced in January 2020, and by the end of the year, we covered some mini PCs with Ryzen 3/5/7 processors from the new family with products such as ASRock Mars 4000U and ASROCK 4X4 BOX-4800U. MINISFORUM has now announced its own Ryzen 4000-U series mini PC with MINIXFORUM HM50 mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U hexa-core processor that offers three 4K display output ports (HDMI, DP, and USB-C), as well a 2.5GbE and Gigabit Ethernet ports, six USB 3.0/3.1 ports and more. MINISFORUM DeskMini HM50 mini PC specifications: SoC – AMD Ryzen 5 4500U hexa-core/hexa-thread processor @ 2.3 GHz / 4.0 GHz (Turbo), with 6-core Radeon graphics @ 1.5 Hz, 11MB cache,  15W TDP (cTDP: 10-25W) System Memory – 2x DDR4 SODIMM sockets (fitted with 2x 8GB RAM modules, but upgradable up to 2x 32GB) Storage – 256GB or 512GB […]

Edge AI video processing system combines SocioNext SC2000 4K camera SoC with Hailo-8 AI accelerator

EdgeTuring AI processing solution

We’ve previously written about Hailo-8 AI accelerator delivering up to 26 TOPS at low power (3 TOPS per watt), and found in AI edge systems such as Foxconn BOXiedge server powered by a Socionext SynQuacer SC2A11 24x Cortex-A53 cores SoC and capable of analyzing up to 20 streaming camera feeds in real-time for video analytics. Leopard Imaging has now created a much more compact Edge AI processing solution with EdgeTuring based on Hailo-8 M.2 card and Socionext SC2000 4K camera SoC, and designed for low-power video analytics. EdgeTuring features and specifications: Camera SoC / Image Processor – Socionext SC2000 quad-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 650MHz with 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoder, up to 1.2 Gigapixel per second processing, LPDDR-3  memory (PoP) AI Module – Hailo-8 M.2 Module for up to 26 TOPS  Camera Dual camera but only one sensor works for AI Sensors – 2x Sony IMX477 CMOS Image Sensor, diagonal 7.857 mm […]