Single Board Computer News - CNX Software

April 18, 2026April 18, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Pironman 5 Pro Max Review – A Raspberry Pi 5 Tower PC case with integrated video and audio capabilities, optional UPS kit

SunFounder has sent us a sample of the Pironman 5 Pro Max tower PC case for Raspberry Pi 5 for review alongside a PiPower 5 UPS board. The “Pro Max” builds upon the Pironman 5 Max we reviewed last year, but adds a 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen display, a 5MP camera module, two speakers, a USB microphone, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The PiPower 5 is a UPS HAT designed for Raspberry Pi Zero/Model B single board computers, and not directly compatible with the Pironman cases, but we’ll still try to use it. I’ll start this review with an unboxing of the Pironman 5 Pro Max and PiPower 5 packages, followed by an assembly guide for the Pironman 5 Pro Max, a test of the new features (display, camera, audio interaction), and finally, I’ll have a quick test of the UPS HAT with the Raspberry Pi 5 enclosure. Unboxing of Pironman […]

April 17, 2026April 17, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Boardcon Tiny1126B is a smaller and lighter Rockchip RV1126B system-on-module, yet with more I/Os

Boardcon Tiny1126B shrinks the company’s MINI1126B-P Rockchip RV1126B system-on-module (SoM) from 38x30mm to 34x30mm, targeting even more compact AI vision systems such as smart cameras, smart door locks, inspection cameras, cleaning/logistics robots, DMS (Driver Monitoring Systems), BSD (Blind Spot Detection) solutions, and smart displays. Despite its smaller size, the Tiny1126B features two 0.4mm pitch 100-pin connectors, instead of two 0.5mm pitch 80-pin connectors for its predecessors, offering even more I/Os. It’s notably gaining a USB 3.0 DRD (Dual-Role Device) interface, an extra SDMMC interface, one additional SPI and I2C interfaces, Fast Ethernet, and more. The rest of the specifications, including memory capacity (up to 4GB LPDDR5) and storage (up to 256GB eMMC flash), remain the same. Boardcon Tiny1126B system-on-module Boardcon Tiny1126B specifications: SoC – Rockchip RV1126B CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 up to 1.6 GHz with 32KB L1 I-Cache and 32KB L1 D-Cache, unified 512KB L2 Cache GPU – 2D […]

April 16, 2026April 18, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Conclusive Engineering KSTR-SAMA5D27 is an ultra-compact, low-power SBC based on Microchip SAMA5D27 SiP

Conclusive Engineering KSTR-SAMA5D27 is an ultra-compact (70x50mm) single board computer (SBC) powered by a Microchip SAMA5D27 Arm Cortex-A5 processor microprocessor clocked at 500 MHz paired with 256MB LPDDR2 (system-in-package). The board also features a microSD card slot and EEPROM for storage/configuration, Fast Ethernet, WiFi 4, and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, a USB-C port, two GPIO headers, and supports USB and battery power. It’s designed for IoT devices, smart systems, and edge computing applications. Conclusive Engineering KSTR-SAMA5D27 specifications: SiP – Microchip SAMA5D27 CPU – Arm Cortex-A5 microprocessor @ 500 MHz System Memory – 256 MB LPDDR2 Storage MicroSD card slot 4KB EEPROM Networking 10/100Mbps Ethernet RJ45 jack 2.4 GHz WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.1 USB 1x USB 2.0 OTG Type-C connector 1x USB 2.0 Host on expansion header Expansion 34-pin and 30-pin connectors 2x Flexcom (configurable: I2C, SPI, UART) I2C 6-channel ADC with Vref 10-bit ISC (Image Sensor Controller), 10-bit […]

April 15, 2026April 16, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Orange Pi Zero 3W – An Allwinner A733 SBC in Raspberry Pi Zero form factor

Orange Pi Zero 3W is Raspberry Pi Zero-sized SBC powered by an Allwinner A733 octa-core Arm Cortex-A76/A55 SoC paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a microSD card slot, and footprints for eMMC flash or UFS storage. Other features include a 4K-capable mini HDMI port, two USB-C ports, one with DP 1.4 Alt mode, a MIPI DSI display connector, two MIPI CSI camera connectors, a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 module, and a 40-pin GPIO header. OrangePi Zero 3W specifications: SoC – Allwinner A733 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core up to 200 MHz GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL 3.0 VPU 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding AI accelerator – 3 TOPS NPU System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 12GB, or […]

April 14, 2026April 15, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

PocketTerm35 – A Raspberry Pi 4/5-based handheld Linux terminal with 3.5-inch touch display and built-in keyboard

Waveshare PocketTerm35 is a portable handheld terminal for the Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 single board computers featuring a 3.5-inch touchscreen display and a built-in QWERTY keyboard. The device also features Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0/2.0 ports from the Raspberry Pi SBC, gaming buttons, a built-in stereo speaker, a 3.5mm audio jack, a USB Type-C port for power, and an optional 5,000 mAh battery. PocketTerm35 specifications: Compatible SBC – Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and Raspberry Pi 5 MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU for keyboard, brightness, and volume Storage – Optional 64GB microSD card with OS Display – 3.5-inch 640 × 480 IPS display with 5-point capacitive touch; toughened glass panel, 6H hardness Audio Built-in 8Ω 2W stereo speaker 3.5mm audio jack Networking – Gigabit Ethernet ports (on Pi 4/5) USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports (on Pi 4/5) User Input 67 keys QWERTY silicone keyboard […]

April 13, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 7.0 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 7.0 on LKML: The last week of the release continued the same “lots of small fixes” trend, but it all really does seem pretty benign, so I’ve tagged the final 7.0 and pushed it out. I suspect it’s a lot of AI tool use that will keep finding corner cases for us for a while, so this may be the “new normal” at least for a while. Only time will tell. Anyway, this last week was a little bit of everything: networking (core and drivers), arch fixes, tooling and selftests, and various random fixes all over the place. Let’s keep testing, and obviously tomorrow the merge window for 7.1 opens. I already have four dozen pull requests pending – thank you to all the early people. Linus This follows the Linux 6.19 release about two months ago, which brought us PCIe link encryption and […]

April 6, 2026April 6, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Advantech MIO-5356 – An industrial 3.5-inch SBC based on Intel Core Series 3 “Wildcat Lake” SoC

Advantech MIO-5356 is the very first hardware platform based on the upcoming Intel Core Series 3 (Core 300) “Wildcat Lake” SoC we’ve seen. It’s a 3.5-inch SBC designed for industrial applications and powered by up to the Intel Core 7 350 hexa-core processor. The fanless board supports up to 64GB DDR5 memory, NVMe SSD storage, up to three independent displays via USB-C, HDMI, and LVDS interface, 2.5GbE and GbE networking with TSN and OOB management, and WiFi, Bluetooth, and Cellular connectivity via M.2 sockets. It also features audio connectors, six USB interfaces, RS232/RS485 and CAN Bus interfaces, and more. Advantech MIO-5356 specifications: Wildcat Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Core 3 305 hexa-core CPU with 2x P cores @ 1.5 GHz / 4.4 GHz (Turbo) and 4x LPE cores, 16x EU Intel graphics @ 2.3 GHz; TDP: 15W Intel Core 5 320 hexa-core CPU with 2x P cores @ […]

April 4, 2026April 4, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Velxio is an open-source, self-hosted Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ESP32 simulator

Velxio is an open-source, self-hosted simulator for Arduino, ESP32, and Raspberry Pi boards that works directly in your web browser. You can drag-and-drop boards, connect components and modules, write and run code in Arduino or Python, and access the serial console, all without hardware. If it looks similar to what the Wokwi simulator has to offer, it’s because Velxio was inspired by it and even integrates the AVR8 CPU emulator, RP2040 emulator, and QEMU fork for ESP32 Xtensa emulation from the Wokwi project. But the key difference is that Velxio can be self-hosted, although there’s also an online demo. Velxio currently supports 19 targets across five architectures AVR8 (ATmega / ATtiny) Arm Cortex-M0+ (Raspberry Pi RP2040) RISC-V RV32IMC/EC (ESP32-C3 / CH32V003) Xtensa LX6/LX7 (ESP32 / ESP32-S3 via QEMU) Arm Cortex-A53 (Raspberry Pi 3 Linux via QEMU) The project also offers 48 components. The developer mentions that additional features compared to […]