FriendlyELEC News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 28, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

What a difference two years make? Comparing SBC prices in 2024 and 2026

Looking back, 2024 feels like a golden year for single board computers, as the increasing price of RAM (and storage and other components) since late 2025 due to the AI demand has made those much less attractive, price/performance ratio-wise. We’ve already documented Raspberry Pi SBC price hikes, and after several increases, the Raspberry Pi 5 16GB went from $120 to $305, or a 154% change in price. Yesterday, I noticed the Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero had a new version with 4GB RAM and 32GB eMMC flash, and a reader was quick to point out the $181 price tag to Europe was painful, bearing in mind it also includes VAT and shipping. Looking at the original December 2023 article, the BPI-M4 Zero 2GB/8GB sold for $28.90 plus shipping, and it now shows up at $115 before taxes. That’s a 297% hike, or about four times the price from a little over […]

March 4, 2026March 5, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

NanoPi NEO3 Plus – A tiny Rockchip RK3528A headless SBC with Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 port, GPIO header

FriendlyELEC NanoPi NEO3 Plus is an ultra-compact headless SBC powered by a Rockchip RK3528A SoC paired with 1GB RAM, whose main interfaces are a Gigabit Ethernet jack, a USB 3.2 port, and a 26-pin GPIO header. I can still remember using its predecessor, the NanoPi NEO3, based on a Rockchip RK3328, which I reviewed with Armbian in 2020. The new model is similar, with a quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC but clocked at 2.0 GHz instead of 1.5 GHz, and offered with a black metal case instead of a white plastic case. The OS can still be booted from a microSD card, but the NanoPi NEO3 Plus also offers a socket for an optional eMMC flash module, and adds an RTC battery connector, a speaker connector, and a MASK button for firmware updates. NanoPi NEO3 Plus specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3528A CPU – Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 @ 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm […]

February 3, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

End-of-life notice for Samsung/Nexell S5P4418 processor

Samsung/Nexell S5P4418 SoC is being phased out, according to a somewhat recent post by EmbSoM/Graperain stating that the SoC was discontinued by the original manufacturer. Most people will likely not care about an old quad-core Cortex-A9 SoC being discontinued, but the S5P4418 was found in several interesting hardware platforms we’ve covered here, mostly from FriendlyELEC, previously FriendlyArm. This includes the FriendlyELEC Core4418, NanoPi2 and Fire2A SBCs, Samsung Artik 530 modules, and several others. Graperain provides more details about the end-of-life notice, notably the key dates for their products: Last Time Buy (LTB) – 2026-03-31 Last Shipment Date – 2026-09-30 This impacts the company’s S5P4418 system-on-module and the S5P4418 single board computer. The Samsung Artik family has been discontinued for several years, and if I look at the FriendlyELEC store, they only sell the Fire2A and Smart4418 CPU board without an end-of-life notice, but they should probably be subject to a similar […]

January 16, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

NanoPC-T6 Plus Rockchip RK3588 SBC switches from LPDDR4x to LPDDR5 (up to 32GB)

It’s been a while since FriendlyELEC has released a board, and the NanoPC-T6 Plus SBC is more of a variant of the NanoPC-T6 and NanoPC-T6 LTS rather than a really new board. It’s still based on a Rockchip RK3588 octa-core SoC, and equipped with two HDMI 2.1 ports, an HDMI input port, MIPI DSI/CSI interfaces, two 2.5GbE ports, and M.2 sockets for NVMe SSD and wireless, among other features. The main change appears to be that the new model is now offered with up to 32GB LPDDR5 rather than up to 16GB LPDDR4x in the previous models. It’s closer to the NanoPC-T6 LTS, although it now supports two analog microphones instead of just one, and restores the M.2 Key-B socket for optional 4G LTE connectivity found in the original NanoPC-T6. The 10-pin UART + 2x USB 2.0 header found in the LTS variant gives way to a 3-pin UART debug […]

December 26, 2025December 26, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

OpenMediaVault 8 (OMV8) ” Synchrony” released for 64-bit x86 (AMD64) and Arm (ARM64) platforms only

OpenMediaVault 8, or OMV8 for shorts, codenamed “Synchrony” has been released, now supporting only 64-bit architectures (AMD64 and ARM64), and dropping 32-bit systems based on the i386, armel, and armhf architectures. OpenMediaVault is a popular, open-source network-attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux that’s been around for many years. I had my first experience with it in 2017 when I reviewed FriendlyELEC NanoPi NEO NAS Kit based on a NanoPi NEO2 SBC with an Allwinner H5 64-bit Cortex A53 SoC, but sadly not recommended for OMV8 (more on that below). The main reason for killing 32-bit support is that the Salt Project only supports 64-bit builds. OpenMediaVault 8 highlights: Upgrade to Debian 13 (Trixie). Replace cpufrequtils with linux-cpupower Improve several user and group-related RPCs. Developers should note that the RPCs UserMgmt::enumerateSystemUsers, UserMgmt::enumerateUsers, UserMgmt::enumerateAllUsers and UserMgmt::getUserList now return only basic user information. Set the parameter detail to full to get […]

July 8, 2025March 17, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

NanoPi R76S dual 2.5GbE SBC and router supports up to 16GB LPDDR5, M.2 WiFi module, HDMI 2.0 video output

We just wrote about the NanoPi R3S LTS dual gigabit Ethernet SBC and router with HDMI output and a speaker connector last week, but FriendlyELEC is back again with the similar NanoPi R76S equipped with two 2.5GbE ports, HDMI video output, an M.2 socket for a WiFi/Bluetooth SDIO module, and a more powerful Rockchip RK3576 octa-core SoC coupled with up to 16GB LPDDR5. Like its predecessors, the NanoPi R76S is offered as a bare board or with a metal enclosure. It comes with a 32GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot, a USB 3.0 port for storage or wireless expansion, a USB-C port for power, a small 8-pin GPIO FPC connector, and a few buttons and LEDs. NanoPi R76S specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3576 CPU – Octa-core CPU with 4x Cortex-A72 cores at 2.2 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores at 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MC3 GPU with support for OpenGL […]

July 3, 2025July 8, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

NanoPi R3S LTS dual Gigabit Ethernet router board gains HDMI output and speaker connector

FriendlyELEC NanoPi R3S LTS is an update to the NanoPi R3S low-cost dual gigabit Ethernet router introduced last year, which gains HDMI output, a speaker connector, and a power button. The new model still features a Rockchip RK3566 SoC with up to 2GB RAM, an optional 32GB eMMC flash, a microSD card socket, a MIPI DSI display connector, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, and a USB-C port for power and programming, as well as a 3-pin UART header accessible after opening the metal enclosure. NanoPi R3S-LTS specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MP2 GPU NPU – 1 TOPS AI accelerator VPU 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoder 1080p60 H.264/H.265 video encoder System Memory – 1GB or 2 GB LPDDR4/4XX Storage Optional 32GB eMMC flash MicroSD card socket with support for UHS-1 (SDR104) Video Output HDMI 2.0 port […]

May 26, 2025June 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

NanoPi M5 – A Rockchip RK3576 SBC with HDMI, dual GbE, M.2 NVMe and SDIO WiFi sockets, UFS 2.0 storage support

It feels like everybody is now launching hardware based on the Rockchip RK3576 SoC, the little brother of the RK3588 with Cortex-A72/A53 cores instead of Cortex-A76/A55 cores, 4K video output, and a mid-range Mali-G52 GPU, while keeping most of the same interfaces. FriendlyELEC has now joined the fray with the NanoPi M5 SBC equipped with up to 4GB LPDDR4x or 16GB LPDDR5, sockets for a UFS module and an M.2 NVMe SSD, HDMI 2.0 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, two MIPI CSI camera connectors, two gigabit Ethernet ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, two USB 3.0 ports, a 30-pin GPIO header, and more. NanoPi M5 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3576 CPU – Octa-core CPU with 4x Cortex-A72 cores at 2.2 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores at 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MC3 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, and Vulkan 1.2 NPU – 6 TOPS […]