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January 31, 2026January 31, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

M5Stack AI-8850 LLM Accelerator M.2 Kit offers an alternative to Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2

M5Stack has launched the “AI-88502 LLM Accelerator M.2 Kit 8GB Version” based on its LLM-8850 M.2 card with a 24 TOPS Axera AX8850 SoC, and offering an alternative to the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2, supporting both LLM and AI vision workloads. The kit is comprised of the M.2 card and a Raspberry Pi-HAT 8850 board with USB PD power input for the card and Raspberry Pi 5, a 16-pin PCIe connector and 40-pin GPIO header for connection to the SBC, as well as accessories. M5Stack AI-8850 LLM accelerator M.2 kit specifications: M5Stack LLM‑8850 M.2 card SoC – Axera AX8850 CPU – Octa-core Cortex‑A55 processor at 1.7 GHz NPU – 24 TOPS @ INT8 VPU Video Encoder – 8K @ 30 fps H.264/H.265 encoding, supports scaling / cropping Video Decoder – 8K @ 60 fps H.264/H.265 decoding, supports 16 channels 1080p parallel decoding, supports scaling / cropping Memory (two options) 8GB 64‑bit LPDDR4x @ 4266 Mbps 4GB 64-bit LPDDR4x, 4266 Mbps (not […]

January 8, 2026January 9, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

MUSE Book laptop review – Testing an octa-core RISC-V Linux laptop in 2026

SpacemiT sent me a sample of the MUSE Book RISC-V Linux laptop for review. It’s based on the SpacemiT K1/M1 octa-core 64-bit RISC-V SoC, ships with up to 16 GB of RAM, eMMC flash and/or NVMe SSD, and features a 14.1-inch IPS display with 1920×1080 resolution, WiFi 6 connectivity, a few USB ports, and more. I won’t go through all the hardware specifications since Leo already did that when he wrote about the MUSE Book Laptop in April 2024, along with a teardown, and additional details about the SpacemiT K1/M1 SoC. I’ll still do an unboxing and quickly check the hardware, but I’ll focus on the software part to show the progress with Bianbu OS 2.3 (Ubuntu 24.04-based) on RISC-V hardware, as I just did for the low-end StarFive JH7110S-based VisionFive 2 Lite SBC. It’s quite a long review, so if you are short on time, you can jump directly […]

December 31, 2025January 4, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

VisionFive 2 Lite SBC Review – Ubuntu 24.04 on a low-cost RISC-V SBC in 2026

VisionFive 2 Lite RISC-V SBC Ubuntu Review 2026

StarFive has sent me a sample of the VisionFive 2 Lite RISC-V SBC for review. It’s a low-cost credit card-sized board based on the StarFive JH7110S quad-core RISC-V SBC and designed to get started with Linux RISC-V on the cheap. When I first tested the earlier VisionFive 2 SBC with a StarFive JH7110 RISC-V SoC in February 2023, I didn’t call it a review, but rather a hands-on experience, since, at the time, many features still didn’t work properly. Almost three years have passed since then, so reviewing the VisionFive 2 Lite SBC with Ubuntu 24.04 will allow us to see how much progress has been made on the software side. If you are in a rush, you can jump to the what works, what doesn’t section. VisionFive 2 Lite unboxing I received the board in a plastic box with a cover reading “VisionFive 2 Lite Your Gateway to RISC-V”. […]

August 28, 2025August 29, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Ugoos AM9 Android 14 TV box features Amlogic S905X5 Armv9 SoC, supports H.266 and AV1 codecs

Ugoos AM9 is an Android 14 TV box powered by an Amlogic S905X5 quad-core (Armv9) Cortex-A510 SoC, which supports features such as H.266 and AV1 hardware video decoding and AI Super Resolution (AI-SR) through the built-in 4 TOPS NPU. We first noted the Amlogic S905X5 SoC in an upcoming SEI Robotics TV box about two years ago. Details were sparse at the time, and in the meantime, Amlogic introduced the similarly named S905X5M, which is still a “regular” Armv8 SoC with four Cortex-A55 cores, and found in products such as ODROID-C5 SBC and Ugoos X5M Pro. However, I had not heard anything about the more powerful S905X5 SoC until I came across the Ugoos AM9 TV box this morning. Ugoos AM9 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X5 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A510 Armv9 processor delivering 40K+ DMIPS GPU – Arm Mali-G310 V5 GPU clocked at 1 GHz for 4K HDR user interfaces […]

July 20, 2025July 20, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

OMBAR DC42 Dash Cam Review – A 4K+1080p dash cam with dual-band WiFi and GPS

We’ve been sent the OMBAR DC42 Dash Cam for review. It’s a car dash cam kit with a 4K UHD front camera and a 1080p FHD rear camera, each with a wide F1.8 aperture that allows more light for clear images day and night. The kit ships with a 64GB microSD card and supports cards with up to 256GB capacity. The distraction-free, screenless camera supports dual-band (2.4 + 5GHz) WiFi connectivity, GPS location recording to show driving routes, voice guidance, and in-car audio recording. The dash cam also includes accident detection with a G-sensor and a 24-hour parking mode, but the latter requires the optional OMBAR 3-lead hard-wire kit, which sadly was not included in our kit. In this review, we will start with the specifications of the OMBAR 42 dash car, go through an unboxing, report our experience installing the cameras in our car (spoiler: it’s much easier than […]

June 4, 2025 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

LinkPi ENC1Pro 4Kp60 HDMI video encoder supports NDI HX, Tally light, and 4G/5G/Wi-Fi USB Expansion

The LinkPi ENC1Pro is a compact, high-performance 4Kp60 HDMI video encoder designed for professional live streaming and broadcasting applications. It supports two HDMI 2.0 inputs and outputs with resolutions up to 4K @ 60fps, and is equipped with a built-in Tally light for studio use. Powered by an unnamed quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor coupled with 4GB DDR4 RAM and 8GB eMMC flash, the device supports H.265 (HEVC), H.264, and MJPEG compression formats. It is compatible with various streaming protocols, including NDI HX (license required), RTSP, RTMP, SRT, HTTP, HLS, and ONVIF. Other features include real-time picture-in-picture, multi-view, watermarking, subtitles, audio mixing, and video recording in formats such as MP4, MOV, and MKV. The ENC1Pro also supports AAC, MP3, OPUS, and other audio codecs, and includes 3.5mm stereo audio I/O alongside HDMI audio. It also offers flexible network connectivity with Gigabit Ethernet, USB expansion for 4G/5G/Wi-Fi modules, and supports remote management […]

April 23, 2025May 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Pine64 StarPro64 is a RISC-V SBC with ESWin EIC7700X AI SoC, 32 GB LPDDR5

Pine64 StarPro64 is a single board computer (SBC) powered by an ESWin EIC7700X quad-core 64-bit RISC-V SoC with a 19.95 TOPS AI accelerator and equipped with up to 32GB LPDDR5 RAM. It has a similar design to the Star64 SBC powered by a StarFive JH7110 RISC-V SoC, and features HDMI video output, MIPI DSI and CSI display/camera interfaces, two gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB ports, a 40-pin GPIO header, and a PCIe Gen3 x4 slot. The OS can boot from a microSD card or an eMMC flash module. StarPro64 specifications: SoC – ESWIN EIC7700X CPU 4x SiFive Performance P550 RV64GC RISC-V cores @ up to 1.4GHz or 1.8GHz with Cortex-A75-class performance 32KB(I) + 32KB(D) L1 Cache 256KB L2 Cache 4MB shared L3 Cache Cache supports ECC (supports SECDED) NPU – Up to 19.95 TOPS in INT8, 9.975 TOPS in INT16, and 9.975 FTOPS in FP16 Vision Engine HAE (2D Blit, […]

February 28, 2025March 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Giada DN25 fanless 4K digital signage player features Raspberry Pi CM5 Lite module and eMMC flash

Most products based on Raspberry Pi CM5 make use of the eMMC flash version, but Giada DN25 fanless 4K digital signage player relies on the Raspberry Pi CM5 Lite module instead, but still uses 32GB or 64GB flash. This looks like a contradiction at first since the CM5 Lite module has no eMMC flash, but more on that later. The media player uses a CM5 Lite module with 2GB RAM and a wireless module, and features two full HDMI ports to drive up to two 4K displays, a 3.5mm audio jack, a Gigabit Ethernet port, four USB ports, and an RS232 port for peripheral connection (e.g. barcode scanner). Giada DN25 specifications: Compute Module – Raspberry Pi CM5 Lite Module SoC – Broadcom BCM2712 CPU – Quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 processor @ 2.4GHz GPU – VideoCore VII GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.1 graphics, Vulkan 1.3 VPU – 4Kp60 HEVC decoder […]