Rock 5B RK3588 SBC preview – What works, what doesn’t in Debian 11

Rock 5B review Debian 11

I’ve recently received an early sample of Radxa ROCK5 Model B (aka ROCK 5B) SBC part of the “Developer Edition” batch with 16GB RAM, and already showed the hardware and it booting successfully in Debian 11.

I’ve now spent more time with the board, and as part of the “debug party” tested performance and features in Debian 11. As one would expect, some things work fine, providing excellent performance, but others still need improvements.

4K wireless display adapter supports 3840×2160 resolution @ 60 Hz, HDR (Sponsored)

ProScreenCast SC01

ProScreenCast SC01 is a 4K wireless display adapter supporting 3840×2160 resolution at up to 60 Hz with High-Dynamic Range (HDR) support. The HDMI 2.0 adapter is compatible with Miracast, Airplay, and DLNA streaming standards, and can sustain the required bandwidth needed thanks to dual-band WiFi 5 connectivity. We started to see plenty of Miracast and DLNA capable wireless adapters about 8 years ago, but there were all limited to WiFi 4 and either 720p or 1080p resolutions, so the ProScreenCast SC01 wireless adapter offers a greatly improved video quality and user experience with faster WiFi, and 4K HDR support. SC01 specifications: Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 with HDR support Wireless – Dual-band WiFi 5 (802.11ac) Support standards – Airplay, Miracast, and DLNA Power Supply – 5V/1A or 2A via USB Type-C port Dimensions – 72 x 72 x 17 mm Weight – 50.7 grams Materials – ABS+PC […]

NVISEN FU01 is a fanless Tiger Lake mini PC with a Thunderbolt 4 port

Tiger Lake Thunderbolt 4

NVISEN FU01 fanless mini PC is offered with a choice of Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Tiger Lake processors, fitted with up to 16GB RAM (upgradeable to 64GB), a 256GB or 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD, and the highlight of the computer is its 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 port with 8K video output support. The Tiger Lake system can drive up to three 4K displays with HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort connectors adding to the Thunderbolt 4 port, offers Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, plus six USB 3.0/2.0 Type-A ports for expansion. NVISEN FU01 specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i3-1115G4 dual-core processor @ 3.0GHz, up to 4.1GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics; 28W TDP Intel Core i5-1135G7 quad-core processor @ 2.4GHz, up to 4.2GHz (Turbo) with Intel Xe graphics; 28W TDP Intel Core i7-1165G7 quad-core processor @ 2.8GHz, up to 4.7GHz (Turbo) with Intel Xe graphics; 28W TDP System Memory & […]

M5Stack ATOM Display Lite adds HDMI output to ESP32 module

ESP32 HDMI output

M5Stack ATOM Display Lite is a kit based on GOWIN Gowin GW1NR-9C FPGA and LT8618SX RGB to HDMI chip designed to add HDMI output up to 720p to the company’s ESP32-based M5Stack ATOM Lite module. The ATOM Lite sees the ATOM Display Lite kit as an SPI display, but the solution outputs the data to an HDMI monitor or TV with up to 1280×720 resolution and can be used for information display, menu board, and more. ATOM Display Lite specifications: Wireless IoT modules – M5Stack ATOM Lite ESP32-PICO-D4 based module with 240MHz dual-core CPU, 520KB SRAM, 4MB flash, Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth connectivity FPGA – Gowin GW1NR-9C (PDF datasheet) FPGA with 8,640 LUTs used to simulate SPI TFT-LCD data output, HDMI bridge – Lontium Semi LT8618SX RGB to HDMI chip with 24-bit color depth up to 1280×720 output @ 60 fps (optimized frame rate up to 12 ~ 16FPS) Misc- […]

10.1-inch RPI All-in-One PC review with Raspberry Pi 4

10.1-inch Raspberry Pi PC portrait mode

A couple of months ago I received “RPI All-in-One”, a 10.1-inch touchscreen display for Raspberry Pi boards, listed the specifications, checked out the package content, installed a Raspberry Pi 4 inside the display before booting my new all-in-one (AiO) PC successfully. I’ve now had time to spend more time with the PC/display and see how it performs under various conditions. I also tested HDMI and USB-C input features with a laptop and mini PC. Fan or fanless operation? After updating Raspberry Pi OS, I ran sbc-bench.sh script together with rpi-monitor to see how the Raspberry Pi 4 with 1GB RAM would perform under load with the (noisy) fan enabled.

  No throttling was detected, and the temperature never exceeded 56°C in a room with an ambient temperature of 26°C. I then disconnect the fan, but it turns out the fan can also be easily disabled in the OSD menu […]

Tang Nano 9K FPGA board can emulate PicoRV32 RISC-V soft-core with all peripherals

Tango Nano 9K

Tang Nano 9K FPGA is the third board from Sipeed based on GOWIN FPGA following the original Tang Nano board with 1K LUT and Tang Nano 4K launched last year with GW1NSR-LV4C (aka GW1NSR-4C) FPGA offering 4068 logical units and 64 Mbit PSRAM, plus an Arm Cortex-M3 hard processor. As its name implies, the new board comes with 9K LUTs, as well as 64 Mbit PSRAM, 32 Mbit Flash, a micro SD card, and video I/O (HDMI, RGB LCD connector) that makes it suitable to run Verilog HDL code emulating a PicoRV32 RISC-V soft-core with all peripherals. Tang Nano 9K FPGA board specifications: FPGA – GOWIN LittleBee GW1NR-9/GW1NR-LV9 8,640 logical units (LUTs) 6,480 flip-flop 17,280 bits shadow SRAM (SSRAM) 486 Kbit block SRAM (BSRAM) 64 Mbit PSRAM 608 Kbit user flash 2x PLL Up to 276x user I/O Storage – 32 Mbit SPI flash. MicroSD card socket Display I/F HDMI […]

Beelink Expand F USB-C dock takes M.2 SSD and 2.5-inch SATA drive

Beelink Expand F USB-C Dock

Beelink has previously introduced USB docks with the Expand X smartphone dock and Expand M with an SSD. The company’s latest Beelink Expand F USB-C dock looks really like a mini PC from the outside with the usual USB, HDMI, Ethernet, and audio ports, and it can also be fitted with an M.2 2280 SATA SSD and/or a 2.5-inch SATA drive. It can be useful to add PC-like connectivity to a smartphone or add additional storage to a laptop without cluttering your desk with multiple USB drives, and/or potentially saving some USB ports on the host machine. Beelink Expand F specifications: Storage Options No storage, i.e. bring your own SATA drive(s) via M.2 socket up to 440 MB/s and/or 2.5-inch SATA bay 512GB SATA III M.2 SSD 512GB SATA III M.2 SSD plus 1TB SATA HDD Video Output – 2x HDMI ports up to 4K resolution Audio – 3.5mm audio […]

The cheapest Jasper Lake mini PC so far: JK01 for $140 and up

Cheap Jasper Lake Mini PC

Intel Jasper Lake N-Series Celeron and Pentium processors were formally introduced at the beginning of the year as the successors of the Gemini Lake (Refresh) processors, and we’ve seen several mini PCs and motherboards so far from lesser-known Chinese manufacturers to more established brands like ASUS, GIGABYTE, and ECS. The previous generation Gemini Lake mini PCs would usually sell around $150 to $200, but now with the JK01 barebone computer, we’ve got an inexpensive Intel Celeron N5095 Jasper Lake mini PC selling for about $141 including shipping. CYX JK01 mini PC specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5095 quad-core Jasper Lake  processor @ 2.0GHz /  2.9GHz (Turbo) with 4MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD Graphics; 15W TDP System Memory – 2x SO-DIMM slots for up to 16GB DDR4 memory Storage – M.2 2280 socket for NVMe or SATA SSD, 2.5-inch SATA drive bay, MicroSD card socket Video Output – 1x HDMI 2.0 […]