ODroid - Oh Boy!

I recently picked up one of these little ODROID C1 development boards and i have to say I couldn't be happier!

It's a Quad Core ARM dev board based on the Amlogic S805 Cortex A5 processor with a Dual Core Mali 450 GPU. It comes with 1 GB of RAM and can can boot from 2 sources eMMC and Micro SD. $36.95 US.

It's layout looks very similar to the Raspberry Pi+, and it is almost the same size. Here is a picture of the 2 side by side:

Some of the features:

4 USB Host Ports

Micro Usb OTG Port

Micro HDMI Port

Gigabit ethernet over RJ45

IR Receiver (I guess that would be handy for a remote control if using as a streaming device)

40 Pin Expansion Port containing

2 - I2C Ports

Serial Port

19 GPIO Pins

2 ADC inputs

1.8V Analog reference

3.3 V Out

2 5V outputs

1 SPI Output

RTC with available battery backup.

A quick look at the pinout for both  the ODROID C1 and the Raspberry Pi shows they seem to match up with the exception of pins 37,38, and 40 on the ODroid are used for ADC.

It's also missing a few things the B+ has built in, like the camera interface, composite video out, discrete audio outputs, and the Display header.

This board will run Android or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, both available from the Hardkernel site.

Installation of the Ubuntu image was a breeze, simply download it, dd the image to a Micro SD card, and boot. Detailed instructions are available on the Hardkernel site.

There is a root user and an odroid user, both seem to use the password odroid.

The Hardkernel site (as well as their US distributor) have a wide selection of inexpensive accessories for the odroid.

I was foolish and didn't purchase the power supply, which turned out to require a very small connector which was difficult to find. I was able to cobble together a plug using a Radio Shack Adaptaplug socket, a type A (2.5 mm) Adaptaplug tip, and an old phone charger I had lying around. But it would have been cheaper and easier to have purchased it initially from Ameridroid.

I did purchase the tinkerers kit which included a breadboard, a breakout board for the GPIO port, a ribbon cable, a bunch of resistors (like 100 or so, I didn't count), 6 tactile buttons, about a dozen LED's in rd green and yellow,  a Photocell sensor, and a bunch of connection wires.

The fact that it runs a modern version of Ubuntu makes me happy, the 14.04 LTS version is from April 2014 and since it is an LTS release it will be supported for several years. I run Ubuntu on my main computer and all my laptops, plus my RIoT Board so this thing will fit right in.

In conclusion I just have to say this is a great board, and for $35 US, it's tough to beat. My only words of caution are

1) Buy the power supply, it's worth it, or at least the pigtail connector they sell

2) Look on their site to see the limitations on Micro SD cards, they have some that perform better than others, I had one of the poor performers, it works but it is slow on boot

3) If you need a console, buy their USB uart module, they have a goofy molex connector for serial

Other than that, I can't complain.