Title says it all.. What do people thing of the $129 Wandboard Quad (http://wandboard.org/) vs the approx $90-$120 CubieTruck (https://www.miniand.com/products/Cubietruck%20A20%20Dev%20Board Cubietruck CUBIEBOARD3 Cortex A7 Dual Core 2GB RAM 8GB Flash with WiFi BT | eBay)
CubieTruck:
912MHz Dual core Cortex-A7 (Allwinner A20)
2GB ram
Gigabit Network
SATA
Onboard WiFi+BT
micro SD
HDMI
Optical S/PDIF
WBQuad:
996MHz Quad Core Cortex-A9 (Freescale i.MX6)
2GB ram
Gigabit network
SATA
Onboard WiFI+BT (broadcom?)
micro SD x2
HDMI
Optical S/PDIF
USB 3
The WBDual lacks SATA and only has 1GB ram for $99 so may be less attractive compared to a 2GB CT.
Neither are available from e14, so we have to look elsewhere.
Here in the UK, the CT is approx 95 GBP + shipping http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/cubietruck-kit-dual-core-single-board-computer.html
Compared to WBQuad from Future Electronics and shipped from the US since there don't appear to be any UK stockists at 91.85 GBP + shipping WBQUAD | i.MX6 Quad Core@1GHz Multimedia Processor Development Board w/WiFi and Bluetooth | WANDBOARD.ORG - Future E… (76.54 + 20% UK VAT to get to 91.85)
So very similar specs, and mostly identical cost, yet dual core vs quad core. The A7 is potentially better as it's feature compatible with the A15 which could offer a smoother upgrade path later. The A7 therefore offers hardware virtualisation while the A9 doesn't. The A7 is still basically an A8 class cpu at heart though, so will be somewhat slower than the A9.
Does anyone care though ? It seems that the Linux Kernel Virtual Machine isn't yet quite ready to do virtualisation on these and Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora etc are targetting armv7l (or A8 upwards) which means the additional features like vfpv4 are unlikley to be used. Yet.. By the time they are, it seems likely there'll be something better, faster and likely cheaper and people will move on.
So what do we think today, is the WBQuad a better buy, or the CubieTruck ?
