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Pi vs BeagleBone-Black

Former Member

So, just over a year on from the initial availability of the R-Pi and the new BeagleBone Black is upon us.  They've obviously taken a leaf out of the RPF's playbook and produced a cost reduced version at a price only marginally above the Pi.

 

I find it interesting that the compromises are very different, for example there's a proper PMIC and the ethernet is not troubled by being connected to USB, however the on-board HDMI seems less capable.

 

Other differences are in the documentation, I'm currently viewing the pcb gerbers for the beaglebone..  Have yet to see any sign of those for the R-Pi a year later. There's even an up to date devicetree capable kernel too.

 

Technology has also moved on somewhat, we get a 1GHz Cortex A8 which is better than the Pi, along with various other stuff and lots more GPIO's too.

 

Ok, so it's clear that I like the look of the new beaglebone, and given the price I'm likely to put any further R-Pi plans on hold until I have a chance to play with this. It's also making things like the Olinuxino-maxi I bought recently look very slow/expensive while still being cheaper than the similarly specced Olinuxino-A13

 

Some details of the beaglebone-black here http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=BeagleBoneBlack

 

What do the rest of you think ?   I don't expect this to displace the Pi anytime soon, but I expect it to be very attractive to those people who don't simply want to put XBMC on it and duct tape it to the back of the TV..

Parents

  • Spring greetings to you all ...  this thread has brought me out of my forum sabatical, naughty naughty. image

     

    Seeing the Slashdot thread on BeagleBone Black made me warp over to here post haste, as I guessed you would all be talking about it ... and you were, hehe.  I agree with everything that's been said.

     

    Two additional bits of information that slightly change the picture:

     

    • Farnell UK says "18584 will be available for delivery on 3 May, 2013", so they're clearly taking this seriously and expect BB Black to sell in much higher volumes than the first BeagleBone.  No surprise of course, price is king.

     

    • The BeagleBone's TI Sitara AM3359 contains a pair of integer-only realtime processors running at 200MHz, the Programmable Realtime Unit Subsystem or "PRU".  These can provide waaaaaaay better hard realtime interfacing performance than any program running in Linux user-space, so for hardcore techies who aren't afraid of getting their hands dirty with some pretty simple assembler, the BeagleBone is lightyears ahead of the Pi in interfacing capability.

     

    Success has very little to do with engineering merit though, so I won't be making any guesses about how popular this new board will become.  However, for myself, the Pi Model B is now totally dead in the water since it lost its only advantage, which was price.

     

    Needless to say, BeagleBone Black is on my shopping list as soon as they're in stock. image

     

    Morgaine.

  • in reply to morgaine

    Morgaine Dinova wrote:

     

    Spring greetings to you all ...  this thread has brought me out of my forum sabatical, naughty naughty. image

     

    Was wondering where you'd been hiding recently image

    • Farnell UK says "18584 will be available for delivery on 3 May, 2013", so they're clearly taking this seriously and expect BB Black to sell in much higher volumes than the first BeagleBone.  No surprise of course, price is king.

     

    However after getting an 'in stock' notification from Newark (strange when I'm in the UK), Newark now show 0 in stock and more expected to ship on 28th June - no qty listed...

    So I'm not holding my breath just yet.

    Success has very little to do with engineering merit though, so I won't be making any guesses about how popular this new board will become.  However, for myself, the Pi Model B is now totally dead in the water since it lost its only advantage, which was price.

     

    I'd hoped to see something like this where the price difference (in the UK anyway) is approaching zero. Regardless of the merits of each device, it'll be interesting to see what happens next.

  • in reply to Former Member

    selsinork wrote:

     

    I'd hoped to see something like this where the price difference (in the UK anyway) is approaching zero. Regardless of the merits of each device, it'll be interesting to see what happens next.

     

    With the price disincentive gone, it'll be great to see comparisons on engineering merit with Raspberry Pi Model B.  The Pi still has a technical advantage in media playback, but that is the only advantage that comes to mind at present, whereas at first glance it seems to be below par in every other technical respect compared to BeagleBone Black.  Detailed comparisons would really be useful.  Perhaps we can do that on the eLinux wiki.

     

    My interest isn't in media playback but in computing, networking, home automation, embedding, and hardware interfacing, so Pi's media bullet points don't float my boat.  However, it's undoubtedly the case that the masses think otherwise, and good media handling for $35 is what really sold the Pi in vast numbers.  Plus the hype.

     

    Interesting days ahead.  I hope many other manufacturers join in the fun at this price point.

     

    Morgaine.

  • in reply to morgaine

    I've started adding information on BeagleBone Black to the eLinux wiki BeagleBone page.

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