New kid on the block - meet OLinuXino

This could be an interesting two-horse race ... which will appear ex-stock at Farnell first, the Raspberry Pi or the Olinuxino?

Target is beginning of May, which sounds quite realistic, now that first boards are being sent to testers. Surprisingly few HW problems, but then again, that was probably to be expected with company like Olimex.

I have a couple of their Olimexino-STM32 boards -- http://www.olimex.com/dev/olimexino-stm32.html -- which are really tiny and cute, as well as being Arduino header-compatible, and they only cost 17 pounds in UK from Farnell -- http://uk.farnell.com/olimex/olimexino-stm32/board-dev-olimexino-stm32/dp/2061325?Ntt=OLIMEXINO-STM32 .

The board can charge a 3.7V Li-Poly cell directly too, and the ultra-slim 2000mAh pack I use has almost exactly the same footprint as the board, so the two together make a very compact standalone package.

I'm currently considering whether to use this board as an I/O expander for Raspberry Pi, or whether to use STM32F4-Discovery -- http://uk.farnell.com/stmicroelectronics/stm32f4discovery/board-eval-stm32f4-discovery/dp/2009276?Ntt=STM32F4-Discovery .  The latter has the edge  on cost (just 10 pounds UK), speed, memory, and even expandability.  The Olimexino-STM32 might win for standalone applications (non-HDMI) if the Rpi can be powered from the Li-Poly cell.

Yes, a very interesting company.

Hello World the embedded way, or Blinking LEDs:

http://olimex.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/blinking-led-with-linux-or-hello-world-with-imx233-olinuxino/

Hehe, I replied there.  I'm looking forward to that board.

It needs to be mentioned (just in case someone hasn't spotted it and is raising their expectations too high) that the OLinuXino that everyone is talking about, the one with Ethernet, is not going to be priced at 30 Euro at all, but at 45 Euro.  Olimex's price list is here:  http://www.olimex.com/dev/pricelist.html

Summary:

• iMX233-OLinuXino-Mini  - 29.95 Euro - 1 x USB only
• iMX233-OLinuXino-Maxi - 44.95 Euro -  2 x USB + Ethernet

The corresponding prices in US$ (since Raspberry Pi is quoted in US$) are US$39.31 and US$58.99 at today's exchange rate.  And for us Brits, that's UKP 24.42 and UKP 36.65 .

at the same time it uses industrial grade components and should be usable in sub-zero (Celsius scale) temperatures.

US$25 is a sort of "magic figure".  There's something about it that splits prices into two levels, those below it which frequently can be spent on a whim, and those above it which generally need careful consideration and budgeting.  Obviously the exact figure depends on personal finances, but typically it's around there somewhere.

Raspberry Pi did a clever piece of marketting in promoting the Rpi as the "$25 computer" despite knowing full well that the vast majority of users would want the $35 version because a Linux machine without networking is pretty damn stupid in 2012.  Of course there are uses for a standalone Linux board, and the single USB on Rpi Model A could be used with a wifi dongle so the $25 version could still be "connected".  But nevertheless, the point stands that the $35 board is actually riding the marketting wave of the "$25 computer" headline.

Olimex is obviously trying the same marketting "trick".  And it is genuinely a marketting trick, as they're advertising it as the "EUR 30 Linux Industrial grade single board computer", despite knowing that really it's the Ethernet version that could become really popular.  A person who isn't reading the blurb carefully might not catch the fact that there are two boards, and that the 30 Euro one doesn't have Ethernet.

I like hardware, and I like the very capable hardware designers at Olimex and at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.  Marketing spin I don't like, and that applies to everyone, the Foundation included.

One device on which to keep an attentive eye is the US$7 Allwinner A10 SoC.  In addition to being a more modern ARM, it has Ethernet MAC on the chip (unlike the iMX233) so you just need external PHY, magnetics and an RJ45 for Ethernet, and can avoid messing around with the USB for networking.

Lots of other goodies on the Allwinner A10 too, eg. it's a Cortex-A8 and has MALI-400 graphics -- http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/ .  It's no surprise at all that it's been such a colossal success in its country of origin (the majority of cheap Chinese tablets seem to use it).

I bet the A10 ends up in various boards which target the Rpi $25-$35 price niche before long.  Rhombus Tech has their own idea for this in an EOMA68 form factor -- http://rhombus-tech.net/ -- and apparently they have a projected BOM cost of US$15 for it.

Morgaine.

Next planned OLinuXino iteration will be based on Allwinner A13, that is A10 stripped of some peripherals (like SATA) and comes in hobbyist friendly package, QFP. This is according to Olimex. There is only one problem with Allwinner CPUs, they lack any documentation whatsoever.