Released in 2020, the Raspberry Pi 400 was quite the curveball. It eschews the established Raspberry Pi form factor and harkens back to the 1980s home computer era. Orange Pi has released its own alternative. orange pie 800 A recent update seems to have increased the onboard eMMC from 64GB to 128GB for just an extra $9.hat tip CNX software Because I discovered this.
| SoCs | Rockchi RK3399 6-core CPU | row 0 – cell 2 |
| row 1 – cell 0 | 2 Arm Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz | row 1 – cell 2 |
| row 2 – cell 0 | 4 Arm Cortex A53 cores up to 1.4 GHz | row 2 – cell 2 |
| RAM | 4GB LPDDR4 | row 3 – cell 2 |
| depository | 64GB or 128GB eMMC | Row 4 – Cell 2 |
| port | HDMI 2.0, VGA | Row 5 – Cell 2 |
| row 6 – cell 0 | USB 3×2, USB 2×1 | Row 6 – Cell 2 |
| row 7 – cell 0 | gigabit ethernet | Row 7 – Cell 2 |
| row 8 – cell 0 | 3.5mm headphone jack | Row 8 – Cell 2 |
| row 9 – cell 0 | integrated speaker | Row 9 – Cell 2 |
| row 10 – cell 0 | Micro SD | Row 10 – Cell 2 |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 LE | Row 11 – Cell 2 |
| GPIOs | 26 pin | Row 12 – Cell 2 |
| Power | 5V/4A via USB C | Row 13 – Cell 2 |
| size | 286×122×24mm | Row 14 – Cell 2 |
The Raspberry Pi 400 and Orange Pi 800 are mostly twins, except for a few different ports and color schemes. Despite the scarcity, the Raspberry Pi 400 is relatively well stocked.
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The original specs of the Orange Pi 800 came with 64GB of built-in eMMC storage, providing enough space to install your Linux OS of choice. Orange Pi OS, Ubuntu, Debian and Manjaro are the main choices. The release of the 128GB model will only provide more space for your projects. There are no other changes in specifications. We still have the RK3399 SoC with a capable 6-core CPU (Arm A72 x 2 and Arm A53 x 4) and 4GB of his LPDDR4 RAM. The addition of eMMC makes the Orange Pi 800 an interesting alternative to the Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi 400 is basically a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 in a keyboard chassis. It’s reminiscent of the 1980s home computer days when wedge keyboards like the Commodore 64 and Amiga were common. The Raspberry Pi 400 uses the same his SoC as the Pi 4, but thanks to a firmware update he was overclocked to 1.8 GHz beforehand. This same overclocking is now standard on the Pi 4, thanks to a firmware update. In theory, the Orange Pi 800 has more cores, the same 1.8 GHz. Add an eMMC (which the Raspberry Pi 400 doesn’t have) on top of the GHz top speed and you get a decent SBC/home computer for $108.
Raspberry Pi 400 and Orange Pi 800 GPIO access is a bit tricky. The former requires a breakout board such as Pimoroni’s Flat HAT Hacker for use with the HAT. The latter only has 26 GPIO pins (just like the original Raspberry Pi).
Regardless of specs, for SBCs, software support is ultimately key, and this is where the Raspberry Pi always wins. GPIO, Python and general OS features are always better on Raspberry Pi than on other SBCs.
The Orange Pi 800 128GB can be found here: $108 on aliexpress.
