When comparing ODROID-C2 vs Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, the Slant community recommends Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is ranked 9th while ODROID-C2 is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is:
Thanks to a new thermal management plate (heat spreader), as well as better voltage regulation, the CPU gained a nice little 200 MHz bump in clock speed over the Pi 3 Model B. Applications on the Pi 3 B+ are a little faster and snappier than their predecessor.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Good support for Ubuntu
The C2 has pretty decent support for Ubuntu and it can be used with it for basic day-to-day operations such as browsing the web and editing documents with LibreOffice among others.
Pro Superior performance compared with other boards
Pro Built-in heatsink
The ODROID C2 has a built-in heatsink which covers the CPU and two of the RAM chips.
Pro Can fit inside Raspberry Pi cases
Since its shape and size closely mimic that of Pi 3, it can fit on most Raspberry Pi cases available.
Pro Will have mainline kernel support
Pro Relatively low power requirements
The board by itself needs about 0.5A to run, but it's advised to use a 2A power supply for when peripherals are attached.
Pro Faster CPU than the original Pi 3 Model B
Thanks to a new thermal management plate (heat spreader), as well as better voltage regulation, the CPU gained a nice little 200 MHz bump in clock speed over the Pi 3 Model B. Applications on the Pi 3 B+ are a little faster and snappier than their predecessor.
Pro World-class support and software
What really sets the Raspberry Pi apart from the competition, and makes it leagues apart from every other SBC out there, it the software and support you get from every corner of the ecosystem regarding anything you want to make, build or do with the Pi. The most up-to-date kernels, the widest supported bundles, hats for every occasion, step-by-step instructions, and if you're trying something and get stuck, chances are high someone else has got stuck at the same spot, got past it, and left detailed instructions on how to get past it so nobody ever gets stuck there again. That is the best feature of the Raspberry Pi.
Pro Faster networking capabilities
Because of the Gigabit ethernet (although still sharing the USB 2.0 bus which limits its speed ceiling), it goes up to 3x faster than the original Pi 3 Model B. The new wireless chip supports 802.111ac, which also increases its throughput to 3x as well. Bluetooth 4.2 LE is much more stable, and it's just a nice little upgrade.
Pro Great community and developer support
The various addons boards means this is the board to go with for starters into development. Without much knowledge you can get a project up and running in a short amount of time.
Cons
Con No built in WiFi
There is no built-in WiFi, and kernel headers for 3.14 are almost impossible to find, making driver compiling very difficult.
Con Old kernel available
Only the 3.14 branche is available
Con Early revisions use a 2.5mm power socket instead of a USB port
Early revisions of the C2 use a 2.5mm power socket instead of the micro USB port available on the board or any of the other USB ports. While not a drawback in terms of strength of the board, it's a bit annoying having to order a new power supply to work with the C2.
Later revisions of the board can use the USB port for charging. However, ODROID recommends using the power socket if there are several devices attached to the board because they can increase the draw up to 2A and a lot of cheaper USB power adapters won't do 2A.
Con Might have problems with default HDMI resolution when first starting up
It's not unusual for the C2 to have a "Mode not supported" message when first booted up and connected to a monitor through the HDMI port. This can be fixed by logging through SSH and editing the boot.ini on a FAT partition on the SD card to set the correct HDMI resolution and the process is detailed pretty well on the ODROID wiki but it may be out of scope for some users and pretty annoying for the rest.
Con Superseded
the newer Model 4 is available for the same price and can do everything this does and more.
Con USB and Ethernet bandwidth shared
For cloud servers (OwnCloud, NextCloud, FTP, Media Hosting, etc...) it will take a dip on the transfer performance (when using ethernet combined with a USB Storage device) as the same controller handles the USB and Ethernet interfaces. Better performance than its predecessor, but something to keep in mind.
Con Only USB 2.0
It only has USB 2.0 ports which are painfully slow but they are also limited to 0.5 A which is not enough to power a HDD reliable.
Con Not for power users
The Pi has a 5V/2.5A DC power input which is not enough.
Con Bluetooth is very unstable - never fails to fail
Many times after successfully pairing devices it just stops working. One speaker worked for about 5minutes then stopped. Since then it will pair but will not connect. Yes the speakers work in Windows and with a Samsung Galaxy S8. Its seems to have more to do with the Raspbian OS, since using a BlueTooth dongle with it gives the same results.
