When comparing BeagleBone Black vs Intel NUC, the Slant community recommends Intel NUC for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” Intel NUC is ranked 13th while BeagleBone Black is ranked 22nd. The most important reason people chose Intel NUC is:
The Atom based Celeron and Pentium NUCs have a very low TDP of 10 or 15W.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Extendable hardware
There are 92 expansion pins, with 46-pin female connectors on both sides of the board with other 6 serial pins to be used for debugging.
Pro On board storage
Has on board integrated storage of 4GB. It can also have an SD card in addition to the integrated storage and can boot from either of them.
Pro Programmable Real Time Units with GPIO control
Real-time coprocessors allow for embedded systems control and bit-banging communication
Pro Analog Inputs
There are 7 1.8V analog inputs.
Pro Responsive, helpful online community
Pro Easy of use
It hosts a web service over USB so it is super simple to get started with plenty of source code and examples available.
Pro Low TDPs
The Atom based Celeron and Pentium NUCs have a very low TDP of 10 or 15W.
Pro Intel based GPU
Almost any OS has support for the intel i9xx based GPUs.
Pro x86/amd64-based
Plenty of Operating Systems to choose.
Pro HDMI-CEC
6th gen+ models have CEC support.
Cons
Con Only one USB available for peripherals
There's only one USB port available for peripherals, which is a bit annoying considering how two USB ports is a minimum to have a keyboard and a mouse hooked up without having to use a powered USB hub.
Con Lack of a proper OpenGL driver
It sounds like the driver is possible, but the information is spread out over forums and GitHub.
Con Intel is a bitch
For an M2-port, HDR, better GPU power or more RAM support Intel wants you to buy the much higher priced iX-based models even if HDR would be possible on Atom GPU's.