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BeagleBone Black vs NanoPi M4

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When comparing BeagleBone Black vs NanoPi M4, the Slant community recommends BeagleBone Black for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” BeagleBone Black is ranked 17th while NanoPi M4 is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose BeagleBone Black is:

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.

Specs

CPU AM335x 1GHz ARM® Cortex-A8

LicenseOpen Source

Network Connectivity10/100 Mbps Eth

Power source5v Barral Jack, Mini USB

RAM512

Storage4GB 8-bit eMMC on-board flash storage

USB1

VideoMini HDMI

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Common Questions

What are the best single-board computers?

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
Analog Inputs

There are 7 1.8V analog inputs.

Pro
Programmable Real Time Units with GPIO control

Real-time coprocessors allow for embedded systems control and bit-banging communication

Pro
Responsive, helpful online community

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
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
6 core HexaCore, compact nvme extender, 4GB RAM

Pro
Many ports

4 x USB3
2 x USB2 available via pins
PCI-E available via pins

Pro
Fast

Rockchip 3399 with two fast A72 cores. Good heatsink limites throttling.

Pro
Open Source

Works with mainline Linux kernel and open source Mesa Panfrost drivers.

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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
Bleeding edge...

To have mainline kernel requires a bit of tinkering (e.g. installing Armbian). Panfrost drivers for 3d acceleration are not mature and crash sometimes...