When comparing MinnowBoard Max vs CHIP, the Slant community recommends CHIP for most people. In the question“What are the best Raspberry Pi alternatives?” CHIP is ranked 2nd while MinnowBoard Max is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose CHIP is:
With 1 GHz ARMv7 CPU, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage CHIP is capable of running LibreOffice suite of applications for office work, Audacity digital audio workstation for audio editing, CAD for drawing diagrams and playing a wide array of games.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Completely open source
MinnowBoard is a non-profit backed by Intel. meaning it gets advice for its architecture by Intel. But all hardware and software parts, including all drivers are completely free and open source.
Pro Great for hacking away
Other than releasing all drivers as open source, Intel has also made the schematics of the board available to download. This way, hackers can give it a try and build anything they want without restrictions.
Pro USB 3.0 available
The MinnowBoard Max has 2 USB ports, one of which is a USB 3.0.
Pro Great performance for price
With 1 GHz ARMv7 CPU, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage CHIP is capable of running LibreOffice suite of applications for office work, Audacity digital audio workstation for audio editing, CAD for drawing diagrams and playing a wide array of games.
Pro The basics (wifi, BLE, charging) are already integrated
No more having to separately buy and plug in wifi dongles, usb keyboards, etc.
Pro Ready to be used out of the box
CHIP comes pre-installed with a variety of applications.
Pro Can be made portable
You can use a Lithium Polymer battery to power the device and it has charging circuitry for charging the battery.
Pro Teaches programming
VHIP bundles Scratch programming language that's designed specifically to teach the basics of programming.
Cons
Con Multi-USB hub almost a necessity
Because it has only two USB ports, one of which to be used for charging, a multi-USB hub is needed to connect a keyboard and mouse which are the absolute minimal external devices to be able to use and configure the MinnowBoard.
Con No official OS images have the kernel with GPIO enabled
Although this is not the board's fault per-se, no official OS image has enabled support for GPIO. But if the kernel is compiled from source, it can be compiled with GPIO and PWM enabled.
Con Young community
The first CHIP computers shipped December 23rd, and while there's lots of traction it will take some time for a bustling community to develop around the devices.
