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Add to SafariWhen comparing MinnowBoard Max vs Tessel 2, the Slant community recommends MinnowBoard Max for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” MinnowBoard Max is ranked 29th while Tessel 2 is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose MinnowBoard Max is:
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.
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 USB 3.0 available
The MinnowBoard Max has 2 USB ports, one of which is a USB 3.0.
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 NodeJS support out of the box
Out of the box it supports Node 4.x LTS and doesn't require any setup to use it.
Pro Co-processor system
Runs Linux and user application code on a 580MHz Mediatek router-on-a-chip, with an asynchronous 48MHz SAMD21 coprocessor for GPIO, ADC, I2C, SPI, PWM and UART programming
Pro Programmable via USB or Wifi
The process for deploying software, whether it's JavaScript, Python or Rust, is exposed the same way for both USB and Wifi connections.
Pro Easy to get started with
The Tessel 2's "Getting Started" experience requires little more than installing Node.js and a single package (the CLI) via npm. Complete walkthroughs for Linux, Mac and Windows are available and up-to-date
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 Very little memory
64 megabytes of RAM. This places it more in line with an Arduino style board than a SBC on the level of Raspberry Pi.
