When comparing MinnowBoard Max vs Novasom Industries M7, 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 Novasom Industries M7 is ranked 62nd. 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion 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 Industrial alternative of Pi3
Novasom Industries designed RASPMOOD that helps you to reaplce Pi3 immediately. It's a real plug and play.
You can see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwn2kviXJZ0&feature=youtu.be
Pro This is a real industrial grade product
The users can get a lot more in terms of performance and moreover in industrial safety of the product (wide range protected power, don't eat µSD, available on logistic programmed production flow, technical assistance team always available and so on), without destroying them started project thanks to a compatible HW in form fit and functions.
Pro Access to the design team to discuss the options when the real solution requires additional functionality
This allows us to arrive at the optimum solution to our problems.
Pro OS works in RAM memory
It's stable and faster than on the MicroSD , and avoid the burn problem of the classic armbian installation.
Pro Low cost modification/customization are available.
Jusk ask!
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.
