When comparing Orange Pi PC vs Intel NUC boards, the Slant community recommends Intel NUC boards for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” Intel NUC boards is ranked 12th while Orange Pi PC is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Intel NUC boards is:
You can have 16GB GSkill DDR4 Memory + 500gb SSD and 10TB external HDD. Go with the kit so you can be assured that it runs Linux and only Linux (or whatever your preference) out of the box and isn't subjected to any unnecessary use/abuse at the hand of Doors.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Extremely cheap for what it promises
The Orange Pi PC is extremely cheap, especially compared to the SBCs it competes against.
Pro Supports almost all OSes supported by Raspberry
Orange Pi supports Raspbian, Ubuntu, Android and many more operating systems. It claims to support all OSes supported by Raspberry Pi and it seems to be true most of the time.
Pro Great value for the price
Great little linux box for the price
Pro On paper the J5005 maxes out at 8gb DDR4 RAM however it can accommodate at lease double that
You can have 16GB GSkill DDR4 Memory + 500gb SSD and 10TB external HDD. Go with the kit so you can be assured that it runs Linux and only Linux (or whatever your preference) out of the box and isn't subjected to any unnecessary use/abuse at the hand of Doors.
Pro Has at least one SATA port
Pro DRAM is not soldered
DRAM modules are not soldered to the board so they can be changed, upgraded or replaced.
Pro x86-based
Can run all IBM-PC compatible software.
Cons
Con Has some thermal throttling issues
The Orange Pi can get pretty hot, up to the point where it needs to shut down cores to keep it from locking up.
Con First Party OS support is practically non-existent
Con no wifi
Con Has problems with slow microSD cards
Anything less than a class 10 TF/microSD card will probably not work with the Orange PI. Since the testing and production of the Orange Pi was rushed massively, as a result it cannot step down to be more compatible with slower SD cards. Although it should be mentioned that this is not that much of a problem since you can get class 10 microSD cards for pretty cheap nowadays.
Con No video connector natively
Must use RPIO equivalent to wire any video.
Con Cost as much as other Barebones
Price is almost the same as a full Intel/Zotac barebone, which can also be dismantled.
Con No GPIO
So it is not really useful for DIY projects.
Con No DRAM included
DRAM modules must be bought separately.