$10 Orange Pi Single-Board PC Includes 2G Modem

It was only last month that the Raspberry Pi Foundation released its latest single-board computer in the course of the $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W. It includes wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.one to an already very capable board, and all for the cost of a couple of proficient coffees. However, information technology didn't take long for the contest to respond.

The board you see pictured above is the Orange Pi 2G-IOT. Just like the Pi Zero W it offers wireless LAN, Bluetooth, and costs $ten. But there's a surprising extra feature, which the Raspberry Pi Foundation has yet to include on any of its boards: a cellular modem.

It'south only a 2G module, but information technology includes support for GSM/GPRS/Border and then information transfers could theoretically hit 1Mbit/south, only realistically tops out at 500kb/southward in practice. And to back up 2G, the base of operations of the board includes a slot for the required SIM card.

According to CNXSoft, the board uses a 1GHz ARM Cortex A5 processor including a Vivante GC860 3D GPU and is supported by 256MB DDR2 RAM. There'southward also 500MB of on-board flash storage and the ability to expand that using a micro SD bill of fare. It tin can cope with display resolutions up to 2,560-by-1,440 (just there'southward only an LCD connector to use, no HDMI), WiFi 802.xi b/thou/north is supported, and Bluetooth 2.i (not 4.1 similar the Pi Nada W) is included.

The board is already available to buy on AliExpress for $9.90 plus shipping, which brings the full price to $xiii.49. Anyone considering a purchase should be enlightened that no Linux distributions are officially bachelor for the new board just yet, although a version of Ubuntu is expected and Android is supported.

Equally to what the Orange Pi 2G-IOT is good for, the inclusion of a 2G module means it could be deployed remotely and then communicated with over a cellular network. Power is supplied via a 5V micro USB port, then there's cipher to end a battery or solar panels being used to keep information technology running. The IOT in the name as well suggests this is a great test lath for anyone experimenting with an Internet of Things device thought.