Such value determination, of course, is weighed against expected use cases. What do we expect to do with a $65 SBC? Are those use cases impaired by the available bandwidth of the given I/O? What do we do with these SBCs that are overkill as a microcontroller but not quite capable of desktop replacement?
@@Chris.Brisson I think it could be a good alternative to pi if the Linux distributions run better for 2gig of ram. The processor is ok. The fact you can now get ex office desktop with more ram, more io and more hd space and able to handle video playback for the same price...well maybe not so good. It is ok for maker board but won't beat a pi for that.
@@Chris.Brisson Yes, for makers this may be an alternative. I was lucky I got a few different pi's for my birthday from different friends and family. I still use my two Pi 3s and the zero W and zero W2 I have. The Pi 4's I have (4 gig and 8g one) I use mainly for emulation /pc/Linux use. I have a couple of pico's i tend to show my son how to do basic programming and circuit on bread boards (he is 9) so not too complicated for him. Makers though are suffering. Even though I have mulitple pi's I do use them all for different things. hopefully new pi model will be out 2023...
Here I am watching a UA-cam video on a Raspberry Pi 400 SBC in FreeBSD about a Linux distro running on a Khadas VIM1s. All smooth and clear - the SBC world is progressing very nicely. Thanks for keeping us informed Chris. Excellent as always!
@@johnm2012 The drivers FreeBSD uses works just fine on the Pi 4 and 400 (720p on a Pi 3), I can watch 1080p videos perfectly well with no (or minimal) dropping of frames, above that, well it does struggle.... it's on par with Linux I would say. I have a few videos on my channel about FreeBSD and the Pi 400...
Just when you think the world is against you, minus overdraft in the bank and the government which doesn't even know where it's heading, and caar-boom uncle Cris with another SBC educational journey, that just uplifted my spirit. Thank you ☺️
This tiny SBCs carrying a variety of connectors, while many modern thin and light laptops have chosen the dongle life in the name of saving space ! Ah, how the things have changed for the worse... Comprehensive review video as always. BTW, wish you a productive week Chris.
With the mixed features on the SBC ranging from very interesting to mediocre, I personally found your struggles with the unboxing the highlight of the video. I always look forward to what humor I will find contained in your excellent videos. Looking forward to your next video!
@@ExplainingComputers If I may, a lot of people use SBC's for mediastreaming and playback. Would it be possible to make a small segment when testing these boards (in future episodes) about the quality of the sound a sbc produces. Raspi4 has terrible sound quality for example (the powersupply is very noisy). It would make a great channel even better!
I enjoyed your video while I drank coffee out of my Explaining Computers mug. This mug is of a high quality as is your work. Thank you for your videos they are a great help, keep it up.
I tempted to take out the LED light bulbs over the winter and put the incandescent back in. "Well those bulbs generate more heat and take more power!!!!" That's the point. I wonder if doing that saves a tiny bit on the oil heat bill even if they take more power. I'm only going to have lights on in rooms I'm in anyways.
Another happy Sunday afternoon with Chris! An interesting SBC but lacking in some areas as you mentioned! On the Khadas web page it states it supports Armbian, Android TV & Libre Elec it would be interesting to see how they performed. I know Ubuntu isn't one of my favourite OS's but there was a server image that could be installed, I wonder how that would perform it could be of interest for a future video. I'm now off to enjoy the sunshine with a cup of tea & a biscuit :)
Greetings Alan. I imagine Libre Elec may run well (if it has GPU support). Android TV is the Android version we saw in the video. But I still think the lack of USB 3.0 ports is a big negative for a media player PC. Enjoy your refreshments! :)
@@ExplainingComputers I really must pay more attention, yes the Android playback was quite good 0 dropped frames, I suppose if they start adding things like USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, better GPU support it'd be more expensive! When they launch new items the manufactures hurry stuff out which is a shame because they would possibly get more sales!!
The box requires *_gravity assistance_* to open. Don't try picking at the inner box but instead hold the outbox up while shocking it downwards to the table. It should fall right out. At least that is the way I do it. :-)
If they can just provide a better connectivity it will be amazing little board, I hope that Raspberry PI makers consider including similar firmware, Finally, it's really nice to see Stanly back to work again, Thanks Chris and have a nice day💯🚀
i ordered the Vim4 after your previous video. it seems the better option of their offerings. thanks for another great video. would love to see you test some overclocking potential on the vim boards
Non-competitor due to no USB 3 and lack of gigabit ethernet. Plus, the price is high for the hardware configuration. Again, thank you for the video with excellent content. Cheers!
Yes, look at running Ubuntu it is a little slow running video. I would use the Android OS as opposed to Ubuntu. Another great presentation Chirs and thanks for the introduction to Khadas VIM1 SBC
One point regarding UA-cam in this video. On Android, you used a stand-alone UA-cam app to get good playback. But on Ubuntu you ran UA-cam from within a browser which adds quite a lot of overhead on top of the UA-cam playback. I would recommend using the same browser on Android to run UA-cam for a better apples to apples comparison.
Whilst lack of USB3 and high speed ethernet impact it, it could still make a decent Android TV box. For instance, if you have a family member in your house who might like to watch what's on your media centre, but lack a smart TV or computer, this could be used as an alternative, like a Sky Box for your media. Since the use case would be streaming media over wi-fi and most likely never saturate that bandwidth, the lack of fast storage and ethernet wouldn't affect it. Could also be used for playing mobile games with a mouse on a larger screen.
Khadas is par with Orange PI 5 now I use Orange PI 4 LTS 4GB with 16GB eMMC for my Home Assistant but I might consider Khadas or Orange PI 5 for my Media Player Server Project. Thanks as always good content. Although 100 mbit ethernet is not good enough Khadas should have built it with 1Gbit ethernet chip shame they didnt. In this era speed is important. They made a big mistake...
When I saw Khadas on Chris's channel I got excited for a moment, thinking it was edge 2 before reading vim 1 I am really looking forward to Chris reviewing the new 3588 boards and hopefully doing some project videos too though the khadas edge 2 is a bit too pricy and has less I/O than the rock pi5 , which I am waiting on from a preorder, at $99 for 8GB version it is a n absolute steal, or at least I hope so hopefully the rock pi 5 will show up on this channel soon and at my doorstep
No thanks: my broadband cannot stream UA-cam videos at 60 fps & 720p, so would have to switch to 480p, and I would prefer resolution over frame rate. Also noted, EC?
Very interesting. Thank you. Strange as it may seem this is the first time I'm tempted to acquire an SBC other than a Raspberry Pi, especially running Android OS, despite the shortcomings of the VIM1s. Incidentally at 0:45 ALEXA keeps chiming in with random rubbish. It must be your dulcet tones Chris. So much for Amazon's assurance that the buffer is only listening for a wake word. Weird but most amusing.
Well the BIG advantage it has over RPi is that it is AVAILABLE! ;-) If by "0.45" you mean at 0:45 in the video, my Alexa had no reaction at all. I played that section several times with an Echo Show right next to the speaker. Maybe _your_ Alexa device has been hacked! ;-)
Thanks for another great vid with perfect timing for me. After catching this Video I decided to "order the following kit" for my purposes it should be fine. The WiFi & Ethernet options cover teh comms requirements. Use Case: Using Android/OS it should (I Really Hope) allow me to monitor my fleet of BMS' (Battery Management Systems) for my offgrid solar system which is a separate building. Wired for Ethernet and is also within WiFi Range. The challenge such as it is will be to setup TeamViewer or the like between that Droid Device and Win-10 VIM1S $64.90 DIY Case $13.00 Color: Transparent RTC Battery $2.00 3705 Cooling Fan $15.00 New VIMs Heatsink $10.00
The comment offering a prize was from a scam account that has now been banned here. Any reply from me will be from "ExplainingComputers" and will have a verified tick.
Sadly, i don't understand why Khadas Vim would bring this out when there are better TV boxes out there using the S905X3 with 4Gb ram and 128Gb emmc for the same money, with a true 1000Mb LAN, has USB3 and is available on Amazon, (with a free case). A much higher performing SoC. Or the same better chip with less emmc for 50 bucks. But again great video, thanks Chris. I love seeing you check these SBC's out.
Another great video, which is making me lean more towards a Pi 4. Unfortunately, the price of a Pi here is ridiculous with price gouging left, right and centre! I did read that there will will be a Pi pop-up shop on Oxford Street soon and it just so happens that I have a flight booked for Blighty a few days before! 🤣
I would love it if you setup LFS-ARM on one of these SBC's. I doubt you'd have the time, though, since it'd likely be weeks of effort if you've never done LFS before, but that would be so cool. Once I've finished retrieving everything from the old house I'd love to try it out on my Pi3. So it may be weeks yet.
Given the difficulty obtaining a Raspberry Pi 4, in many locations, it might be opportune to provide an overview of the currently available SBC alternatives.
Do you know of a single system image OS that can do that? Anything I've been able to find is grossly out of date , discontinued and often not in English.
@@andrekz9138 it looks like a great resource , I bookmarked that to my favorites. I'll ask that question there. Thank you. Checking it out I searched a few questions I knew about and some I didn't... The results of that experiment were mixed. I saw someone asked a question about using IDE or SCSI for a computer to address another computer instead of a disc drive (as in like a network protocol) , the answer was a suggestion to use iSCSI to share a drive... That kind of answer reduced my optimism...it wasn't what he was asking. There wasn't much about raspberry pi But there were a lot of very well constructed informative answers about virtual machines & pass through, PCI cards, and RAID configurations among other things... AGAIN THANK YOU .I bookmarked that reference.
Love "the opening" episodes, Chris!!! Mr. Scissors could of help prime out the box for next time?... or even Stanley the knife? Yes, *very surprised* about not having USB 3 and not 1Gbps ethernet? Again, very surprised! Since you have the board, can you actually see if it's a typing error for the ethernet by running a simple file copy of a suitable file across the cable? Given the price and lack of support for those two mentioned, I would look at other alternatives before this board. One plus for the board ... it looks nice ... and it's thin! Looks are secondary to functionality for real work! 🙃
💪😎🔥🔥🔥 Oh man! That's E X T R E M E L Y interesting video! Thanks a lot! When looking on your channel I'm learning about new things but also how to make better videos (as I'm also doing first steps as small youtuber with videos about retro electronics).
You went into your swap space on Ubuntu. That will really slow things down. Rule of thumb, Ubuntu needs at least 8GB of RAM to operate at peak performance. On my Linux development machine, I have 16 cores at 4GHz on an AMD CPU with 32GB of RAM. Overkill? Not for the research that I do. Agreed that the Raspberry Pi 4 is better. Good video.
love watching your vids, i often reference them for possible projects for car audio, which bootup/startup would be quite critical.... is there a possibility that you could show an actual timer for when you are fast forwarding through the waiting that would show how long it took?
Hi Chris. Maybe the lack of usb 3 and gigabit ethernet is due to the manufacturer using the most widely available components during the chip scarcity? Prices of Ras Pi atm are ridiculous if you can get them.
Hardkernel just introduced their new Odroid H3 and H3+ Models which might be very interesting! 2x 2.5GbE combined with a N6005 CPU are a good combination!
Wow, I'd not seen those. They do look like. Twin SATA and an M.2 drive slot. I presume the same Petitbook firmware of the Odroid M1. I have put on my review list! :) Thanks.
Very interesting that it can handle UA-cam playback on Android and not Linux. I suppose the hardware is originally descended from Android boxes and is optimised this way.
@@ExplainingComputers One would think that ARM would be more supportive of open source drivers for their own Mali; it would bring them a competitive advantage.
The Linux kernel in Android most likely contains a binary BLOB with GPU driver enabling HW-accelerated playback, whereas the Linux kernel in Ubuntu is the generic, mainline one that does not contain driver support for that. That's the problem with ARM-based SBCs: they have built-in GPU and SoCs manufacturers provide only a closed-source binary driver, compiled against a specific version of the Linux kernel (effectively ruling out kernel updates). If you have an Android phone, you would see the Linux kernel is rarely updated if at all. The thing is the explicit policy of Linux kernel developers is that private, in-kernel APIs (only public system calls are guaranteed to be stable) may change from version to version, meaning precompiled, binary modules (drivers are such modules) are not likely to work with another kernel version, it is fine for open-source drivers, but problematic for closed-source drivers of hardware with limited lifespan/vendor support such as ARM SoCs. In short: Linux does not have a stable ABI for kernel modules to not be cluttered by compatibility layer with legacy code. In Windows things are different: Windows kernel is itself closed-source, so it has to expose some ABI/API for driver developers that would be stable for 1-2 generations of Windows.
@@ExplainingComputers cool would you have to use their install tool to do it? If so is there an option to install from an image? You know rather than download from the net?
@@BilisNegra The chip shortage is the result of companies ordering a bit more than they need, as padding. But each step of the line has done this, meaning a surreal amount of chips now have to be made. But when it is over, those items that were needing those parts, like cars, won't be wanted any more when they are ready. No-one can buy them any more mea ingredients a surplus of goods inbound. I can see this happening to the Raspberry Pi as well, because more and more people are looking for alternatives to their projects. The lack of support won't matter so much, if the better supported alternative is never available. I understand the need to support the OEM companies, but the original purpose of the Raspberry Pi was to get a cheap computer into the hands of children/teenagers, so they can learn computing and coding. The lack of availability undermines this, and will have a negative impact on computer science applications to universities in the future. It will be interesting to see how this all ends.
@@ExplainingComputers Oh noice, i would love yo see a cheaper 3588 board as well, that's a monstrous chip, i hope pi foundation have big plans for pi 5 to catch up to these others SBCs
I might consider this just to run android on it and do some things with a keyboard, mouse, and full sized display that I nominally do with my phone. Although there's not much I can't already do equally well between my phone and my laptop running Manjaro.
One thing I would be interested in is that for any desktop these days (not relevant to embedded systems) I would not look at disks without encryption, so on Ubuntu something like LUKS. It would be interesting to see how that impact on performance (although with only 2GB RAM, that too would be straining things a little). The only positive thing that I can say at this time is that Raspberry PIs are somewhat supply constrained, so that it allows alternatives such as this, even if they are more expensive and less functional, to get a foot in the door.
I disagree with your point on disk encryption because in most cases it is entirely unnecessary overhead, particularly on small form factor devices. As someone who works in cyber-security, I would go a stage further and say that encryption is overused these days and there are too many people who think that once they've deployed encryption, they can just sit back and not worry about security any more. Most web sites providing publicly accessible information that don't require login (e.g. bus and train timetables, recipes, movie showing times, etc. etc.) do not require encryption - yet running a non-encrypted HTTP site is seen as a "grievous sin" these days because every web server now has to be encrypted. When the web first came online during the mid-90s, I was able to browse "the simple web pages of back then" perfectly happily over a dial-up connection using the iBrowse browser on a Commodore Amiga A1200 running at 14MHz with 8MB RAM. That would be impossible now with the "bloat" of the modern web, some of which is because of frequently unnecessary encryption. Disk encryption is the same - it protects against someone taking that storage media and reading it in another machine but not against some stealing the entire machine and getting to the contents that way, unless you want to have a system where you have to put in a de-encryption key every time that you boot the machine up. I'd argue that a better approach to security is to think about what data is on the hard disk and whether or not that needs to be protected - there's no point encrypting the MicroSD card filesystem of a Pi if all that Pi is doing is running a few emulators or a bit of code interfacing to electronic circuits.
@@terrydaktyllus1320 firstly, I totally agree that disk encryption is not a panacea, but there are no panaceas in security, which is why you need to look at as many tools as you can, and encryption is just a part of that toolkit. I would agree that encrypting a MicroSD card might be pointless, because if you are running a system that only has a MicroSD card then it clearly is not a data intensive system. On the other hand, once you are talking about running with a 500GB SDD then you you have a lot more data to protect and looking at how you protect it becomes important. As you say, disk encryption only has value if you need to enter the key every time you boot up the system. I would accept that this is impractical for embedded systems (as I indicated above), but how many embedded systems are going to need 500GB of Nvme SDD?
@@Hfil66 Absolutely there are "panaceas" in security, I couldn't disagree with you more. The whole idea of security is to define that "panacea" and then use tools like risk management and attack vectors to get as close to that panacea as possible. You will never reach that panacea and you have to constantly test against that panacea but you have to have something to aim for.
Hi, Chris. Thanks for another great video. On a related note, did you get to check out the Orange Pi 800 and are you planning on having it featured on EC in the coming weeks/months, please?
The comparison between the sample playback in Android and Linux was made with different connections. 🤔 I wonder if the droppings in frames was because software (other O.S. and browser playback vs dedicated app) or ethernet vs WiFi...
You are correct, Ethernet vs WiFi. But the data rate was more than sufficient in each case. I've no doubt that the issue is a lack of a hardware accelerated playback GPU driver in Ubuntu.
@@ExplainingComputers Would it be the replacement for 1Gb Ethernet? Or significantly slower? I have several 5Gb+/sec WiFi routers with sufficient throughput for when I upgrade to 10Gb/sec Ethernet networking at home... (currently slogging along at 1Gb/sec sadly)
I thought that I may have hit a button and brought up the UA-cam UI at 10:05! 🤣 Anyway, the Khadas VIM1s looks like a very nice little board! I got a bit surprised seeing how it can handle streaming video well on the Android OS. Oh, and one more thing; what was Annabelle's Antics about?
@@ExplainingComputers Aw, damn, I'm so sorry to hear about Annabelle. :( I did manage to find her old website on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine as when you go to the URL now, it leads you to a page full of banners for Chinese virtual slot games. There's even a version on the site from way back (lol) in 2004! Though that was a page on another site called Nebula 7. Wonder what happened to that? Anyway, she looks like a very nice person! :)
At 2:54 Prices.... You mentioned the Vim 1 was a little more expensive than the Raspberry pi, but you didn't mention that the Raspberry pi was unavailable and would be for months....if the vim 1 is available, then it doesn't really matter what its price is.
Oof, you have to wonder what on earth they were thinking. You can't get away with that price tag and not have USB 3 or gigabit ethernet. The Ubuntu support isn't at all surprising at this stage, it seems almost every SBC maker has an inability to support their products and just give up after they release the hardware.
That's so true, it amazes me that they can get away with it. If the the product came out totally complete & with decent software support = greater sales!!
This board essentially gets away with it taking advantage of the RPi shortage. It's not bad, but RPi's would be better value... if they were available at normal list prices.
Thanks for the channel and the information it contains. I find it informative and engaging. I have a question, but I'm not sure of the best place to ask it. How do I go about purchasing a touch-screen that is compatible with this SBC please?
Thanks for this. Khadas list a touchscreen on Amazon here: www.amazon.com/Khadas-TS050-Touchscreen-Kit/dp/B07VW749NX/ And it is on their website here: www.khadas.com/product-page/ts050-touchscreen I would contact Khadas to confirm compatibility with the VIM1s, as it is not listed as a supported board. But this may be because the VIM1s is a new board. Good luck!
@@ExplainingComputers Thanks. I've heard back from Khadas and they have advised me that their touch screen uses "MIPI-DSI" which the VIM1 does not support. I've just watched your video on video cables - I need one on touch-screen interfaces as I don't know what to look for 🙂
I honestly cant see what their target customer is for this, with no USB3 and a 100mbit ethernet, while still being 50% more expensive than a Raspberry Pi. It seems to me to fall between two chairs and will appeal to absolutely no one. Like, "do you want to buy the recognisable brand name SBC Raspberry Pi, which everybody knows and has confidence in, or do you want this competitor which not only costs 50% more, but has 20 year old connectivity technology". Absolutely mindboggling.
No USB 3 + No Gigabit ethernet = No Sale. Well that was an easy decision. 😢 Thanks Chris for showing this SBC, very interesting.
😂
Such value determination, of course, is weighed against expected use cases. What do we expect to do with a $65 SBC? Are those use cases impaired by the available bandwidth of the given I/O? What do we do with these SBCs that are overkill as a microcontroller but not quite capable of desktop replacement?
@@Chris.Brisson I think it could be a good alternative to pi if the Linux distributions run better for 2gig of ram. The processor is ok. The fact you can now get ex office desktop with more ram, more io and more hd space and able to handle video playback for the same price...well maybe not so good. It is ok for maker board but won't beat a pi for that.
@@jobearesto9746 well, the actual price of a Raspberry Pi today ($150) might serve to discourage the "maker" use cases.
@@Chris.Brisson Yes, for makers this may be an alternative. I was lucky I got a few different pi's for my birthday from different friends and family. I still use my two Pi 3s and the zero W and zero W2 I have. The Pi 4's I have (4 gig and 8g one) I use mainly for emulation /pc/Linux use. I have a couple of pico's i tend to show my son how to do basic programming and circuit on bread boards (he is 9) so not too complicated for him. Makers though are suffering. Even though I have mulitple pi's I do use them all for different things. hopefully new pi model will be out 2023...
Here I am watching a UA-cam video on a Raspberry Pi 400 SBC in FreeBSD about a Linux distro running on a Khadas VIM1s.
All smooth and clear - the SBC world is progressing very nicely.
Thanks for keeping us informed Chris. Excellent as always!
Puts it all in perspective! Great comment.
Does FreeBSD have graphics drivers that allow UA-cam to play smoothly on a Pi?
@@johnm2012 The drivers FreeBSD uses works just fine on the Pi 4 and 400 (720p on a Pi 3), I can watch 1080p videos perfectly well with no (or minimal) dropping of frames, above that, well it does struggle.... it's on par with Linux I would say. I have a few videos on my channel about FreeBSD and the Pi 400...
@@RoboNuggie Thanks, I'll take a look.
Just when you think the world is against you, minus overdraft in the bank and the government which doesn't even know where it's heading, and caar-boom uncle Cris with another SBC educational journey, that just uplifted my spirit. Thank you ☺️
Definitely. That's why I enjoy watching these videos. Very informative and uplifting.
Keep up the great work Chris.
This tiny SBCs carrying a variety of connectors, while many modern thin and light laptops have chosen the dongle life in the name of saving space !
Ah, how the things have changed for the worse...
Comprehensive review video as always.
BTW, wish you a productive week Chris.
With the mixed features on the SBC ranging from very interesting to mediocre, I personally found your struggles with the unboxing the highlight of the video. I always look forward to what humor I will find contained in your excellent videos. Looking forward to your next video!
:)
@@ExplainingComputers If I may, a lot of people use SBC's for mediastreaming and playback. Would it be possible to make a small segment when testing these boards (in future episodes) about the quality of the sound a sbc produces. Raspi4 has terrible sound quality for example (the powersupply is very noisy). It would make a great channel even better!
I enjoyed your video while I drank coffee out of my Explaining Computers mug. This mug is of a high quality as is your work. Thank you for your videos they are a great help, keep it up.
:)
I prefere the big Computers, that can be used as a heater for the cold winter.
Raspberry pi’s can keep the hamsters warm😁
Indeed
I tempted to take out the LED light bulbs over the winter and put the incandescent back in. "Well those bulbs generate more heat and take more power!!!!" That's the point. I wonder if doing that saves a tiny bit on the oil heat bill even if they take more power. I'm only going to have lights on in rooms I'm in anyways.
Get over 10 year products, those get warm and are slow as... snail
I used to have a small AS400 that kept the garage warm all winter...
I've been following your channel since I saw the Explaining USB 3.0 video 12 years ago and noticed something. Chris, you don't age!
Another happy Sunday afternoon with Chris! An interesting SBC but lacking in some areas as you mentioned! On the Khadas web page it states it supports Armbian, Android TV & Libre Elec it would be interesting to see how they performed. I know Ubuntu isn't one of my favourite OS's but there was a server image that could be installed, I wonder how that would perform it could be of interest for a future video. I'm now off to enjoy the sunshine with a cup of tea & a biscuit :)
Greetings Alan. I imagine Libre Elec may run well (if it has GPU support). Android TV is the Android version we saw in the video. But I still think the lack of USB 3.0 ports is a big negative for a media player PC. Enjoy your refreshments! :)
@@ExplainingComputers I really must pay more attention, yes the Android playback was quite good 0 dropped frames, I suppose if they start adding things like USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, better GPU support it'd be more expensive! When they launch new items the manufactures hurry stuff out which is a shame because they would possibly get more sales!!
@@ExplainingComputers Will you nominate yourself to be a candidate as the next British PM? 🇬🇧
The box requires *_gravity assistance_* to open. Don't try picking at the inner box but instead hold the outbox up while shocking it downwards to the table. It should fall right out. At least that is the way I do it. :-)
If they can just provide a better connectivity it will be amazing little board,
I hope that Raspberry PI makers consider including similar firmware,
Finally, it's really nice to see Stanly back to work again,
Thanks Chris and have a nice day💯🚀
With the Pi4s, it has been rumored...
There is very little difference between NetBoot (tftp) and doing something like infinitywoo...
@@ConfuSomu That looks promising,
Thanks 👍
@@ahmad-murery You're welcome!
Raspberry Pi has had android for a few years (Lineage OS), and multiple versions, android 7,8,9,10,11,12,13. I'm running 13 on mine.
Absolutely enjoy your reviews. They make the sunday complete 💪🙏
Great to hear!
Thanks!
Much appreciated as always.
VIM1s? this might be the perfect SBC on which to run vim.
Great review as always!
people around me be like how does he become that genius
but honestly i learn it all from your videos thanks
Fantastic test as you always do!
Interesting stability in Android, but barely unusable with everything else!
Jolly terrific video 👍
Thank you, Chris.
And here we meet again on another sunday!
Greetings!
We do indeed! Happy Sunday Hellos. :)
Interesting, good presentation. Stanley the knife made an appearance 👍
Stanley always returns . . .
thank you for the clear explanation as usual!
Do you have (or could you make) a video explaining what the various ARM core names mean (M-this or A-that)?
Now this is an excellent idea -- noted! :)
@@ExplainingComputers 1 vote for subtitling the video 'Core Blimey!'.
Another vote for testing various Core types on Linux MATE dustributions... And name that video 'Core Blimey MATE!'....
Good job on the video Sir, as always! Have a wonderful week Sir!
The intro of your channel never gets old
Honest product reviews are always helpful. Many thanks!
Really like that oowow firmware
Thank you for your work and this video! Keep up the good work! :)
i ordered the Vim4 after your previous video. it seems the better option of their offerings. thanks for another great video. would love to see you test some overclocking potential on the vim boards
Non-competitor due to no USB 3 and lack of gigabit ethernet. Plus, the price is high for the hardware configuration. Again, thank you for the video with excellent content. Cheers!
Thanks. Excellent film as always.
Chris. I’m pretty sure it’s a scam but I’ve received an email saying I’ve won a prize on this. Thoughts? Thanks
As allways, excelent video explaining a new very interesting single board computer !!
Yes, look at running Ubuntu it is a little slow running video. I would use the Android OS as opposed to Ubuntu. Another great presentation Chirs and thanks for the introduction to Khadas VIM1 SBC
Interesting find as always
Great video
OK SBC for normal usage
Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us :-)
Fantastic test as you always do!
One point regarding UA-cam in this video.
On Android, you used a stand-alone UA-cam app to get good playback.
But on Ubuntu you ran UA-cam from within a browser which adds quite a lot of overhead on top of the UA-cam playback.
I would recommend using the same browser on Android to run UA-cam for a better apples to apples comparison.
Whilst lack of USB3 and high speed ethernet impact it, it could still make a decent Android TV box. For instance, if you have a family member in your house who might like to watch what's on your media centre, but lack a smart TV or computer, this could be used as an alternative, like a Sky Box for your media. Since the use case would be streaming media over wi-fi and most likely never saturate that bandwidth, the lack of fast storage and ethernet wouldn't affect it.
Could also be used for playing mobile games with a mouse on a larger screen.
Agreed. There are applications here -- and the board is available to buy! :)
Excellent - thank you. Would have been a bit surprised if Android had not been able to access Google Docs ....
Khadas is par with Orange PI 5 now I use Orange PI 4 LTS 4GB with 16GB eMMC for my Home Assistant but I might consider Khadas or Orange PI 5 for my Media Player Server Project. Thanks as always good content. Although 100 mbit ethernet is not good enough Khadas should have built it with 1Gbit ethernet chip shame they didnt. In this era speed is important. They made a big mistake...
Great video, as always. Cheers, Chris.
When I saw Khadas on Chris's channel I got excited for a moment, thinking it was edge 2 before reading vim 1
I am really looking forward to Chris reviewing the new 3588 boards and hopefully doing some project videos too
though the khadas edge 2 is a bit too pricy and has less I/O than the rock pi5 , which I am waiting on from a preorder, at $99 for 8GB version it is a n absolute steal, or at least I hope so
hopefully the rock pi 5 will show up on this channel soon and at my doorstep
The Rock Pi 5 will be here two weeks today -- October 30th. The video goes into production tomorrow.
@@ExplainingComputers Awesome Chis, can't wait!
Thank you, Chris. You're doing amazing work!
But 30 frames per second? IMO it would be more interesting to see 60 fps video playback.
Noted. :)
No thanks: my broadband cannot stream UA-cam videos at 60 fps & 720p, so would have to switch to 480p, and I would prefer resolution over frame rate. Also noted, EC?
@@cdl0 That's hardly broadband then, lol.
@@mikem9536 Correct! There is also no mobile phone signal, and satellite dishes are banned under local planning rules.
@@mikem9536 Certainly should have just said "connection". Not even over a decade ago was I in such pitiful situation.
Thanks Chris great review
Very interesting. Thank you.
Strange as it may seem this is the first time I'm tempted to acquire an SBC other than a Raspberry Pi, especially running Android OS, despite the shortcomings of the VIM1s.
Incidentally at 0:45 ALEXA keeps chiming in with random rubbish. It must be your dulcet tones Chris. So much for Amazon's assurance that the buffer is only listening for a wake word. Weird but most amusing.
Well the BIG advantage it has over RPi is that it is AVAILABLE! ;-)
If by "0.45" you mean at 0:45 in the video, my Alexa had no reaction at all. I played that section several times with an Echo Show right next to the speaker. Maybe _your_ Alexa device has been hacked! ;-)
@@ElmerFuddGun Never mind. Don't be disappointed.
Another Great video, I do have to agree that for the price, a person could do better.
Have a Great day.
Video is cool ... , VIM1s will be great couple years back ... but these days ... 🙄. Thanks for super video ... 👍👍
Thanks for another great vid with perfect timing for me.
After catching this Video I decided to "order the following kit" for my purposes it should be fine. The WiFi & Ethernet options cover teh comms requirements.
Use Case: Using Android/OS it should (I Really Hope) allow me to monitor my fleet of BMS' (Battery Management Systems) for my offgrid solar system which is a separate building. Wired for Ethernet and is also within WiFi Range. The challenge such as it is will be to setup TeamViewer or the like between that Droid Device and Win-10
VIM1S $64.90
DIY Case $13.00 Color: Transparent
RTC Battery $2.00
3705 Cooling Fan $15.00
New VIMs Heatsink $10.00
The comment offering a prize was from a scam account that has now been banned here. Any reply from me will be from "ExplainingComputers" and will have a verified tick.
at 0:45... "so let's uh" triggers my Alexa!!!! HAHA!
Thanks for the review, but it can't compete with the RPi either on price, spec, function or support it would seem. So I will be sticking with RPi...
Thank you, Professor! 🇺🇸 😎👍☕
Great video Christopher.
I like that it has USB on the 40 pin connector. But seem that a DSI connector for an internal display would also be good. Going to watch more videos.
Gotta love the quality child proof box
:)
Sadly, i don't understand why Khadas Vim would bring this out when there are better TV boxes out there using the S905X3 with 4Gb ram and 128Gb emmc for the same money, with a true 1000Mb LAN, has USB3 and is available on Amazon, (with a free case). A much higher performing SoC. Or the same better chip with less emmc for 50 bucks. But again great video, thanks Chris. I love seeing you check these SBC's out.
Another great video, which is making me lean more towards a Pi 4. Unfortunately, the price of a Pi here is ridiculous with price gouging left, right and centre! I did read that there will will be a Pi pop-up shop on Oxford Street soon and it just so happens that I have a flight booked for Blighty a few days before! 🤣
I would love it if you setup LFS-ARM on one of these SBC's. I doubt you'd have the time, though, since it'd likely be weeks of effort if you've never done LFS before, but that would be so cool. Once I've finished retrieving everything from the old house I'd love to try it out on my Pi3. So it may be weeks yet.
Enjoyed! 😊
Given the difficulty obtaining a Raspberry Pi 4, in many locations, it might be opportune to provide an overview of the currently available SBC alternatives.
With all the SBCs you've collected over the past couple of years, you could build quite the cluster 😆
Do you know of a single system image OS that can do that?
Anything I've been able to find is grossly out of date , discontinued and often not in English.
@@petevenuti7355 I do not! That is a great question for Level1Tech's forums though.
@@andrekz9138 it looks like a great resource , I bookmarked that to my favorites. I'll ask that question there.
Thank you.
Checking it out I searched a few questions I knew about and some I didn't... The results of that experiment were mixed.
I saw someone asked a question about using IDE or SCSI for a computer to address another computer instead of a disc drive (as in like a network protocol) , the answer was a suggestion to use iSCSI to share a drive... That kind of answer reduced my optimism...it wasn't what he was asking.
There wasn't much about raspberry pi
But there were a lot of very well constructed informative answers about virtual machines & pass through, PCI cards, and RAID configurations among other things... AGAIN THANK YOU .I bookmarked that reference.
Love "the opening" episodes, Chris!!! Mr. Scissors could of help prime out the box for next time?... or even Stanley the knife? Yes, *very surprised* about not having USB 3 and not 1Gbps ethernet? Again, very surprised! Since you have the board, can you actually see if it's a typing error for the ethernet by running a simple file copy of a suitable file across the cable?
Given the price and lack of support for those two mentioned, I would look at other alternatives before this board. One plus for the board ... it looks nice ... and it's thin! Looks are secondary to functionality for real work! 🙃
Thanks for this. On the Ethernet port, I confirmed the 100megabits/second specification with Khadas during production of the video.
Another great review! But please tell me you hadn’t set the time properly and wasn’t up at nearly 2am making a video😮
💪😎🔥🔥🔥 Oh man! That's E X T R E M E L Y interesting video! Thanks a lot! When looking on your channel I'm learning about new things but also how to make better videos (as I'm also doing first steps as small youtuber with videos about retro electronics).
Thanks for watching. You have some interesting content over on your channel. :)
@@ExplainingComputers 😀👍🍻 Happy to hear that! Pity that number of viewers and subscribers is so terribly low... 😥
You went into your swap space on Ubuntu. That will really slow things down. Rule of thumb, Ubuntu needs at least 8GB of RAM to operate at peak performance.
On my Linux development machine, I have 16 cores at 4GHz on an AMD CPU with 32GB of RAM. Overkill? Not for the research that I do.
Agreed that the Raspberry Pi 4 is better.
Good video.
love watching your vids, i often reference them for possible projects for car audio, which bootup/startup would be quite critical.... is there a possibility that you could show an actual timer for when you are fast forwarding through the waiting that would show how long it took?
Hi Chris. Maybe the lack of usb 3 and gigabit ethernet is due to the manufacturer using the most widely available components during the chip scarcity? Prices of Ras Pi atm are ridiculous if you can get them.
Interesting new one, mostly the wifi and many sub connection.
0:45 this video drove my alexa insane as you said 'lets ah turn it over' :)
Hardkernel just introduced their new Odroid H3 and H3+ Models which might be very interesting! 2x 2.5GbE combined with a N6005 CPU are a good combination!
Wow, I'd not seen those. They do look like. Twin SATA and an M.2 drive slot. I presume the same Petitbook firmware of the Odroid M1. I have put on my review list! :) Thanks.
Very interesting that it can handle UA-cam playback on Android and not Linux. I suppose the hardware is originally descended from Android boxes and is optimised this way.
It is nothing to do with the hardware. A GPU driver for hardware accelerated playback exists for Android, but not for Linux. :(
@@ExplainingComputers One would think that ARM would be more supportive of open source drivers for their own Mali; it would bring them a competitive advantage.
The Linux kernel in Android most likely contains a binary BLOB with GPU driver enabling HW-accelerated playback, whereas the Linux kernel in Ubuntu is the generic, mainline one that does not contain driver support for that. That's the problem with ARM-based SBCs: they have built-in GPU and SoCs manufacturers provide only a closed-source binary driver, compiled against a specific version of the Linux kernel (effectively ruling out kernel updates). If you have an Android phone, you would see the Linux kernel is rarely updated if at all. The thing is the explicit policy of Linux kernel developers is that private, in-kernel APIs (only public system calls are guaranteed to be stable) may change from version to version, meaning precompiled, binary modules (drivers are such modules) are not likely to work with another kernel version, it is fine for open-source drivers, but problematic for closed-source drivers of hardware with limited lifespan/vendor support such as ARM SoCs. In short: Linux does not have a stable ABI for kernel modules to not be cluttered by compatibility layer with legacy code. In Windows things are different: Windows kernel is itself closed-source, so it has to expose some ABI/API for driver developers that would be stable for 1-2 generations of Windows.
Gracias por la información de este nuevo device
Great video Chris. Really a pity the specs are not great for this board. 2gig of Ram is hindering to say the least.
Thanks for the video..are there any other Linux distributions that can be run in these boards? A lighter weight one? Like pup?
Theoretically, certainly. Armbian would be good on this board I image, if/when ported for it.
@@ExplainingComputers cool would you have to use their install tool to do it? If so is there an option to install from an image? You know rather than download from the net?
Given the current Raspberry Pi shortage, this might be a viable alternative for some people.
Very much so.
And what a shortage it is, too! It´s going to last over two years.
@@BilisNegra The chip shortage is the result of companies ordering a bit more than they need, as padding. But each step of the line has done this, meaning a surreal amount of chips now have to be made.
But when it is over, those items that were needing those parts, like cars, won't be wanted any more when they are ready. No-one can buy them any more mea ingredients a surplus of goods inbound.
I can see this happening to the Raspberry Pi as well, because more and more people are looking for alternatives to their projects. The lack of support won't matter so much, if the better supported alternative is never available.
I understand the need to support the OEM companies, but the original purpose of the Raspberry Pi was to get a cheap computer into the hands of children/teenagers, so they can learn computing and coding. The lack of availability undermines this, and will have a negative impact on computer science applications to universities in the future.
It will be interesting to see how this all ends.
Hi Mr.Chris, have you taken a look at the new Khadas edge 2 pro? that sbc with rockchip rk3588s sound pretty interesting
I have not, as I am going to look at a cheaper RK3588 board -- the Rock 5B -- in two weeks time. :)
@@ExplainingComputers Oh noice, i would love yo see a cheaper 3588 board as well, that's a monstrous chip, i hope pi foundation have big plans for pi 5 to catch up to these others SBCs
I might consider this just to run android on it and do some things with a keyboard, mouse, and full sized display that I nominally do with my phone. Although there's not much I can't already do equally well between my phone and my laptop running Manjaro.
you could carve some cardboard out of the box for the ports so you can use it as a case
Nice idea. :)
One thing I would be interested in is that for any desktop these days (not relevant to embedded systems) I would not look at disks without encryption, so on Ubuntu something like LUKS. It would be interesting to see how that impact on performance (although with only 2GB RAM, that too would be straining things a little).
The only positive thing that I can say at this time is that Raspberry PIs are somewhat supply constrained, so that it allows alternatives such as this, even if they are more expensive and less functional, to get a foot in the door.
I disagree with your point on disk encryption because in most cases it is entirely unnecessary overhead, particularly on small form factor devices.
As someone who works in cyber-security, I would go a stage further and say that encryption is overused these days and there are too many people who think that once they've deployed encryption, they can just sit back and not worry about security any more.
Most web sites providing publicly accessible information that don't require login (e.g. bus and train timetables, recipes, movie showing times, etc. etc.) do not require encryption - yet running a non-encrypted HTTP site is seen as a "grievous sin" these days because every web server now has to be encrypted.
When the web first came online during the mid-90s, I was able to browse "the simple web pages of back then" perfectly happily over a dial-up connection using the iBrowse browser on a Commodore Amiga A1200 running at 14MHz with 8MB RAM. That would be impossible now with the "bloat" of the modern web, some of which is because of frequently unnecessary encryption.
Disk encryption is the same - it protects against someone taking that storage media and reading it in another machine but not against some stealing the entire machine and getting to the contents that way, unless you want to have a system where you have to put in a de-encryption key every time that you boot the machine up.
I'd argue that a better approach to security is to think about what data is on the hard disk and whether or not that needs to be protected - there's no point encrypting the MicroSD card filesystem of a Pi if all that Pi is doing is running a few emulators or a bit of code interfacing to electronic circuits.
@@terrydaktyllus1320 firstly, I totally agree that disk encryption is not a panacea, but there are no panaceas in security, which is why you need to look at as many tools as you can, and encryption is just a part of that toolkit.
I would agree that encrypting a MicroSD card might be pointless, because if you are running a system that only has a MicroSD card then it clearly is not a data intensive system. On the other hand, once you are talking about running with a 500GB SDD then you you have a lot more data to protect and looking at how you protect it becomes important.
As you say, disk encryption only has value if you need to enter the key every time you boot up the system. I would accept that this is impractical for embedded systems (as I indicated above), but how many embedded systems are going to need 500GB of Nvme SDD?
@@Hfil66 Absolutely there are "panaceas" in security, I couldn't disagree with you more.
The whole idea of security is to define that "panacea" and then use tools like risk management and attack vectors to get as close to that panacea as possible.
You will never reach that panacea and you have to constantly test against that panacea but you have to have something to aim for.
Splendid stuff
Hi, Chris. Thanks for another great video. On a related note, did you get to check out the Orange Pi 800 and are you planning on having it featured on EC in the coming weeks/months, please?
Thanks for another great video. Like you, I question the decision to release the board with slow Ethernet and USB 2.0.
Nice just in time for breakfast time! It's Christopher time. Going to watching it with a stupid 5 Mbps microwave internet at my uncle lol
Greetings sir...that oowow feature is very useful....I have seen similar feature in another board called "brainy pi"..
Yes, it makes you wonder if the Raspberry Pi Foundation will eventually deliver something similar.
The comparison between the sample playback in Android and Linux was made with different connections. 🤔 I wonder if the droppings in frames was because software (other O.S. and browser playback vs dedicated app) or ethernet vs WiFi...
You are correct, Ethernet vs WiFi. But the data rate was more than sufficient in each case. I've no doubt that the issue is a lack of a hardware accelerated playback GPU driver in Ubuntu.
@@ExplainingComputers Ok! Thank you! 😉
Those boxes are much easier to open if you puncture the lid with a tiny pinhole to break the vacuum.
Chris, did you discover the max supported speed on a single antenna for the 802.11ac WiFi?
Possibly! :)
@@ExplainingComputers Would it be the replacement for 1Gb Ethernet? Or significantly slower? I have several 5Gb+/sec WiFi routers with sufficient throughput for when I upgrade to 10Gb/sec Ethernet networking at home... (currently slogging along at 1Gb/sec sadly)
I thought that I may have hit a button and brought up the UA-cam UI at 10:05! 🤣
Anyway, the Khadas VIM1s looks like a very nice little board! I got a bit surprised seeing how it can handle streaming video well on the Android OS.
Oh, and one more thing; what was Annabelle's Antics about?
Greetings! :) AA was my first (failed) foray into UA-cam. EC was the second attempt . . .
@@ExplainingComputers Aw, damn, I'm so sorry to hear about Annabelle. :(
I did manage to find her old website on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine as when you go to the URL now, it leads you to a page full of banners for Chinese virtual slot games. There's even a version on the site from way back (lol) in 2004! Though that was a page on another site called Nebula 7. Wonder what happened to that?
Anyway, she looks like a very nice person! :)
Thumbs up everybody
:)
Does OOWOW work with WiFi? Great video Chris!
It does -- there is an opportunity to enter WiFi details when OOWOW is launched.
Thanks Chris
At 2:54
Prices....
You mentioned the Vim 1 was a little more expensive than the Raspberry pi, but you didn't mention that the Raspberry pi was unavailable and would be for months....if the vim 1 is available, then it doesn't really matter what its price is.
Did you mention architecture and instruction set?
I mentioned the four ARM Cortex A55 CPU cores -- so 64-Bit ARMv8-A architecture. Although the RAM, a noted in the video, is 32-bit.
Oof, you have to wonder what on earth they were thinking. You can't get away with that price tag and not have USB 3 or gigabit ethernet. The Ubuntu support isn't at all surprising at this stage, it seems almost every SBC maker has an inability to support their products and just give up after they release the hardware.
That's so true, it amazes me that they can get away with it. If the the product came out totally complete & with decent software support = greater sales!!
This board essentially gets away with it taking advantage of the RPi shortage. It's not bad, but RPi's would be better value... if they were available at normal list prices.
Great video
Thanks!
Can you please make a video on the new pi 800 orange maybe compared to the pi 400 raspberry.
I will indeed be doing this. An Orange Pi 800 is in transit to me right now. :)
Thanks for the channel and the information it contains. I find it informative and engaging. I have a question, but I'm not sure of the best place to ask it. How do I go about purchasing a touch-screen that is compatible with this SBC please?
Thanks for this. Khadas list a touchscreen on Amazon here: www.amazon.com/Khadas-TS050-Touchscreen-Kit/dp/B07VW749NX/ And it is on their website here: www.khadas.com/product-page/ts050-touchscreen I would contact Khadas to confirm compatibility with the VIM1s, as it is not listed as a supported board. But this may be because the VIM1s is a new board. Good luck!
@@ExplainingComputers Thanks. I've heard back from Khadas and they have advised me that their touch screen uses "MIPI-DSI" which the VIM1 does not support. I've just watched your video on video cables - I need one on touch-screen interfaces as I don't know what to look for 🙂
I ordered this board after your review. Do you know if there’s other systems I could install? I quite fancy google tv
I honestly cant see what their target customer is for this, with no USB3 and a 100mbit ethernet, while still being 50% more expensive than a Raspberry Pi. It seems to me to fall between two chairs and will appeal to absolutely no one. Like, "do you want to buy the recognisable brand name SBC Raspberry Pi, which everybody knows and has confidence in, or do you want this competitor which not only costs 50% more, but has 20 year old connectivity technology". Absolutely mindboggling.
I can only agree that the lack of USB 3.0 and 1 gigabit Ethernet are very surprising on a 2022 SBC at this price point.
i am intrigued and interested into single board computers but i wished to see one that is capable of running x86 code similar to apple M1 /M2 chips
Any chance you might review the Khadas Edge 2?
Oooo WoW!
So, the VIM 1-4 nomenclature denotes increasing power, with the VIM 1s being the 2.0 version of the VIM 1?