C.H.I.P. The $9 computer

[NAC4EV]

The California-based group behind the project says it's computer is “built for work, play and everything in between.”:thumbsup:

At the heart of the C.H.I.P. is a 1GHz Allwinner SoC, with a built-in Mali400 GPU that is compatible with OpenGLES and OpenVG. Backing that up is 512MB of DDR3 RAM and 4GB of flash storage.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/9-computer-raises-1-4-million-through-crowdfunding-campaign-1.2379763


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[JEDIYoda]

so??? your point??

 

[futurefields]

how is that only 9 bucks?

 

[Captante]

But will it send me a free ipod?

 

[Newbian]

This seems familiar somehow...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280674/

 

[OverVolt]

If you put a C.H.I.P. in a coffee maker can it play starcraft broodwar?

 

[sdifox]

Stupid reporter.

"C.H.I.P., a nine-dollar computer chip the size of a credit card, will begin shipping in December after its creators raised $1.4 million and counting through crowdfunding."

Computer chip the size of a credit card... That is one big motherfucking chip.

 

[Kevs]

It's possible to actually play games with 512mb of ram?

 

[kranky]

That's an impressive amount of capability for $9.

 

[TechBoyJK]

It's possible to actually play games with 512mb of ram?

I'd suppose it could play Quake 3 Arena

 

[PliotronX]

That's an impressive amount of capability for $9.

Yup, and I thought the RPi2 was a steal...

 

[sdifox]

It's possible to actually play games with 512mb of ram?

as long as you write proper game and not bloatware. netrek runs on 2MB.

 

[keird]

Does it scale?

 

[ultimatebob]

Yeah, it sounds like it basically has the power of the original Raspberry Pi, plus some onboard storage and WiFi. Not bad for $9. Composite video out is kinda lame, though.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Wow, now they are making computers, cool....

 

[thecoolnessrune]

My opinions on the matter were in the RPi2 Light bug thread, but to reiterate:

My coworkers were talking about CHIP the other day. The AllWinner R8 (replacement for the AllWinner A13) doesn't seem that appealing to me. It's Still Cortex-A8 based, which means its a single core at 1Ghz. That's the same processor class as was used in the original Droid X in 2011, and the Barnes and Noble Nook Color in 2010. At the time, it was capable, but now it is incredibly aged!

If just making a general command-line driven monitoring device the CHIP is appealing, otherwise, with half the memory, and a quarter of the processing power, the $25 Pi 2 is still a very attractive option. I highly disagree with a lot of tech blogs saying that the CHIP is "better" simply because its cheaper, especially for doing anything more than just some simple terminal output.

Also:

Both the Mali-400 MP1 used in the AllWinner A13 and the VideoCore 4 used in the BCM2763 have VPUs (Video Processing Units) capable of handling 1080P. The real problem is when the software doesn't support sending the data directly to the VPU, and instead tries to use the other GPU blocks (or worse, the CPU blocks). The real difference there is that while Broadcom is very open with documentation needed to implement such software features, AllWinner is the exact opposite. They are very slow to communicate and have a very bad track record of supporting the community with the needed files to help them make their chips actually work.

3 years later and Kodi still doesn't have working video acceleration on the Mali-400 for AllWinner.

I would not plan on using an AllWinner based SoC for any sort of media playback. The chances of AllWinner giving the support needed for systems like Kodi is still pretty slim.

For a nifty shell terminal, it could make sense, otherwise, I feel the RPi2 offers better value, especially for any sort of media handling.

 

[xBiffx]

"Congratulations, you won!" hyperlink missing.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

But will it send me a free ipod?

I thought we've moved on to apple watches?

Isn't the correct order ipod-iphone-ipad-watch

 

[Riku]

But once you add the HDMI adapter, USB hub, and Ethernet adapter, it costs more than a RPi2. It also only has 4GB of storage and it's brickable. It would depend on the use case though, this would excellent for embedded projects, as it's smaller and lighter than the RPiA/A+, costs less, and has onboard wireless and a battery controller. If you're building a drone, portable device etc. This would be the best choice, but for general computing the RPi2 is definitely better.

 

[OverVolt]

NAC4EV

My chip is awesome.

Riku
Location: Right behind you

Bitch please, no its not.

Inb4 third guy with 1 post? This could get epic.

 

[ultimatebob]

But once you add the HDMI adapter, USB hub, and Ethernet adapter, it costs more than a RPi2. It also only has 4GB of storage and it's brickable. It would depend on the use case though, this would excellent for embedded projects, as it's smaller and lighter than the RPiA/A+, costs less, and has onboard wireless and a battery controller. If you're building a drone, portable device etc. This would be the best choice, but for general computing the RPi2 is definitely better.

The Raspberry Pi is also kinda useless for "General Computing". Seriously... try using LibreOffice or Iceweasel on it for more than a minute or two, and sluggishness of it will drive you insane.

It makes a nice lightweight web server, though!

 

[mikeford]

If you don't like it, maybe you should PIC something else?

OTOH many may find suitable uses.

 

[Captante]

I thought we've moved on to apple watches?

Isn't the correct order ipod-iphone-ipad-watch

Damn I'm so behind the times!

 

[Rakehellion]

how is that only 9 bucks?

It uses tech from 10 years ago.

 

[BUTCH1]

Not enough processing power or memory to be interesting, if your idea of fun is waiting for web pages to load then this would be for you. I have an old (2010) Coby tablet that has similar specs, it's in a box doing nothing. One can buy a used 1st Gen Nexus 7 on Ebay around $50-60 and for that you get a quad-core SOC with Tegra-3 based graphics, free playstore, 1Gb RAM, 16Gb storage and a decent IPS display. This would be a MUCH better route to go that waste $$ adding to the Chip $9 computer.