NanoPi NEO3, a complete computer in a 4.8 cm chassis

NanoPi NEO3, a complete computer 

in a 4.8 cm chassis

The FriendlyARM firm has presented the NanoPi NEO3, a pocket computer that is only 4.8 x 4.8 cm in size and that, despite everything, has a very interesting configuration and full of possibilities.

At the design level we see that the NanoPi NEO3 is integrated into a discreet white chassis, without any display or anything particularly remarkable. On one side it has a USB Type-C port, which allows powering the equipment, a Gigabit Ethernet connector and a USB 3.0 Type A port. On the other side we find a microSD card slot.

Regarding the specifications, the NanoPi NEO3 mounts a Rokchip RK3328 SoC  that integrates a quad- core Cortex-A53 (64-bit) CPU at 1.5 GHz, a Mali-450MP2 GPU and has 1 GB of RAM in its configuration base. If we need more memory there is no problem, since there is also a version configured with 2 GB of RAM.

The NanoPi NEO3 also has several heads that allow you to create custom configurations. We can, for example, connect a fan, add two USB 2.0 ports and we also have a GPIO (General Purpose Input / Output).

Interesting, right? I know what you are thinking, and what about storage? Good question, this team uses, like many other devices in its class, the microSD card. This means that it comes without integrated storage, and that we will have to install a card of this type to be able to use it. It is not a problem, since their prices are very cheap (we can find 10+ class models from just over 8 $).

As for the software FriendlyARM has confirmed that it is compatible with FriendlyWrt 19.07 and Ubuntu Core 18.04 64-bit. The price of the base configuration, without chassis and with 1 GB of RAM, is 20 $. If we want the 2 GB version we will have to pay 25 dollars. The chassis has a cost of 2 dollars.

To give you an idea of ​​the value that the NanoPi NEO3 offers, I remind you that it is smaller than the Raspberry Pi Zero W , but it offers a performance similar to what you would expect from a Raspberry Pi 3 . If you need other accessories do not worry, FriendlyARM offers a fairly complete set through its official website.

In case you missed it: RASPBERRY PI 4 RECEIVED A VERSION OF 8 GB OF RAM