Tech

Orange Pi 800, a complete PC included in a keyboard

Orange Pi 800 looks like a keyboard at first glance, but it is much more. A complete all-in-one computer that uses this form factor to make installation as simple as possible, since you only need to connect a display to it.

The company behind Orange Pi devices has been producing alternatives to Raspberry Pi single-board minicomputers for years. Now, the company has unveiled the answer to the Raspberry Pi 400 computer. Like it, it’s a solution that removes components and cables from the desktop, and greatly facilitates installation, configuration and commissioning less technical users or those who do not want to tinker too much.

OrangePi800

It has to be said that stuffing a computer into a keyboard is nothing new and the modern computer age, beyond the «PC» from IBM, started with similar form factors such as the Commodore 64, the ZX Spectrum or the Atari 800XL.

Orange Pi 800, like the Raspberry solution, has a design and dimensions similar to that of a compact keyboard. It has 78 keys, some LED status indicator lights and dimensions of 286 x 122 x 22 mm for a weight of 385 grams.

OrangePi800

Inside, it has a plaque ARM with Rockchip RK3399 processor (two Cortex-A72 and four Cortex-A53 cores) and Mali-T860 graphics. It is a low-power CPU and several years behind it, but in return it has a fairly solid software ecosystem. It is accompanied by 4 Gbytes of LPDDR4 memory and 64 GB eMMC flash storage.

Regarding the connectivity elements we can mention:

  • 1 HDMI 2.0 port
  • 1 VGA port
  • 1 x 3.5mm microphone/headphone jack
  • 1 Gigabit Ethernet port
  • 2 USB 3.0 Type-A ports
  • 1 USB 2.0 Type-A port
  • 1 USB Type-C port (for power)
  • 1 microSD card reader
  • WiFi 5
  • Bluetooth 5.0LTE
  • built-in speaker
  • 26-pin GPIO header

Orange Pi 800, a complete PC included in a keyboard 29

The Orange Pi 800 will support Chromium OS (the open source version of Google’s Chrome OS) as well as a new Arch Linux-based Orange Pi operating system. No price has been revealed, but considering that it comes to compete with the Raspberry PC-keyboard and that it has a price of 70 dollarsthat’s where the shots should go.

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