Besides these two, what else do you guys look at? I am thinking Minix, however as far as I am concerned there are no details for that. Also anyone have any Antutu benchmark comparisons between the models?
(S922x, S905x3) Odroid N2 vs Khadas VIM 3 vs ...?
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appwizcpl -
June 7, 2019 at 10:39 AM -
Thread is Unresolved
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- Official Post
LE doesn't look at any "box" devices but one of the main upstream support targets is S905X2 so G12A hardware is well supported. S905X3 is being sampled to manufacturers but I'm not aware of anyone shipping product with it yet. LE prefers "board" devices because the manufacturers who sell them take fewer shortcuts and provide better customer support. Boot on the VIM3 is not as fancy/complicated as the N2.
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- Official Post
Both HardKernel and Khadas are producing decent hardware. I personally prefer the VIM3 over N2 as it has eMMC and Bluetooth on-board; both of which make my development and testing work easier - one less SD card needed, and I can use a BT remote (which I prefer) instead of IR. In theory VIM3 also has WiFi but in practice the chip is not supported in the mainline kernel yet (and Ethernet is better anyway) so that's not a big factor. I'm sure Minix make reasonable hardware too, but I've never personally had anything to do with them. Do they have any S905X2/S922X product?
NB: I do not work for Khadas or any other box/board vendor .. fiddling with ARM boards for a living would never fund my Porsche habit
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After the initial "promo" price the VIM3's price is likely to be nearly twice that of the N2, this is based upon their previous pricing policy.
Looking at the specs the N2 is better suited to a life as a media-center, it comes with a high spec DAC built in - a feature which will cost extra on the VIM3 (a decent offboard DAC cost between €50-100).
For me though the biggest advantage of the N2 is its substantial heatsink which keeps operating temps down to below 60C. For long term reliable usage you are going to have to add a heatsink to the VIM3 and a decent case, if you go for Khadas offering in for this expect to pay another €50 for both and if they use their standard squirrel cage fan expect it to audible in the room).
Finally my experience with Khadas is that community support is worse than the Odroid community support with little real input from the Khadas team itself.
The VIM3 is undoubtedly superior in terms of raw feature - but for a media-player everything it has to offer over the N2 is fairly redundant.Shoog
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I have a VIM2 and my experience of the support is based upon that board. I have been happy with how it has performed since I got it, but if it wasn't for the work of the CE team this would not be the case. Team CE's feedback is that Khadas are not as good to work with as the Odroid team. I bought the dTV board and Khadas offered no Linux driver support for their own product and still rely on the Android dTV app for its use. The case it came in is just pathetically flimsy and I had to rebox it after a short while after it fell to bit whilst I was rebuilding it. I actually doubt that the standard heatsink offered by Khadas will be adequate without a fan since it is very small (only the size of the board which is very small), I added my own heatsink using an old video card heatsink and a lazy fan. I found the paucity of USB ports of the VIM to be a pain as you need to add an expansion hub, and the N2 has four onboard.
Pricing is indeed the clincher though and if you are not based in the USA the price of the N2 is considerably higher than that available to the American customers (about €110 in Ireland). Look at current prices for the VIM2 (they have come down quite a bit) to see where the VIM3 will hit its final price point - its expensive.
If the VIM3 is currently cheaper than the N2 for you (and your not going to be dependent on Khadas for software) I would say go for it as is a good little board, it just needs a bit of fetling to make it a user friendly living room box.
Shoog -
chewitt As I see the Odroid too can have eMMC, but with the cost for the additional module though.
This removable eMMC module on Odroid N2 is for me a very important feature. You can choose memory size and you CANNOT ever brick the box whatever you throw on it
Besides that, you can have 3 operating systems on fast media within a few seconds that take to replace the module.
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At this stage a lot of the opinions are based upon who got what freebees.
Shoog
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LE has been working on a release for the VIM3, but I cannot say how ready for prime time it is. If its waiting for Mainline support it could be a way off. CE supports the N2 now and the alpha test releases are fully usable now, they await samples from Khadas for them to start development for the VIM3, but if they get them most of the heavy lifting will be already done and potable from the N2 work.
Khadas have released various versions of Ubuntu and Android, but I found that follow up support for their own software releases was fairly poor. How well team LE or CE support a product is somewhat dependent on backroom communication with Khadas and from what I gather this has been somewhat lacking in the past and the main difference between the companies, Odroid has been proactive in getting software support before release by working with developers.
Shoog
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LE has been working on a release for the VIM3, but I cannot say how ready for prime time it is.
Mainline-based LE also works on Odroid-N2 and it was ready earlier than for VIM3 simply because the Odroid was ready earlier.
It is a work in progress but support for both boards should be almost equal in mainline-based builds. I also think that CE support is a matter of creating a device tree for VIM3 and like you said: most of work for S922X was already done for N2 and every S922X can reuse it.
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- Official Post
Besides these two, what else do you guys look at? I am thinking Minix, however as far as I am concerned there are no details for that. Also anyone have any Antutu benchmark comparisons between the models?
If you need a ready-to-use device only for the media center - look at Ugoos AM6. Details about all the models you can find on Freacktab, there are a lot of comparisons and discussions. By the way, it is possible that you do not need S922, and it may be enough s905x2. I have samples of N2 and AM6.
VIM3 is the most versatile and powerful device with the richest set of functions.
p.s.
Very funny look at some of these arguments. Literally not long ago, these subjects were screaming about the fact that I have no right to even write publicly my findings (by the way, based on precise calculations) about the poor efficiency of the cooling system on N2 (costs do not meet the requirements of the result), referring to the fact that at that time I had no sample of N2 (by the way, actual tests have confirmed the correctness of my calculations). And now they brazenly write their reasoning about VIM3, not possessing his VIM3.
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- Official Post
Mainline-based LE also works on Odroid-N2 and it was ready earlier than for VIM3 simply because the Odroid was ready earlier.
It is a work in progress but support for both boards should be almost equal in mainline-based builds. I also think that CE support is a matter of creating a device tree for VIM3 and like you said: most of work for S922X was already done for N2 and every S922X can reuse it.CE for N2 uses the old 4.9 kernel that HK develops and there is no support for other models in their kernel. And HK is not interested in adding such elements for competing products. I studied the sources of their kernel for N2, there are a lot of specific things.
Perhaps for this reason CE do not want to engage in Beelink King (s922). There will have to modify and maintain a lot in someone else's core for this model.
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If you need a ready-to-use device only for the media center - look at Ugoos AM6. Details about all the models you can find on Freacktab, there are a lot of comparisons and discussions. By the way, it is possible that you do not need S922, and it may be enough s905x2. I have samples of N2 and AM6.
VIM3 is the most versatile and powerful device with the richest set of functions.
p.s.
Very funny look at some of these arguments. Literally not long ago, these subjects were screaming about the fact that I have no right to even write publicly my findings (by the way, based on precise calculations) about the poor efficiency of the cooling system on N2 (costs do not meet the requirements of the result), referring to the fact that at that time I had no sample of N2 (by the way, actual tests have confirmed the correctness of my calculations). And now they brazenly write their reasoning about VIM3, not possessing his VIM3.
Your comments on the N2 cooling was bullshit then and still is bullshit because they bare no relationship to actual real world measurements from people who actually had the boards to base their measurements on (which you did not when you made those comments). So I suggest you still retract any complaints regarding cooling on the N2 since you are wrong.
A steady below 60Cent CPU temp shows that the cooling is more than adequate.
Shoog
