NanoPi R3S-LTS is a cheap, tiny router board with audio and video output

When FriendlyElec launched the NanoPi R3S last year, the tiny single-board computer was positioned as a router board that packed two Gigabit Ethernet ports and a Rockchip RK3566 processor into a board measuring just 57 x 57mm (2.24″ x 2.24″).

Now the company has added a new model to its lineup that adds a few features the original was missing: including an HDMI 2.0 port for video output, as well as MIPI-DSI and 2-pin speaker connectors. The new NanoPi R3S-LTS is now available for $25 and up.

The starting price is for a board with 1GB of LPDDR4 onboard memory and no storage or case. But you can pay extra for models with up to 2GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC storage, and a metal case. The most expensive model with all of those features is still pretty cheap, selling for just $42.

Each version features:

• Rockchip RK3566 processor

  • 4 x ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores @ 1.8 GHz
  • ARM Mali G52-2EE graphics
  • 1 TOPS NPU
• 1 x Native Gigabit Ethernet (RTL8211F)
• 1 x PCIe Gigabit Ethernet (RTL8111H)
• 1 x HDMI 2.0
• 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port
• 1 x USB-C port (for power only)
• 1 x microSD card reader
• 1 x RTC connector
• 1 x MIPI-DSI connector
• 1 x 2-pin 1.25mm speaker connector
• 1 x 3-pin UART debug

The board works with 5V/2A USB-C power supplies, and also has three LED lights for LAN, WAN, and system status indicators and three buttons for power, user, and mask functions.

FriendlyELEC says the board supports a wide range of operating systems including Ubuntu, Debian, OpenMediaVault, Proxmox VE, Alpine Linux, Buildroot, and FriendlyWrt (which is based on OpenWrt).

If you don’t need audio and video features, the original NanoPi R3S is still available. You can pick up a model with 2GB of RAM and no storage for $30 or a 2GB/32GB version for $35. But since a new NanoPi R3S-LTS with the same amount of memory is the same price, I’m not sure there’s much reason to buy the old model anymore.

via LinuxGizmos