Cheaper than the Raspberry Pi? Meet Chip, the US$9 single-board computer!
Chip is a US$9 single-board computer by Next Thing Co.. As of now, the company’s Kickstarter campaign appears wildly successful as over US$1 million has been pledged, exceeding its initial goal of US$50,000 by over 20 times.
(Image source: Next Thing Co.)
Chip is a US$9 single-board computer by Next Thing Co.. As of now, the company’s Kickstarter campaign appears wildly successful as over US$1 million has been pledged, exceeding its initial goal of US$50,000 by over 20 times.
(Image source: Next Thing Co.)
Powered by a 1GHz A13 Allwinner SoC (system-on-chip), Chip has 512MB of system RAM, and 4GB of NAND storage. Measuring just 60mm in length, and 40mm in width, Chip manages to cramp in a Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and a Bluetooth v4.0 module for wireless connectivity. There’s also a full-sized USB port and a microUSB one. There’s also a 1/8" composite video and audio mini-jack. However, in order to get video output, you need to purchase a separate daughter boards called shields. They come in two versions; the HDMI shield and the VGA shield. They snap on conveniently to Chip. In terms of hardware specifications, Chip appears to be ahead of the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B that is powered by a 900MHz ARM Cortex-A7 processors, with 1GB of RAM. The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B doesn’t come with any onboard storage except a microSD card slot for storage expansion.
(Image source: Next Thing Co.)
In order to make Chip portable, there’s PocketChip that features a 4.3” touchscreen, a QWERTY keyboard, and a 3000mAH battery. Chip comes pre-installed with Debian Linux and about a dozen applications like Chromium and LibreOffice. Besides its existing applications, Chip is also capable of running most popular Linux applications. The objective of Chip is to create a portable and powerful computer that is accessible for all. Since it’s also an open source project, the Next Thing Co. wants to share Chip with the open source community and ultimately bear witness to the members’ exciting creations. For more information, do head over to their Kickstarter page.
(Source: NetworkWorld, Kickstarter, Raspberry Pi Project)
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