Move over, Raspberry! Banana Pi is the new contender

Whether you want to install your own smart home system or experiment with robotics, mini computers are a popular choice for creating your own electronics projects. Even beginners can set Raspberry Pi up in just a few steps, but it’s also suitable for advanced electronics projects thanks to its various functions.

Banana Pi is a similar minicomputer, developed by Chinese manufacturer ‘Sinovoip’. They’ve release the new Banana Pi M2 Berry, a much-respected competitor that will appeal to technology buffs.

Construction
Fruity names aren’t the only things these two computers have in common: The Banana Pi M2 has the same size and arrangement of connectors as the Raspberry Pi 3. This Banana Pi model is the first to be fully compatible with the Raspberry Pi accessories, making it possible to use the large range of expansion boards and housings available for Raspberry Pis.

The Banana Pi M2 Berry is equipped with a 32-bit Quad-Core ARM-Cortex-A7-SoC, of type Allwinner V40. It has a dual core Mali 400 MP2, 500MHz graphics chip. With a RAM of 1GB DDR3 SD and 733MHz, so it can keep up with the performance of a Raspberry Pi 3. However, it does not have 64-bit support.

Connectivity
The Banana Pi M2 Berry’s greatest strength is its internet connectivity. In addition to pre-installed WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, it also provides a port for 10/100/1,000 Mbit/s Ethernet, covering all conventional network standards. With the Gigabit LAN interface, Sinovoip has an advantage over the Raspberry Pi which only offers 100Mbit/s.

SATA interface
Another important difference between the Banana Pi M2 Berry and the Raspberry Pi is the SATA interface. A hard drive, SSD or optical drive can be connected via the SATA port, therefore, the new single-board computer is suitable for projects that collect or require a lot of data. In addition, the Banana model provides a 5V power connector for a 2.5" hard drive. However, the power supply is not sufficient for an additional hard drive. If you install an extra hard drive, you should always arrange another adaptor for the power supply.

What other interfaces are there?
In the Banana Pi M2 Berry’s main slots there are: the 40 PIN GPIOs (compatible with Raspberry, UART, I2C, SPI, PWM and I2S), the integrated CSI camera interface, the DSI display interface and USB OTG. It also supports a MicroSD memory card. For audio and video, there is a HDMI connection as well as a 3.5mm jack for headphones or a microphone. The Banana Pi M2 Berry, however, does not have a composite video output like the Raspberry Pi. This is not a problem though since the fully HD-capable HDMI output can be used for video broadcasts. Furthermore, the Banana Pi M2 Berry also supports 1080p video output, meaning its limitations are minimal. The Banana Pi also has two buttons for practical use (a reset and a clear button) – one more than the Raspberry Pi.

Verdict
The Banana Pi M2 Berry has the potential to convert any Raspberry Pi user. It offers everything Raspberry Pi does and a bit more. The clincher is that the changeover from one system to the other is almost effortless. Not only can components and instructions for the Raspberry Pi be used simply, the software also won’t need a major rethink, as Raspbian is also supported alongside the operating systems, Debian Linux, Ubuntu Linux and Android.

With the Gigabit Ethernet port and the ability to expand the Banana Pi with a hard disk drive, it offers developers the functions they have been waiting for.

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