Introductory price US$40 | ||
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Release date February 2016; 1 year ago (2016-02) Operating system Memory 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM at 912 MHz | ||
The ODROID is a series of single-board computers and tablet computers created by Hardkernel Co., Ltd., an open-source hardware company located in South Korea. Even though the name ‘ODROID’ is a portmanteau of ‘open’ + ‘Android’, the hardware isn't actually open because some parts of the design are retained by the company. Many ODROID systems are capable of running not only Android, but also regular Linux distributions.
Hardware
Several models of ODROID's have been released by Hardkernel. The first generation was released in 2009, followed by higher specification models. Current boards are priced US$32 for the C1+, US$40 for the C2 and US$74 for the XU4.
C models feature a Amlogic system on a chip (SoC), while XU models feature a Exynos SoC. Both include an ARM central processing unit (CPU) and an on chip graphics processing unit (GPU). CPU architectures include ARMv7-A and ARMv8-A, a board memory range from 1 GB RAM to 2 GB RAM. Secure Digital SD cards are used to store the operating system and program memory in either the SDHC or MicroSDHC sizes. Most boards have between three and five mixed USB 2.0 or 3.0 slots, HDMI output, and a 3.5 mm jack. Lower level output is provided by a number of general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins which support common protocols like I²C. Current models have an Gigabit Ethernet (8P8C) port and eMMC module socket.