Testing the Odroid-C2 and LeMaker Guitar

Conclusion

On the basis of these tests, I determined that both the LeMaker Guitar and the Odroid-C2 definitely belong in the same league as the RPi3. If forced to choose between the two test candidates, I would go with the LeMaker Guitar in spite of the Odroid's performance advantage, because the Guitar has better software support and documentation.

LeMaker has managed to put together a full package of hardware and software that works well, building a serious Raspberry Pi competitor that impresses with more than just its hardware. The eMMC memory is especially well appreciated; installing a LeMedia distribution gives you a media center with the microSD card for storage. In terms of user-friendly features for the beginner, the Guitar still lacks a program like raspi-config for easy modification of configuration parameters. If you are familiar with command-line commands, on the other hand, you will gain a practical, all-purpose PC in a mini format.

In contrast to the Guitar, the Odroid-C2 is more suitable for users looking to experiment. The manufacturer is currently trying to advance on two fronts. The architecture is just beginning to become better known, and graphics support for the Mali GPU in the SoC is still missing. The C2 is primarily interesting for the user who wants to step into the 64-bit world. C2 users profit from the willingness and the ability of the manufacturer to create relevant tools for Linux. As a result, sole reliance on the Linux community is no longer an issue.

Outlook

Given the existence of the Odroid-C2 and the test results achieved with the LeMaker HiKey, the question naturally arises as to how much reserve performance remains to be discovered in the Raspberry Pi 3. The RPi3's new Broadcom processor is also based on Cortex-A53 cores. However, the RPi3 still has the old AArch32 architecture, which does not come close to using the full potential of the CPU instruction set. In light of the competition, the Raspberry Pi Foundation would do well to move forward as quickly as possible with a 64-bit Linux system for the Raspberry Pi.

The Author

Alexander Merz writes about the maker scene for Golem.de. He also tests and programs small computers. Occasionally, he even gets out his soldering iron to work on a home project.

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