Orange Pi Plus 2 is an improved version of the notorious Orange Pi Plus and costs about 50 US dollars. Powered by a quad-core Allwinner H3 family ARM Cortex-A7 processor up to 1.6 GHz, Mali400MP2 GPU @600 MHz, it has 2 GB of DDR3 RAM and 16 GB of built-in eMMC Flash memory, 4 USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA connector for an external 2.5″ hard drive up to 2 TB, a memory card slot up to 64 GB, Wi-Fi. There is a microphone, infrared port, LEDs to display the status of work, three buttons.
It is recommended to use a power adapter with an output voltage of 5 V and a current of 3 A, and the board power supply via USB-OTG is not supported. The monitor is connected to the HDMI output, and there is a MIPI-CSI slot for connecting a camera with up to 5-megapixel resolution.The Orange Pi Plus 2 has 40 programmable general-purpose contacts (GPIOs) compatible with the Raspberry Pi.
Orange Pi Plus 2 supports Android, Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSuse, Armbian, Raspbian, Lubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, etc.
Key Features
- Allwinner H3 SoC;
- 32-bit 4-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz;
- 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM;
- Mali-400 MP2 with Open GL ES 2.0/1.1;
- Wi-Fi;
- 16 GB eMMC;
- SATA 2.0.
Orange Pi Plus 2 – Specifications
| Processor | Allwinner H3 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 H.265/HEVC 4K 1.2-1.6GHz, 32KiB Instruction + 32KiB Data L1 cache per core and 512KB L2 cache |
| Graphic processor | Mali400 MP2 600MHz supports OpenGL ES 2.0 OpenCL 1x, DX9_3, OpenVG, 1080p45 H.264 |
| RAM | 2GB DDR3 672MHz H5TC4G83AFR-PBA (w/ GPU) |
| ROM | 16GB eMMC KLMAG2GEND-B031, microSD (up to 64GB), SATA 2.0 (via GL830 USB-to-SATA bridge, +5V power to JST XH connector 2.5mm) |
| Ethernet | 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet (Realtek RTL8211E) |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11 b/g/n (Realtek RTL8189ETV) |
| Video input | 1 x Camera Serial Interface (CSI) connector: Supports 8-bit YUV422 CMOS Sensor Interface Supports CCIR656 Protocol for NTSC and PAL Supports SM Pixels Camera Sensor Supports video capture solution up to 1080P @ 30fps |
| Video output | HDMI with HDCP, HDMI CEC, CVBS, HDMI 30 functions |
| Audio input | Microphone |
| Audio output | Mini-jack (3.5mm) |
| USB | USB 2.0 x 4 pieces, USB 2.0 OTG x 1 piece |
| Other | IC port |
| Peripherals | 40 pin expansion bus: GPIO (General Purpose I/O Interface), Power (+5V, +3. 3V and GND), some pins can be used as UART, I2C, SPI or PWM |
| Buttons | Power, Reboot and U-boot |
| Indicators | Power indicator, status indicator |
| Power | 5V 2A (4.0mm/1.7mm), board power via OTG is not supported |
| Dimensions | 4,25 x 2,63 inches |
| Weight | 1,76 oz |
| OS | Ubuntu, Debian, Raspbian, Android, Lubuntu |
Useful Video: Orange Pi Plus 2 and Android
Conclusions
The Orange Pi Plus 2 is another member of the Orange Pi line of minicomputers. Compared to its predecessor (Orange Pi Plus), the Plus 2 has 1 GB more RAM (2 GB in total) and twice as much flash memory (16 GB in total). Accordingly, because of these features, the Orange Pi Plus 2 is used in more global projects. For example, to build a PC, 3D printer, radio, phone or video player, server, POS-terminal, thin client – even more, resources are available for the developer to implement new ideas. Orange Pi Plus 2 provides unlimited possibilities thanks to the open-source code.
I recently had the chance to try out the Orange Pi Plus 2 and I have to say, I was impressed. The Plus 2 is a powerful little device, packing a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor and 2GB of RAM into a small form factor. It’s also relatively inexpensive, making it a great option for those looking to get started with single-board computing.
In terms of performance, the Plus 2 is impressive. I was able to run basic Linux applications without any issues and even some more demanding tasks, such as video playback, were handled quite well. The board also supports expansion via its GPIO header, so you can add additional hardware if needed.
Overall, I found the Orange Pi Plus 2 to be a great option for anyone looking for an affordable and capable single-board computer.