Meet DragonBoard 820c, a supercharged board computer that will make Raspberry Pi 3 look like a turtle.
The computer can be used as an Android OS computer and is based on components in premium smartphones like Samsung's Galaxy S7.
The board is now listed on the website of Arrow Electronics but isn't commercially available so far. The price isn't yet available.
The board has Qualcomm's 820 chip, which is used some premium smartphones today. Qualcomm recently announced the Snapdragon 835, which succeeds the 820 and 821 chips, and next round of premium smartphones with the new chip will be announced in the coming months.
Specifications point to the DragonBoard 820c board being fast, boasting a wide range of wireless features, and supporting 4K graphics. The board could be used to develop powerful robots, drones, and smart devices.
It also has 32GB of flash storage, which is large for a board computer. By comparison, Raspberry Pi 3 has no storage, and a high-end Intel Joule 570x board has only 16GB of storage.
The big difference may be the price. While Raspberry Pi is priced at $35, the DragonBoard 820c may be much more expensive. The Snapdragon 820 isn't cheap considering it is only used in premium handsets and tablets.
Arrow's website says the DragonBoard 820c, for now, will be compatible only with Android. But instructions on how to load Debian are provided on the website of 96boards.
The DragonBoard 820c could a more powerful version of the popular DragonBoard 410c, which supports Android, Linux, and Windows 10 IoT Core.
The board could ultimately get Windows 10 IoT Core support and link up to Microsoft's Azure cloud service.
Other DragonBoard 820c features include 3GB LPDDR4 memory, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, GPS, Bluetooth 4.1, and gigabit ethernet.
It runs an Adreno 530 GPU that can support 4K video capture. It also supports 4K playback at 30 frames per second. High-resolution cameras with resolutions up to 28-megapixels can also be attached to the camera.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 has integrated LTE, but that feature isn't available on the board.
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