So initially I had some trouble booting the Armbian images even the one I built locally.
I'm certain this was because I had not properly wiped the MicroSD card after trying out the images from Orange Pi (I ended up using gparted to create an new msdos partition table) .
Anyway I got around to testing some of the images and though I'd post the state of those as well:
1. Armbian_19.11.9_Orangepi4_buster_current_5.4.16_minimal.img
This was the image found here on Page 3 posted by @piter75
It seemed to boot fine. eth0 and WLAN exist but I did not get connectivity (this was an issue with my router) https://asciinema.org/a/313413
2. Armbian_20.02.6_Orangepi4_bionic_current_5.4.27_minimal.img
Downloaded from https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-4/#kernels-archive-all
Some issues seen during booting, but eventually it boots.
eth0 and WLAN exist but I did not get connectivity due to my router https://asciinema.org/a/313424
3. Armbian_20.05.0-trunk_Orangepi4_bionic_current_5.4.27_minimal.img
Image built locally using the docker guide.
Kernel seems to take a bit longer to boot and there is no output from it as before.
eth0 and WLAN exist, after messing with router eth0 works as expected. https://asciinema.org/a/313427
Image available at https://mega.nz/#!jgZmzAzb!yp-g2viNrXAjO-rpM_25meDVBNSxOo2I8gOqD6t-p7g
4. Armbian_20.05.0-trunk_Orangepi4_bionic_dev_5.5.13_minimal.img
Image built locally using the docker guide.
Kernel seems to take a bit longer to boot and there is no output from it as before.
eth0 and WLAN exist, after messing with router eth0 works as expected. https://asciinema.org/a/313445
Image available at https://mega.nz/#!LpIinS5I!MzscJ_tS5S4_5pcxpz5CZXKUeFxf3LdeE8IBIfORl-A
All images flashed with Etcher
MicroSD was Samsung Evo Select 64GB
Board was OrangePi 4 4GB v1.3 without eMMC (cheapest config for this RAM)
PSU was the USB barrel connector to a known good phone charger.
I also tried out the mPCIe adapter with a mPCIe SATA card (ASM1061). The speeds were disappointing at max 210mb/s considering the card can definitely do 350mb/s+ in my laptop.
I had hoped the newest os/kernel version would solve this, but it does not appear to do so. Maybe my testing methodology is wrong but I am doubting this after trying 2 different cards and multiple OSs.
Another thing to note is that this board runs hot at ~75*C even with a small heatsink (no fan was used) and little going on.
If anyone has something they'd like me to try then please ask.