anonuser Posted December 21, 2021 Posted December 21, 2021 Hi, I'm part of a nonprofit working on improving access to digital education in the developing world. I'm looking for a fairly cheap SBC (<$20) that has a HDMI port so that it can be connected to a TV monitor (including old TVs like CRTs). The microSD card will be preloaded with static webpages from educational websites so that students can surf these websites at home. It should also have bluetooth or a USB port so it can be connected to a keyboard ($10) or mouse ($1). I don't strictly need wifi (the microSD cards can be updated on a different device), but it would be a plus. Another nice-to-have would be compatibility with Android apps, since there are several educational Android apps I'd like to preload as well. It's okay to have some restrictions on usage (e.g. limited number of tabs, videos played in a readable but low-ish resolution). I would like it to be durable as well. The main competing option is the Amazon Fire 7, which is a self-contained tablet at $35. It has 1GB of RAM and 1.3GHz quad-core processor. I haven't tried it with static HTML pages, but it seems a little slow. I saw the previous thread here on SBCs <$20 but thought I'd repost to ask if anybody has more targeted advice for my specific use case. I'm currently thinking of a Radxa Zero or Raspberry Pi W/2W. I've bought a Raspberry Pi Zero but am having display issues connecting it to the TV.
manuti Posted February 3, 2022 Posted February 3, 2022 Maybe Orange Pi Lite but the prices are a little bit higher these days with chip shortage.
Werner Posted February 4, 2022 Posted February 4, 2022 7 hours ago, manuti said: Maybe Orange Pi Lite but the prices are a little bit higher these days with chip shortage. Yeah not only for OPi Lite. I used to pay 10USD for an OPi One and 20 for an One Plus....welp... Anyway mentioned boards are still reasonable-ish for the price tag and work fairly well.
xwiggen Posted February 4, 2022 Posted February 4, 2022 A cheap Amlogic s905x Android TV box with at least 2G ram for around ~20 will do that and is better spec'ed than any similarly priced SBC.
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