Orange Pi5 Plus 16GB Rockchip RK3588 8 Core 64 Bit Single Board Computer, 2.4GHz Frequency 8K Video Decoding Open Source Development Board Run Orange Pi OS, Android, Debian, Ubuntu (OPi 5 Plus 16G)

I recently purchased the Orange Pi Plus single computer board and have been thoroughly impressed with its performance. As someone who has used the Raspberry Pi in the past, I can confidently say that the Orange Pi Plus stands out as a more powerful alternative.One of the most striking aspects of the Orange Pi Plus is its seamless installation process. I have set it up as a home server, and the setup was straightforward and hassle-free. The board's performance as a server is remarkable; it handles multiple tasks with ease and shows no signs of slowing down, even under heavy load.The speed and responsiveness of the Orange Pi Plus are commendable. It's equipped to handle a variety of applications, making it a versatile choice for anyone looking to explore the capabilities of a single computer board. Whether you're a hobbyist or a professional, the Orange Pi Plus is an excellent choice for a wide range of projects.I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable and high-performing single computer board.

But that matters not. Fortunately, if you have enough savvy, you can load all your software from US sources whether it be arm64 Android, Linux (I'm using a Ubuntu 22.04 distro from a GitHub user), or a Windows for ARM distro. Plenty of power to run just about any OS you'd care to run. The NVMe option is really nice because booting is about 15 times faster than the micro SD or you can boot a bit slower from an eMMC. Since these boards do not have a BIOS setting a boot order is problematic but there is a kludgy way to use the built in Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) as a fixed boot order loader....micro SD - USB - NVMe - eMMC.....so you could boot from a 2.5 inch hard drive using just USB power. The down side is that the unit has two blue colored USB 3 ports but it's suspected that only one of them is version 3 despite the circuit board text indicating that they are 2 x 3.1. I'll have to do some digging to get a definitive answer. The one nice thing is the OEM user manual - 500+ pages of detailed instructions on how to set it up. It's also not a Chinglish translation...very well done by folks who really can speak English well. That is important because a couple of the software utility items you can download have Chinese language but they do a step by step pictorial instruction that shows you just what to select and what it does.I would definitely buy this again. A lot more capable than the Raspberry offerings.

I was looking for an alternative to a Raspberry Pi 4b/5. This does come with a steeper price tag, but the performance is worth it.

After many tries to install debian on the additional eMMC, i used Armbian. With the command armbian-install it worked fine. Additionally to this set I bought a fan with heatspreaders and a external hdd case for my two wd red, which already ran in my MyCloud EX2 Ultra. I setted up software Raid 1 and shared via samba. Now i would like to install docker and run iobroker, pihole and other apps in a container.The performance and the energy consumption is great!

Installation of the os was strait forward. Keep note that you will need to try the best os with bug fixes to ensure all features of the orange pi are functioning. But you will not have to look long. This speedy little SBC is fast and is potentually faster than most alternatives of the raspberry.

The cardboard box was near completely crushed. Thankfully the device was in a harder plastic case inside that, wich managed to survive.

Ok so to be clear...I bought this OPi5P before any colling offerings whatsoever hit the market...I had to "invent" my own solution. Some software support indeed is in it's early days...however I have noticed that software development on the "rk" line of hardware in general is moving forward...I have had no issues running [armbian (Ubuntu)] on this board...I am currently testing it as an NVR with motion eye...no I haven't managed to take advantage of the NPU/TPU do to two factors...I don't have experience with said hardware and lack of documentation...both of I believe will change for the better as time goes on...I would recommend this board to any thinker or hobby goers that don't mind an experience not quite holding up to RPi's example... It's more powerful than the RPi 4 for sure...but raw power isn't every thing... definitely a good hard working board IMHO with armbian...hope this fried revirw helps in some fassion ^^

What I liked: native nvme interface, decent amount of memoryWhat was no good: nearly everything else. Weird proprietary camera interface connector. Sold wrong wireless adapter, previously recommended by Amazon, but changed after purchase. Buggy, incomplete software. Can't use curl, git, Arduino out of the box due to TLS related errors. Even tried a couple of distros - same basic errors pop up. Tired of debugging incompletely ported code. I wanted something that just works, not a project all by itself. The Orange Pi forum is un-moderated and full of spam - didn't see a single Orange Pi moderator or official person answering a single question. Reddit shows people having similar issues with downloads. Too far out on the bleeding edge, with little support. Pity, since some of the hardware seemed good. Unfulfilled promise, or as others would say - just a scam to separate you from your money, by whispering sweet promises in your ear, but not following through. Your call on that. I spent quite a few days on this trying to investigate and just can't do it anymore. Have over 20 years experience with various distros, so not my first rodeo. Returning for refund. Maybe in 6 months it might be adequate, but definitely not now.