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793 Review
41 Karma

Review on πŸ’₯ Enhanced ODROID XU4 with Active Cooling System and Reliable Power Supply by Larry Sabey

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Runs Armbian Bionic Server and Armbian Bionic Desktop perfectly

The aim was to test the CPU performance as a VPN router. This computer uses an octa-core Exynos 5422 processor. With a 110 Mbit/s connection, I was able to achieve a maximum speed of 65 Mbit/s in VPN over Ethernet. It's good, better than my old router. Also faster than the new Intel Atom Z8350 processor as a VPN, which peaks at 45Mbps as a VPN router. I was hoping to get close to 100Mbps, so I'll still be looking for a more powerful processor to meet that requirement. In fact, this mini PC runs Armbian Bionic (ARM version of Ubuntu Server 18.04) without any problems. The Armbian Bionic Desktop also ran flawlessly. The trick is to first do the setup with: username: root password: 1234, then create a user account and then boot into the desktop environment. The username and password are the same for the server version of Armbian. I haven't tried installing Windows 10 as I'm not aware of any ARM-compatible Windows installs yet. Great computer for the price, actually it's crazy that it's so cheap. I want it to come with a case. Seriously, even a $3 plastic case. I have yet to order a case for this as it is NOT compatible with this Raspberry Pi form factor and every time I touch it I hope I don't hit it with static and fry it. Seller - please include a case with the kit, it's worth it for us. The board can get very hot even when idling, and there are many sharp edges that make it uncomfortable to handle like a bare board. In general, this computer works well as a server or desktop environment. Keep in mind that it runs on the processor of a mobile smartphone (this appeared in the Samsung Note 3) so it doesn't have the power of a real desktop computer or even a laptop. Also, this is a 32-bit ARM architecture, FYI, so it doesn't work on 64-bit OSes.

Pros
  • Many will do
Cons
  • Some difficulties