Banana Pi BPI-M2S launches for under US$100 in two SoC variants

Banana Pi has finally released the BPI-M2S, a single-board computer (SBC) that the company teased last year. Initially, the company had revealed a few specifications and 3D renders. However, the launch of the SBC on AliExpress coincides with the confirmation of all key specifications, including the board’s 65 x 65 mm dimensions. Additionally, Banana Pi offers the BPI-M2S in two processor variants, unlike many other of its SBCs.

As CNX Software notes, the BPI-M2S is available with Amlogic A311D or Amlogic S922X SoCs. Fundamentally, the pair are identical, with four ARM Cortex-A73 cores running at 2.21 GHz and another two Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.8 GHz. The Amlogic A311D and Amlogic S922X also contain a Mali-G52 MP4 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2 support, but only the former has an NPU, which offers up to 5.0 TOPS of performance. Moreover, the Amlogic A311D version of the BPI-M2S has MIPI CSI and MIPI DSI connectors for cameras and displays, respectively.

Additionally, Banana Pi includes 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 16 GB of eMMC flash storage and a microSD card slot for adding more storage. The BPI-M2S features the following ports, and supports Android 9, Debian 10 and Ubuntu 20.4:

• 1x 40-pin GPIO header
• 2x Gigabit Ethernet
• 1x HDMI 2.1
• 1x USB 2.0 Type-A

The BPI-M2S supports optional PoE and Realtek RTL8822CS modules too, with the latter providing Bluetooth 5.0 and WiFi 5 connectivity. Currently, Banana Pi sells the BPI-M2S with an Amlogic S922X for US$95.79. Alternatively, the Amlogic A311D edition is available for US$100. Please see Banana Pi’s wiki for more details about OS distributions.

Purchase the Banana Pi BPI-M5 on Amazon