Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini now orderable as new Wi-Fi 6 router board with 5G connectivity

Banana Pi has now started selling the BPI-R3 Mini, a single-board computer (SBC) that it last teased in March. To recap, the BPI-R3 Mini combines the MediaTek MT7986 (Filogic 830) with 2 GB of DDR4 RAM and 8 GB of eMMC flash storage. Additionally, Banana Pi integrates a 2G antenna, three 5G antennas, twin 2.5 Gigabit ports and a single Nano SIM card slot.

Hence, the company intends the BPI-R3 Mini to be used as a router board. Moreover, the SBC includes M.2 B-Key and M-Key sockets and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity. Based on Banana Pi's wiki, it only plans to offer OpenWRT images for the BPI-R3 Mini. At the time of writing, it has shared OpenWRT images with Opensource BSP and MTK vendor drivers, both dated July 19 2023.

Initially, the company listed the SBC for US$78.94 on AliExpress before factoring in customs and shipping costs. However, it is already listed as being no longer available, despite only selling five units. Conversely, other sellers are offering the same BPI-R3 Mini configuration for US$85.51. Thus, the new SBC is currently only slightly cheaper than the BPI-R3. Please see Banana Pi's wiki for information on configuring the BPI-R3 Mini and how it can be deployed.

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