NanoPi R4S: A new Raspberry Pi alternative with dual Gigabit Ethernet and up to 4 GB of RAM

FriendlyELEC is working on a new single-board computer (SBC). The company has not announced the SBC officially, but CNX Software has discovered its existence on the company's wiki. Oddly, the wiki page deals extensively with the board, which is called the NanoPi R4S.

According to the page, FriendlyElec has chosen the Rockchip RK3399 for the NanoPi R4S, which features four ARM Cortex-A72 cores, four ARM Cortex-A53 cores and an ARM Mali-T864 GPU. The A72 processor cores can reach 2 GHz and are complemented by the slower A53 cores, which top out at 1.5 GHz. Meanwhile, the Mali-T864 GPU supports a host of codecs, including OpenGL ES 3.1, DirectX 11, 4K VP9 and 4K H.264/H.265 at 10-bits.

Additionally, FriendlyElec will offer the NanoPi R4S with up to 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM. There will also be a 1 GB SKU that has DDR3 RAM, although neither will come with built-in storage. Instead, a microSD card reader will handle OSes for the SBC. One could connect an external HDD or SSD via one of the two USB 3.0 Type-A ports on the NanoPi R4S, though. FriendlyElec has included a USB 2.0 connection via a 4-pin header, should you need to use that.

The NanoPi R4S also has dual Gigabit Ethernet connections, as the image below demonstrates. FriendlyElec has found space for 10 GPIO pins too, along with a fan header, heatsink mounting holes and a USB Type-C port for providing 5V/3A power to the board. It is unclear how much the NanoPi R4S will cost, but CNX Software expects the 1 GB SKU to retail for about US$30 and the 4 GB version for roughly US$60.

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