ODROID-N2 Plus: Hardkernel claims 2x the performance of the Raspberry Pi 4 from its US$69.00 single-board computer

It has been almost 18 months since Hardkernel released the ODROID-N2, its SBC with a hexa-core SoC, 4 GB of RAM and a high-quality DAC. Now, the company has released its successor, the ODROID-N2 Plus. Also called the ODROID-N2+, Hardkernel has included a newer version of the Amlogic S922X processor that it included in last year's model.

The new chipset offers a 400 MHz clock speed boost over the one in the ODROID-N2, which represents a 22% performance increase. Hardkernel claims that the SoC can be overclocked to 2.4 GHz too, although it does not guarantee that all boards will be capable of reaching that speed. Additionally, only four of the SoCs cores are capable of reaching 2.4 GHz as its two ARM Cortex-A53 cores top out at 2.0 GHz. The four cores that can reach 2.4 GHz are ARM Cortex-A73 ones, for reference. There is also an ARM Mali-G52 GPU on board for handling graphics tasks.

The ODROID-N2 Plus supports multiple operating systems, including Android 9.0 Pie and Ubuntu 20.04. The board has been shown to run the Dolphin emulator smoothly, which you can watch here. Hardkernel claims that the ODROID-N2 Plus is roughly twice as fast as the Raspberry Pi 4 clocked at 1.5 GHz in several benchmarks.

The ODROID-N2 Plus is available from US$69.00 for the model with 2 GB of RAM. Hardkernel charges an additional US$10.00 for the 4 GB version but recommends spending a further US$4 on a fan to prevent thermal throttling. The 2 GB model will start shipping on July 21, whereas the 4 GB model is shipping now.