Orange Pi Zero LTS: A new Raspberry Pi alternative that costs US$10 and should run cooler than its predecessor

The Orange Pi Zero LTS measures just 52 x 46 mm, yet incorporates a host of ports, connectors and a quad-core SoC. Specifically, the developer board comes with an Allwinner H2+ SoC, which integrates four ARM-Cortex A7 cores that can clock up to 1.2 GHz. The board also has 256 MB or 512 MB of RAM depending on the model.

Additionally, the Zero LTS supports up to IEEE 802.11 n Wi-Fi and has an Ethernet port if you need a wired connection. There is a USB 2.0 Type-A port too and a micro USB OTG port, while a 26-pin unpopulated GPIO header should make it compatible with some Raspberry Pi headers according to CNX Software. Moreover, Shenzhen Xunlong Software has included a 13-pin header for IR, headphone, microphone and 2x USB 2.0 connections.

Shenzhen Xunlong also promises that the Zero LTS will run cooler and require less power than its predecessor. Furthermore, the board should receive long-term support as its LTS name suggests, although the company were unwilling to say for how long when asked by CNX Software founder Jean-Luc Aufranc.

The Orange Pi Zero LTS supports Android 7.0, Debian, OpenWrt or Ubuntu, which you can download from the Orange Pi website. You can also download the Armbian Debian 10 Buster and Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic images from Armbian should you prefer these builds. The Zero LTS is available to order from AliExpress now, with the 256 MB model costing US$8.49, with the 512 MB version costing an additional US$2.