Raspberry Pi vs. Banana Pi BPI-M2S: New Single Board Computer Alternative May Be Larger Boasting Six Core CPU, 4GB RAM

Banana Pi is getting an upgrade. The new alternative to Raspberry Pi is having a new and more powerful board, six processor cores and two gigabit ethernet ports.

Find out more about the new single-board computer "Pi."

Raspberry Pi vs. Banana Pi BPI-M2S

Raspberry Pi still has the most mindshare with the single board computers enthusiasts and DIY community, according to Hot Hardware. But Raspberry Pi alternatives always seem to pop up and excite the community. The newest to debut is the Banana Pi BPI-M2S.

The latest fruity "Pi" offering boasts a hexa-core Amlogic A311D SoC. Four Arm Cortex-A73 performance cores and two Cortex-A53 efficiency cores are fitted on the impressive little device, all within a compact 2.6" x 2.6" footprint--similar to that of the M2 Pro, per Tom's Hardware.

An integrated Arm Mali-G52 MP4 GPU takes care of the graphics, while the SoC, the Amlogic A311D, is paired with 4GB of LPDDR4x memory. Enthusiasts also get 16GB of eMMC storage onboard.

For anyone who needs to expand the available storage, a microSD slot is provided and up to 128GB maximum is supported. Another exciting addition to Banana Pi is that the device includes a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of 5 TOPS or Trillion Operations per Second.

As for its ports, it houses a single USB 2.0, a Type-C for power, and an HDMI port plus those two-gigabit ethernets.

Users also get a three-pin serial header and a 40-pin GPIO array, as well as DSI and CSI connectors for cameras and displays.

It is unknown whether or not the BPI-M2S will be compatible and work with accessories designed for the Raspberry Pi. However, Tom's Hardware noted that the GPIO looked like it could have a similar pinout to the Raspberry Pi, though support will depend on vendor software libraries.

Fans of the Raspberry Pi 3 and the Nintendo Switch would be familiar with the Cortex A53. ROKU media players and Amazon Fire tablets would be familiar with it as well.

Not a lot can be said about the BPI-M2S as of yet as the unit has just been debuted. The community just has to wait for more info about clock speeds and optional memory/storage configurations like whether a version with 8GB of RAM will be available Hot Hardware said.

It is safe to assume that the operating systems supported will include Android and Linux but, again, no formal statements have been made. The Banana Pi Twitter page did suggest that the design phase is over and that they're moving on the sampling the boards now.

The price has not been divulged yet either, but considering how the Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro is currently fetching around $61.00, the BPI-M2S will be slightly more expensive when it finally goes on sale.

And taking some cues on the lag time of the ​​BPI-M2 Pro announcement, enthusiasts might have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on the BPI-M2S which could arrive later this year.