The Raspberry Pi 3 hit the market a couple of days ago, incorporating long-awaited features like WiFi connectivity. However, the mere existence of the Raspberry Pi gave rise to a whole series of very interesting opponents, which in some cases offer superior specifications at a similar price. The new ODROID-C2 fits that description perfectly, and for just five dollars more, it offers things like twice the RAM and gigabit Ethernet.
The Raspberry Pi's benefits don't end with the official hardware. Since its debut in February 2012, many projects have tried to imitate its actions and duplicate its success. Such a goal is not easy, and some products only bit the dust (the APC module from VIA is a good example), but others managed to resist, and today they stand as solid alternatives to the official Raspberry models. One of those products is the ODROID-C2. In its time we talked about the X and W versions of this compact computer, but the new ODROID-C2 seeks to make even more noise than its predecessors, and the key to that is its specifications.
Hardware specifications
Like the BCM2837 in the Raspberry Pi 3, the Amlogic S905 SoC of the ODROID-C2, based on the Cortex-A53 architecture, delivers a total of four cores, but at a frequency of 2 GHz. Video is handled by a Mali-450 module, powerful enough to play 4K video smoothly. The RAM in the ODROID-C2 is 2 GB, double that of the Raspberry Pi 3, and although it didn't jump on the WiFi and Bluetooth bandwagon, the ODROID-C2 compensates with a Gigabit Ethernet port directly connected to the SoC, so it doesn't suffer the limitations of the USB 2.0 interface (which does happen with the RPi). The rest is divided among four USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI 2.0 connector, a microSD slot (eMMC storage is optional), a micro USB OTG port, 40 GPIO pins, and an infrared receiver.
Software and price
As for software support, both Debian and Ubuntu top the list, and there is already initial support for the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04. On the Android side, the official page mentions Lollipop 5.1, but I imagine it will reach Marshmallow at some point. The official price of the ODROID-C2 is $40, just five dollars more than the Raspberry Pi 3. If we limit ourselves to hardware, the new ODROID looks like a superior option, but we shouldn't ignore the huge Raspberry Pi ecosystem, as well as its support.
