Asus tinker board review in Spanish

Asus has created its proposal in the SBC market (single-board computer), which leads the Raspberry Pi line and which also has other well-known boards such as the Odroid. The Asus Tinker Board wants to compete by showing process muscle and differentiating specs.

We analyzed the Tinker Board thoroughly to see its highlights and shadows!

Asus Tinker Board Technical Features

Unboxing and design

The Asus Tinker Board brings with it a ton of cool features like the new Rockhip RK3288 quad-core processor with Cortex-A17 1.8 GHz 64-bit. It is accompanied by 2GB of soldered DDR3 RAM, a dedicated sound card and the possibility of installing a MIPI CSI camera. Although we will talk about all these modules later.

Among its connections it incorporates 4 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, space to insert a microSD card, miniJACK output and a microUSB connection for power. Although one of its most interesting data is the incorporation of a 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet connection that can convert it as a large and small home storage server with a 2.5 ″ hard drive connected to its USB connection.

It not only boasts high-quality audio interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet port and physical pin compatibility with Raspberry Pi. It also wears an attractive Tron-reminiscent look and a color guide on the GPIO pins saves us from counting (and discounting) pins with your fingers and having a board by your side.

Asus has not skimped on performance when choosing Tinker Board components. The technologies listed in the table below, accompanied by the mature software, have muscle to spare for us to implement a wide variety of projects without compromising on experience.

Test of performance

We highlight the capital compatibility with Raspberry Pi from B + to 3, so that many projects are going to behave or consider a good start on the Asus Tinker Board. We are not only talking about sizes and shapes, but also about quantity and order of GPIO pins. As we will see later, Asus is making the effort to make Operating Systems like Debian and Kodi and libraries like RPi.GPIO compatible as well.

We wanted to make the Asus Tinker Board sweat, to see how far it reaches in its current moment of development. We must bear in mind that its software, even when it is operational, is receiving love from its developers.

We have faced our tests to two aspects:

• What can be done with the Operating System at the current point (February 2017). What experience we have with what we can use.

It is important for the reader to take into account the moment in which this review is made and written, because the Operating System will evolve and the experience may change for the better.

Geekbench 2

Of course we have quantified the power by comparing the performance of the Asus Tinker Board with that of the Raspberry Pi 3 running the Geekbench 2 benchmark three times in a row. We have chosen the worst result for each one, as well as thermal photographs in the stress situation. We see that, both wearing heatsinks, they are kept at very safe temperatures for use. The Asus rises 5ºC more, but the temperatures are safe for the demanding and continuous operation of the plate.

Asus Tinker Board thermography taken with Fluke TIS40 in ºC

Raspberry Pi 3 thermography taken with Fluke TIS40 in ºC

Geekbench 2 test results keep pace with what Asus promises, 2090 points on Raspberry Pi and 3314 on Asus Tinker Board .

Compatibility for Asus Tinker Board

Gross power is not everything. While the above results put both systems face to face in an even competition, these results are not the only thing that defines our experience. That large and small blocks of software are compatible and optimized for the platform is vital for hardware to make the best of itself.

That is why we have researched and tested many programs and current uses to see if they can be used right now (February 2017). Again, the reader should know that support will increase and improve in many respects in the near future.

Debian & Kodi Operating Systems

Asus currently offers two supported operating systems for the Asus Tinker Board:

• TinkerOS (Debian) . TinkerOS Kodi .

With both we cover a large part of the uses that we usually give to these SBC boards. With Debian we have an operating system for office automation, internet browsing, installation of programs, programming and electronics .

On the other hand, TinkerOS_Kodi is a shortened version of Debian to run Kodi in the most optimal way possible and already configured when burning it to SD. Therefore we have a more general system and a version of it prepared for multimedia playback and streaming.

These versions are enough, but in order to expand the market share of the Asus Tinker Board, many of us need program and system support to reach it. After compatibility comes simplicity, and this is having the various OSs such as RecalBox OS in which RecalBox comes installed and configured, just like the Kodi version.

It is also optional, although not necessary for most users, to have other third-party operating systems. For example: Ubuntu, Windows (even being the IOT version), Android… are several examples.

This compatibility may allow some users benefits or create custom versions (such as TinkerOS_Kodi) that do represent a system option for the most common users.

Asus Tinker Board (left) next to Raspberry Pi 3 (right)

Programs

Many of the programs and pieces of software that can be installed on Debian of ARM architecture (such as Raspberry Pi) work on the Asus Tinker Board. This is the case of programs that run only on software, without access to low-level hardware, such as browsing the Internet or viewing videos without hardware acceleration.

That said, Asus is developing compatibility for programs that directly interact with hardware. This is the case of the GPIO library that we have been able to use for our electronics projects as we have used a Raspberry Pi so far in python.

The image of the Debian system that Asus offers us (which is configured as quickly as in Raspbian and can be downloaded from the same manufacturer's website) comes quite prepared, but even with some software blocks not yet installed. This is not a problem in most cases, where we have obtained them using apt-get.

Knowing the work that is being done by Asus and considering how usable the platform is right now, we believe that the compatibility situation on the Tinker Board will improve a lot until, we hope, be completely comparable to the competition.

Software performance on Asus Tinker Board

Having detailed the compatibility of systems and programs on the SBC Asus Tinker Board, it is time to explain what experience programs leave running on hardware that has already been shown to be powerful. The system is as fluid (we dare say it) as Raspbian Pixel, also in web browsing which is not always a pleasant experience in the already known OS.

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Video and audio playback is surprisingly good to be (at the moment) only by software, without hardware acceleration . Although we activate the Chrome h264ify extension, it still cannot work because the compiled version of Chrome has not yet been configured to take advantage of hardware acceleration. At the moment, therefore, we have small frame drops at high resolutions, which may limit the experience in a long video session. We look forward to seeing the change as soon as I get support and settings from that acceleration that will optimize it to the fullest.

We have tested some emulators that require little configuration, of NES and GBA, and the experience has been positive. It is also a field in which Asus can offer a very interesting bet by giving it compatibility and optimization, since the extra muscle can provide that umpf that the Raspberry Pi 3 lacks in the most demanding console emulators such as Playstation One and Nintendo 64.

Final words and conclusion on Asus Tinker Board

The Asus Tinker Board has surprised us, because right now it already contributes a lot to the consumer and the external developer to consider giving it a chance in their projects. We cannot know what the future holds, but we do believe that if a few steps are followed, it can be positioned and endured as one of the great proposals in the SBC multimedia and Maker.

On the one hand, Asus must decide to make a strong and continuous bet over the years, considering the department in charge a little less as a section that must provide economic performance at all times and must allow and mark that it is necessary to be transparent in the software and hardware. With this, all users and external developers, keys to progress such as the case of Raspberry Pi, will have the necessary tools and the assurance that if they dedicate their volunteer effort they will not be left behind.

It is not a mere comment, because it must be borne in mind that the purpose of the Torres Pi is that their plates reach education and projects as easily and openly as possible, at the lowest price. And, to achieve this, they are profitable. And not the other way around.

It is not yet available in Spain , but we see it listed on foreign websites (UK) with a price of 73 pounds. So it is not surprising that this year we will see it listed in the main online stores.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ SOC ROCKCHIP POWER.	- SYSTEM STILL IN PROGRESS.
+ GIGABIT LAN.	- YOU NEED TO INSPIRE CONFIDENCE AND OPENNESS.
+ HIGH QUALITY AUDIO WITHOUT EXTRA HAT.	- IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO BE INCORPORATED IN NEW REVISIONS USB 3.0 CONNECTION AND INTERNAL MEMORY eMMC.
+ ATTRACTIVE AESTHETICS.
+ GPIO PINS WITH COLOR GUIDE AND VERY PRESENT SUPPORT / DEVELOPMENT.

The Professional Review team awards him the gold medal :

Asus Tinker Board

POWER - 85%

SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY - 80%

CONNECTIONS - 90%

PRICE - 75%

83%