We’ve seen what theRaspberry Pi can do when you throw in some extra hardware , and we recently heard about what the Pine64 is going to do once it’s inside a laptop casing .
But what about that other popular single-board PC , the ‘ ODROID ‘,created byopen-source hardware company HardKernel?
Well the answer is here, and it has a wonderfully unwieldy name.
ODROID Touchscreen KitSay hello to a $90 kit that takes a run-of-the-mill ODROID board and turns it into an 8″ touchscreen Ubuntu (or Android) PC.
That’s $90 minus the cost of an actual ODROID, of course. But since you can nab the ODROID C1+ for as little as $32, it’s not a major drawback. For the combined cost you could probably find something ready made that’s bigger, beefier, and (granted) better at being a regular PC. But that absolutely misses who these devices are aimed at, and why they’re popular.
The ‘kit’ is formally known as the ODROID-VU8C (a name that sounds like a bad CGI robot in an equally-bad Syfy channel movie). It’s compatible with both the 2015 ODROID-C2 or the earlier ODROID C1+ (note the plus) only.
It’s not a end-user solution, and the end result looks far from elegant, but the tinkerer in me loves the craft drawer aesthetic, wirey innards all.
Back to the kit, and that $90 outlay gets you everything you need (minus the board) to get you up and interacting with Ubuntu MATE (or another flavour of your choice):
8″ TFT-LCD (1024×768) 10 finger capacitive touch input Back-light brightness control DVI to LVDS Converter board HDMI dual gender board Power Supply Plastic bottom case All necessary screws and cablesAs CNX Software note , you don’t get anODROID-C1+ or ODROID-C2 board with this kit. Nor do you get amicro SD card or eMMC module. Oh, and you’ll need to assemble it with your own hands (a thorough assembly guide is available).
But tinkering, hacking, smushing and other -ings are part of the attraction with single board computing for most, right?
Learn more, or place an order, on the HardKernel website.