The low-cost, tiny like a credit-card, and a full-blown computer Raspberry Pi is so much popular that every other month, a new Raspberry Pi Rival comes in the market. We have talked about Arduino, Orange Pi, and Asus Tinker Board before which are giving a tough competition to Pi. Today we will talk about the newest Raspberry Pi rival – UP Core.
What is UP Core, the new Raspberry Pi Rival?
The UP Core which also known as UP Board is an SBC (single board computer) which can run a full range of Operating Systems including Windows 10, Android Marshmallow, Ubuntu, Debian, Yocto, etc. It is one of the smallest SBCs in the world having a quad-core processor with a dimension of only 2.22×2.6 inches. This size is half than my Lenovo smartphone and surprisingly a thumb-size smaller than the Raspberry Pi 3. A crowd-funding campaign was launched by UP a for its new Intel-powered developer board. The performance of UP Core is claimed to be better than the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
Specifications and features of UP Core:
- It comes with a quad-core x5-Z8350 Intel Atom processor with 1.8GHz frequency
- It has an Intel HD 400 Graphics GPU processor
- The UP Core has eMMC storage options of 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB
- Onboard DDR3L-1600 RAM of 2GB/4GB and 2MB cache memory
- It has an inbuilt Bluetooth (4.0 BLE) and WiFi (latest 802.11 b/g/n) capability
- One USB 3.0 host, two USB 2.0 pin headers, one HDMI port for video and one full eDP port for audio included in the circuit board
- It is more expandable than the Pi 3 by having 100 pins on board (Pi 3 has 40 pins)
- Its ecosystem of third-party software and hardware makes it perfect to be used in fields like IoT, robotics, industrial automation, home automation, vending, and digital signage
When we compare Raspberry Pi Vs UP Core
With the support of various OS like Windows 10, Android Marshmallow, Windows IoT Core, and Linux distributions, including Yocto, ubilinux, and Ubuntu, 100 pins onboard with options to attach GPIOs, PCI-Express, UART, SDIO, power supply, SPI, etc., almost double RAM, and a growing third party hardware and software ecosystem, makes the UP Core somewhat better performer than the Raspberry Pi. But you cannot use the UP Board as a computer straightforward as you can do with Pi. Also, like all the other Raspberry Pi alternatives, the UP Core does not have a full-grown range of community and software support. The Raspberry Pi 3 is available at a price of about $35 while the more expandable UP Core is available at more than doubled price of $89.
Quick compare table of UP Core Vs Raspberry Pi 3
| Feature | UP Core | Raspberry Pi 3 |
| Processor | 1.8GHz Intel Atom x5-Z8350 | 1.2GHz 64-bit Quad-core ARMv8 |
| RAM | 2GB/4GB | 1GB |
| Pins | 100 | 40 |
| Price | $89 | $35 |
How can I get UP Core?
As the UP Core is launched through the Kickstarter crowd-sourcing campaign, you can get it from their website. The 16Gb addition will be shipped from August 2017 and for the larger storage options, the shipping will start from October 2017. Though the Raspberry Pi is still best for the tinkerers and hobbyists, you can try this tiniest and newest Raspberry Pi rival.
