Benchmarking

I’ve recently been reviewing many different single board computers that are outside of the Raspberry Pi ecosystem due to the ongoing pricing and availability issues with the Pi. Today will be my first review of a product that is meant to be an alternative to the Compute Module 4! There are several different CM4 knockoffs/alternatives available and I’ve already also received a Pine64 SOQuartz which I’ll be reviewing in the near future.

Today we will be examining the BIGTREETECH CB1(revision 2.2) as well as the official Pi4B adapter (meant to be one choice of IO board for the device). These are generally meant to be used with 3D printers as BIGTREETECH’s catalog is largely geared toward 3D printing.

I will not be reviewing the device for that purpose today. I will be examining it as a more general-purpose CM4 alternative. We’ll look at the images available, try plugging it into some other I/O boards meant for the CM4 and seeing what works and what doesn’t, benchmarking the performance and try to reach a conclusion about what a board like this will work for and what it won’t.

Let’s begin!

The Banana Pi M2 Zero definitely has a very familiar form factor. It looks just like the Raspberry Pi Zero but is a much cheaper alternative in these market conditions. Would you actually want to buy and use it as a Pi alternative? The answer is maybe.

Today I’ll explain the strengths and weaknesses of the Banana Pi M2 Zero and explain who may be able to save a lot of money using a board like this (and who should stay away from it). There are definitely some things you should know about the board before buying one and we’ll be covering those in this review.

Let’s get started!