I've been testing "zero" size SBC's for application as a companion computer in an autonomous drone. I've had a RADXA Zero 3W for a week or two now. With the help of an AI assistant, I figured out how to load the firmware on the emmc. Using an SD card smaller than the emmc, I was able to use the Linux "dd" command to copy the bootable SD card to the emmc. Afterwards, I could expand the allocation to use the rest of the emmc. (in my case, my emmc is 32gb, so I used a 16gb SD card) There were a few minor details to tend to as I went along, but I got good direction from my AI assistant and have addressed them all.
@ein_seebi Says:
EMMC boot works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6eOrl8EaNE
@quadcorei8085gen2 Says:
Aged like fine milk. The board was 20$ now the time of writing this costs 100$
@JahElRacham Says:
the cpu i had 30 years ago was single threaded and ran a poorly optimized os 500 times faster than this sbc, and did so with 500 times less ram and not even 100mhz on its cpu.. today's sbc is really rubbish slob.. it cant even update a start menu.. the a500 is even older.. at under 10mhz and not even 1 mb ram and that too was 500 times faster lol
oohh.. a start menu... lag lag lag
@micetrapper4525 Says:
Very interested in review on Radxa ROCK S0 with emmc
@lukaskalinauskas679 Says:
Would you recommend the Radxa Zero 3W 4GB, the Orange Pi Zero 2W 4GB, or maybe just the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W for a tablet project?🤔
@johnnyx6654 Says:
its crazy this video came out last year and it seems like it came out 50 years ago
@jmcguire6471 Says:
Just imagine. An atomic system on the eMMC with swappable SD card based home partitions each with a custom environment that can all be run from the same system. I need this.
@zoldaten123 Says:
крепление камеры на sbc сделано из соплей - все оторвалось практически сразу. сама камера не интегрируется через overlay. поддержка нулевая.
@vpchelko Says:
the costs of SBC are comparable to budget android smartphone - it will be much better if cheap smartphones can be turned into micro PC....
@dr.m.sanaullahsahar9859 Says:
My Experience with Radxa Zero 3W (2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC) – A Colourful Paperweight
Let me share my honest and painfully disappointing observations about the Radxa Zero 3W, specifically the 2GB RAM / 8GB eMMC variant.
🔧 General Observations
Build quality? Utterly poor.
Component soldering? Some of the ugliest, sloppiest SMT work I’ve seen – especially on the RAM and eMMC.
Heat? The board runs too hot to touch under normal conditions.
Community support? Practically non-existent. The forum is full of unresolved threads and user complaints just left hanging.
Boot stability? Inconsistent and unreliable. You're flipping a coin every time you power it on.
⚠ Specific Observations
The board seems to boot only when it feels like it.
SD card boot is random – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Serial output regularly complains about "memory training". What even is that, and why is it failing?
It loves staying stuck in MaskROM mode, green light solid, totally unresponsive – regardless of pressing the button.
Flashing images to eMMC? Half the time it fails with vague errors: test device failed, DDR init failed, communication failed. Pick one.
On the rare occasion it does boot an old Debian XFCE image, it freezes within minutes. Green LED dies, system halts. I've tried every recommended USB-C cable, power supply, and flashing tool version (v2.81, 2.86, 2.96) – none helped. Weirdest part? Physically pressing on the RAM chip sometimes wakes it up. (What is this, a pressure switch?)
It's clearly degrading over time. The board had minor issues initially, but got worse with every passing day. Now it’s just sitting in my drawer – a nice-looking but useless coloured header board. I had high hopes when I bought this, wanting to explore alternatives to Raspberry Pi. But now? I finally get why someone once called me a fool for saying anything nice about Pi alternatives. To be frank, this board is an unstable mess. And the lack of proper support or fixes makes it all the more frustrating. Unless Radxa seriously improves QC, documentation, and community support, this will go down as just another failed Pi alternative in my book.
End of rant. Thanks for reading – and best of luck to anyone still trying to make theirs work. You'll need it.
@engshahed Says:
How to install Ubuntu 24.04 LTS directly on it?
@joshuachettiar86 Says:
Please review the new Radxa Cubie A5E
@Chris-uo3rj Says:
If i want to power it over the gpio pins and use the usb c 2.0 port for data transfer is there any additional configuring i have to do? Or is it plug and play. Thanks
@ease_of_coding Says:
Hi, is it compatible with alpine linux?
If it is compatible, can you explain how to install it?
@derSelbstVerwalter Says:
sombody ever tried to make an mobile router / firewall combo with that an pfsense and openwrt ?
Touchdisplay over hdmi, battery case down under, then usb 2 otg for power (mobile too battery and stationär to 230v over usb quichckarge loader) and splitting the usb 3 in 2 ports for dual 4/5g simultan modul as brodcoam and an 2,5 gbit/s lan port.
@74357175 Says:
Are there any "zero" class SBCs where the *Linux* desktop is GPU accelerated?
I noticed for example the Orange Pi Zero also only has Mali GPU support under Android, and not Arch or Debian distros.
@robertmaxa6631 Says:
How well does this board playback 1080p video from local connected storage?
@andrewlaslone Says:
Hi Chris, did you revisit the eMMC option? Have you tried switching between antennas?
@valveman12 Says:
As always, a great review. 👍👍
@Histoshape Says:
Supreme video here 👌 but did someone manage to flash a proper Android Version on eMMC? Just got mine and fiddling around 🤦♂️😆
@TomTRobot Says:
Don't know if you tried this on the Radxa, but I have a different SBC with eMMC (a Libre Renegade) that uses a Rockchip RK3328 and supports eMMC with the same kind of "MaskROM Mode" update procedure. But it turned out that if you could boot from the SD Card and see the eMMC device listed in lsblk, you could just "dd" the .img file to the eMMC, remove the SD, and then power cycle boot off eMMC. Apparently, at least on the Renegade, the factory images contain a bootloader that works for both SD and eMMC. E.g. boot from SD and in terminal: sudo dd if=image.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M status=progress (or whichever mmcblk is NOT the one for the SD)
@fakereality96 Says:
27 VAT on top of a 37 SBC? Pass. bro.
@graemaer3052 Says:
Im working on a "cyberdeck" project and Im stuck between choosing a radxa or the Pi CM4/piunora. However Ive heard using Radxa products are a steep hill for newbies in the field. wondering if you had any suggestions.
@happybobyou Says:
Any info on GPIO compatibility?
@JibunnoKage-YouTube-Channel Says:
Just got a RADXA Zero 3E, and testing it. The disappointing thing is some of the images just don't work, and those that do, from RADXA are very old, including the kernel versions available. Still need to test the GPIO features. Fortunately, someone is creating Ubuntu rockchip images that are compatible, which are current, way newer than the official RADXA images. Some of the RADXA official images are being retired by RADXA stating they are corrupted (Debian CLI b6 is confirmed broken), and will not work... but there seems to be no timeline to replace these with newer versions... so it appears RADXA may rely on community based images only, this is NOT good. This has doomed other SBCs in the past. For example the IndieDroid NOVA SBC was fast, and powerful, but the last image created for it, is dated 10/2023, is community only supported, and the original author(s) are no longer appear to be active.
@lucasbrown7338 Says:
I think the Mediatek chipset is quite interesting one in terms of the performance and also involves a great update for the technology usage.
@rustyholt6619 Says:
wow and it came with a clear case ,,, some holes required
@carabara3947 Says:
The Geekom A7 Has Arrived Well Pleased
@ericyoung3183 Says:
Insightful. What are your thoughts on the Radxa NIO 12L, which utilizes the Genio processor?
@carlosaugustopinheirodesousa Says:
Actually Radxa Zero 3W is currently nowhere to be found! 0_0
@wskinnyodden Says:
You need to check the Nano PC T6 from FriendlyARM the darn thing is fast has heck and has HDMI input, pitty the new model removed the top MiniPCIE slot (the one I have still has it thank god) but considering it wont actually expose PCIE (as far as I was able to use) it is a bit limited, to me it messed me up as I have a 5G modem (cellular yes) but it does need the PCIe lanes, the 4G works over USB so it works, but the one I truly wanted does not, sad sad sad. Maybe that's why they removed it and the SIM slot...
@noweare1 Says:
My question is how are these boards supposed to be used. I develop using microcontrollers esp32, atmel etc... The boards are well documented and have example code. If I buy this board what will I need to develop applications with it. Do I need to be a linux driver expert ? I do not know at what level I need to be at to make things with this board.
@ArmSoM Says:
Wow!Great post,absolutely amazing!you always have such a unique perspective on SBC
@mitropoulosilias Says:
i have a suspicion that these boards pop up like mussrooms people buy them, use them once or twice and then they go to trash... maybe it can be faster with android??
@llortaton2834 Says:
It's not a competitor, it's destruction!
@massimocavalleri6823 Says:
I'm interested to use ethernet version of this board for build a small Nas. I think could be possible attach USB-C hub with two disks... Could be interesting...
@USBMEDICMalcolmScole Says:
Motioneye work with this ?
@Hazmatguy117 Says:
I’d like to think that Raspi Zero series can’t compete with the market considering it’s not available
@rsfi_ Says:
how about orange pi zero 2w
@uki352 Says:
Christoph, are you replying on Telegram or is there a SCAM going on?
@qzore9768 Says:
Would this be suitable for running klipper mainsail for my 3d printer? Currently using rpi4 but I want something smaller and use rpi 4 for other purposes
@JasonBurchell76 Says:
Hello again. I received an email that’s says to message Expl. Comps. Via “Telegram”. I’m not familiar with “Telegram” and not sure as to the authenticity of the email.
Just thought I should make you aware.
@philspencelayh5464 Says:
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.A lot of these things remind me of a Libre Tritium I bought on a kickstarter, promising to outdo a pi in every way. It eventually turned up, looking like a pi and after much struggling I managed to get it to run an operating system. By then it had run out of puff and getting it to do anything useful was impossible. Since then I've stuck to Arduino and Pi.
@kueifengtung Says:
I'm honestly kind of surprised at all these chips. Wow they're in stock, have docs, and cheap! Oh it doesn't work to install an os. I'm like isn't that the main important thing? Everything else is secondary - who cares if it is in stock if can't run an op?
@mohamedmagdy3433 Says:
Hi my friend in have an idea in my head if you know sonoff sensor have battery cr2450 3v if me need Change it to 18650
li-ion
The projct
>Battery 3.7 18650
>Holder 1cell battery 18650 case
>Battery charger TP4056
>Step-Down DC
>ESP8266 ESP-01 module for home assistant
To show all the information
Can you help me with the project?
@williama29 Says:
interesting new single board computer that's nice to see as well great video thanks
@Videogame9559 Says:
Hi Christopher I have your old code from 3 years ago and it is running fine with no errors on the Pi Pico I'm testing it out before I use the Pi Pico W I am trying the new TB6612fng drive board but my one motor I'm testing ist running?. I change only pinout 20 21 gpio to the drive board. any help, please Time for bed' said Zebedee
@jonass1285 Says:
I love your channel! May it be for updates about what's new in the SBC world, useful software tools, or explanations about the technical workings of information technology. Keep up the great work and your unique, professional and calm video style!
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