Vài tuần trước, một người bạn mua cho mình unit ODROID-XU3, và sau đó promptly loaned (cho mượn ngay) nó cho tôi để review. Tôi excited (hứng thú), phải admit, vì đây là little thing (đồ nhỏ) very powerful, với eight cores, mighty graphics và 2 GB RAM, nghe như ideal piece of hardware cho media center. Indeed, nhớ Raspberry Pi games của tôi, và somewhat lukewarm results (kết quả tiep) với RaspBMC và openELEC? Well, the saga continues (saga tiếp tục).
Anyhow, review này actually NOT a review. It's more sort of my attempt to get ODROID running, and the story of how I failed. A full experience article should follow in a few weeks, và nó sẽ - hopefully - include more stuff. But more about that later. Intrigued? Take a look.
Thông số (Specifications)
Hãy briefly talk about hardware. ODROID-XU3 đi kèm two different processors (hai vi xử lý khác nhau), một quad-core Cortex-A15 và một quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU. Đây là arrangement (sắp xếp) very interesting, và khi bạn toss in (ném vào) một kernel support heterogeneous multi-processing (HMP) technology, bạn end up with (kết thúc với) fairly optimized power management without any compromise on performance. Really neat. Thậm chí có fan để dissipate (ph tán) all that extra heat created by these eight cores, và bạn phải admit, eight cores for a little board is pretty badass (khá badass).
Bạn cũng có Mali-T628 MP6 graphics, 2GB DDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz, eMMC5.0 HS400 Flash Storage, USB3.0 support, which is also rather badass. Peripheral connectivity khá neat. Bạn có micro-SD, micro-HDMI, DisplayPort, one slot each, four USB ports, Ethernet, và still more. This is a heavy package for such a tiny device.
Và nó đi sai như thế nào...
Bạn bè của tôi mua box của anh ấy without any external accessories (không phụ kiện ngoài), nghĩa là no Wireless keyboard, no Wifi dongle, no adapters, hoặc anything of that sort. Tôi only learned the bitter truth (sự thật đắng) của why it's important to have the complete package khi tôi started testing. Sort of the same thing that happened to me with Raspberry Pi, except I was a little more prepared back then, vì tôi phải buy a kit, và nó took me a while finding and ordering the right set online.
The not insignificant price tag of 179 USD does not cover the peripherals, which cost an additional 40-50 dollars easily, và you're starting to hit the price tag of fully fledged media centers like NUC. Then, it's definitely more expensive than either the Pi, or items like Chromecast, Apple TV or Rikomagic. And let's not forget that I have tested all these, and that none really satisfied my needs.
So it's all deceiving (lừa dối), if you will. Raspberry Pi costs about 125 USD to get running properly, with all the extras, so it's about half the price of ODROID for roughly one quarter of the performance, which makes the latter quite lucrative (hấp dẫn), the price notwithstanding (bất chấp giá).
Back to testing. Why it didn't work. Yes. First, I had some difficulty finding the micro-SD card slot, vì plastic case was misaligned ever so slightly (bị lệch chỉ một chút), và my initial attempts to nudge a card in weren't that successful. I was trying to be very gentle and delicate, vì this isn't my hardware, but it also meant I was being somewhat of an idiot.
Once this obstacle was surmounted (vượt qua), I faced the second, much bigger challenge. ODROID ships with a DisplayPort and micro-HDMI. Naturally, I didn't have the right equipment for the task, so I had to sort this thing out first, và that meant buying more cables and adapters, và delaying the testing one more time. Lastly, you need to flip a tiny switch on the board itself, to divert the display from one connection type to another. This tells you the general attitude of this product. It's most heavily geared toward developers and tinkerers (người sửa chữa, người vần vò), và it's not even remotely designed for plug-n-play use.
The final straw (cái rơm cuối cùng) was hooking ODROID into the power socket. As it turns out, the supplied power supply unit had pins that were just too wide for a standard Euro socket. I could force them in, or I could have widened the holes in the wall socket, but then, I decided to stop my testing right there. There's a limit to how much effort I was willing to invest in a piece of hardware, before it even begins booting. Ruining my home infrastructure, even if it's millimeter changes to plastic covers of the electric outlets, is too much. No.
Đọc thêm (More reading)
Nếu bạn interesting, then perhaps:
Lần gặp đầu tiên với hardware Apple, oh my
Chromecast testing & impressions
Rikomagic dongle thingie
LG smart TV review
Kết luận
Và đây là lý do bạn bè của tôi sẽ resume (tiếp tục) testing, và hopefully have enough time and desire to carefully document his escapades và take screenshots and photos that will allow me to report back on his experience. As far as my media hunt goes, this one hasn't even left the gathering court (sân tập hợp). The dogs are still in the kennels (chuồng chó), the hunting master has not sounded the horn (tiếng kèn), and the gentlemen are all still busy sipping coffee and sherry. Part if not most of this is my friend's fault, who did not take care of buying from a very rich and useful list of accessories available for the board. I am doing this product injustice (bất công), but that's how it is. The grim, stark, bitter, cold, evil, gruesome reality (thực tại tàn khốc, khô khan, đắng cay, lạnh lẽo, dữ dội, kinh khủng).
ODROID-XU3 really sounds like a cool, powerful thing, but it's not intended for quick and seamless use at home, especially not by people not keen on fiddling with hardware (không thích vần vò phần cứng). It's a development board for engineers and nerds, and that's how you should treat it. Shame, because I was looking forward to the experience, but then some things are simply not meant to be. And the way it seems, self-built media centers are hassle first, results second.
Feel free to disagree and prove me wrong with your amazing little XBMC or Kodi sets, but the plain truth is, the time you spent tweaking them multiplied by the minimum wage in your country could have bought you a proper mini computer. There, I said it. All that spoken, uttered and writ, I will continue playing with these kind of devices, and we have another one coming soon.
Cheers.