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Today we’re taking a look at seeed Studio’s Odyssey X86J4105, a mini PC with Celeron technology custom designed for the manufacturer. The small device turns out to be what you’d get if a Chromebox and Raspberry Pi made a love for sweets and sweets: it’s an all-in-one system card that works through Celeron, sold without a case, with GPIO Pi Headers compatible with Raspberry GPIO and an Arduino coprocessor for more hardware-based manufacturer projects.
I have an admission to do: I never liked the Raspberry Pi. Heresy, I know! But despite the very low value of the much-loved small boxes, they never seem strong enough for the projects I’m interested in. Occasionally, I have flirted with other mini PC ARMs that are a little more expensive and much more resilient, like Odroid XU4 or the newer Odroid N2, but still feel quite limited compared to low-budget x86 PCs. The Odyssey is designed to address these functionality issues.
Odyssey’s quad-core Celeron SoC would possibly not be a power plant through desktop standards, however, it is resilient enough to run a full Windows 10 desktop experience. Add 8GB of RAM, 64GB of eMMC storage, one SATA-III port, two 1 Gbps Ethernet sockets, two M.2 slots (one BJ and an M key), Intel 9560 Wi-Fi, Intel UHD six hundred graphics and a full HDMI port size, and it’s hard to perceive what this $260 box can’t do.
If you’re looking to control other hardware at a very low level, Odyssey also has a Raspberry Pi-compatible 40-pin GPIO header and a 28-pin header for your Arduino ATSAMD21 coprocessor. We’re not in a position to verify those features, but the Odyssey manufacturer Seeed is also the manufacturer of the reputable Grove sensor system, so when you tell us that Odyssey connectors and coprocessor are compatible with Grove, we are susceptible to them.
As for the form factor, the Odyssey in its case re_computer reminds us to the maximum of an unusually geeky Chromebox. Like the Chromebox, Odyssey in the re_computer housing is slightly larger than the VESA mounting plate on the back of a monitor, and also like the Chromebox, it has VESA-compatible mounting holes on the back. However, you will want to provide your own mounting bolts if you want to take advantage of this option.
The case of the re_computer, frankly, is a little painful to gather: the commands provided consist only of untagged diagrams, and not all diagrams are accurate. In particular, we would have liked to have been told on the front that the most sensitive transparent lid of the ré_ordinateur is magnetically attached. The box lists the lid in stock as a separate part, however, it is already inserted into the box, and is not transparent without delay that you can lift it gently with a spudger or other fine-wing tool.
Once you’ve assembled the re_computadora housing, you’ll be incredibly and functional. All parts you want to care for are available by cutting the magnetically bonded transparent cover, and the external ports are easy to access and transparent. We also love the cheerful royal blue with which the sides of the box are anodized.
The router’s rumble: the DIY Ars structure faces further testing, a more difficult festival Odyssey’s powerful Celeron J4105 processor is subsidized through RAM, storage, networking and graphics capabilities. Whether you prefer to run Windows or Linux, you can take care of the responsibilities that the Raspberry Pi series limited to CPU and IO is suffering. If you need to build a high-end DIY router, it features a dual Gigabit Ethernet and the J4105 processor is particularly stronger than the 1037U of our own Homebrew router.
Whether you’re looking to build a Kodi or a similar home theater PC system, the J4105 and its six hundred UHD graphics are more than up to the task, at least up to 1080P:4K is acceptable, but some videos will provide a small loss of symbol. In our tests, the 4K videos on Vimeo were played perfectly; 4K on YouTube can be seen but particularly dropped a symbol here and there.
TrueNAS Core will soon update FreeNAS, and we’re testing the beta version. You can even create a thumbnail log server with Odyssey. It features a PCIe 2.0 x4 M.2 location that can accommodate a high-performance NVMe SSD and a full-size SATA-III connector that can be connected to any SATA player. Add this reliable, high-speed connectivity to the built-in 8 GiB RAM and you’ll have enough machines to run FreeNAS, XigmaNAS, or the next TrueNAS Core.
Finally, you can turn it into a very useful desktop computer. The edition we tested pre-installed with Windows 10 Enterprise fully enabled. It can run alone or attached to a domain. You can also purchase Odyssey without the Windows 10 license if you prefer a Linux desktop.
If the use case you landed on calls for cellular connectivity, Odyssey also has it to you: its M.2 B-key port can accommodate an LTE module (not included), and there is also a SIM card socket.
The Odyssey’s 8GB ram and dual-core Celeron J4105, as well as its 64GB Sandisk eMMC, are enough to make the small box feel like a genuine computer, even on Windows. Our review example was pre-installed and pre-activated with Windows 10 Enterprise, and regularly started without blood completely on the desktop, adding POST time, in 15 to 30 seconds. Once there, he felt perfectly receptive, either installing apps or browsing the Internet on Microsoft Edge.
The small formula comes with Windows 10 build 1903, so the first thing we did was update it around 2004. The only software that is not in stock installed in the formula is an Arduino software package, so we do not use Wiztree before and after. Disk Usage Graphics This Time: This is a popular Windows load and fits perfectly with the built-in 64GB eMMC, either before or after the upgrade.
The numbers don’t lie: it’s time to build your own router, the original 2016 Homebrew Gangster router, this year’s Kano PC and Walmart’s damn EVOO EV-116-5 laptop. Odyssey, OG Homebrew and Kano PC are all low-power systems based on Celeron; THE AOVE powered through AMD A4-9120 will be in the same class, but it is not, due to its large factory underclocking.
When we tested the routing functionality with complicated paint loads and small packages in 2016 very well, we found that the Celeron 1037U on Homebrew was more than enough to send packages at 1 Gbps in a nude Ubuntu installation. When we tested pfSense, the easiest to use and complete router distribution didn’t work as well.
Although the Kano PC N4000 is 4 years older than Homebrew’s 1037U, with twice as many cores and threads, it’s not much faster. The Odyssey J4105 is a force through comparison: it’s incredibly faster than in multi-threaded testing and a little faster with an unmarried thread to boot.
Although we haven’t tested the Odyssey directly as a compromised router, its benchmarks recommend that it would work very well. We suspect that even when you run pfSense or opnSense, it stays quite with the original Homebrew with Ubuntu vanilla.
We are very excited about the Odyssey X86J4105. It eliminates all the itching of almost any IoT manufacturer or mapping we can imagine, and brings much more firepower to the table than ARM-based devices like the Raspberry Pi series, or even Pi’s toughest Odroid competitors.
If you’re looking for the cheapest imaginable solution, the Odyssey may not be your cup of tea, however, if you don’t have your head spending a little more, the flexibility presented through its complete x86 architecture and its impressive diversity of connectivity is invaluable. That. the extra money. This popular x86 architecture also allows you to leave the global tradition and images of hardware-centric formulas. Instead, you can install Windows, Linux, or BSD directly on popular ISO hardware.
The Odyssey can also be a wonderful kid, a kiosk or even a soft desktop computer. It’s small, it’s incredibly affordable for a fully enabled Windows formula and its desktop delight is smart, much more wonderful than the typical Kano PCs or low-end Chromebooks. If you opt for 64GB eMMC storage, it’s fast enough and large enough for convenient use with Windows 10, or if you need superior functionality and more storage, you can use a popular PCIe or SATA SSD instead.
The only complaint we have about the Odyssey is how frustrating we discovered when connecting the included Wi-Fi antennas to your Intel 9560 chipset. Diagrams do not involve the location of the chipset on the map and the location of the accessory makes connecting the cables even more frustrating than on a popular laptop. We needed a jeweler’s magnifying glass and about ten consecutive minutes of violin and a careful and smooth closure before, even though everything had the two cables well connected.
Image of the ad through Jim Salter
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