The Asus Tinker Board: A First Look at Android on a $60 Single Board Computer

Hey what's going on guys, it's ETA Prime back here again today, and I'm excited to share with you my experience with the Asus Tinker Board running Android. You might have noticed that I'm using an Android build on this device, which is available to the public for purchase on Amazon. In fact, I've left links to the Tinker Board and the Android build in the description below, so if you're interested in getting your hands on one of these devices, be sure to check them out.

As you can see, the Tinker Board is a pretty cool device, especially considering its price point of $60. It's a single board computer that's designed for low power consumption, making it perfect for use in a variety of applications, from media centers to IoT projects. The device features a Rockchip RK3288 processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and a Mali T760 four-core GPU, which should provide decent performance for Android.

I want to start by saying that I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Tinker Board running Android. While it's not meant to be a high-performance device, it seems to hold its own in many areas. For example, when I ran the benchmarking tool 3DMark, I was able to score a decent 652 points, which is not too shabby for a $60 single board computer. Additionally, I was able to run some popular apps like PSP, Minecraft, and Mopin 64 (Yasa), although I did notice that Yasa ran at half speed.

However, it's worth noting that the Tinker Board does have its limitations. For example, Google Play services crashed after I downloaded about five apps, which forced me to revert back to the stock Android setup. Additionally, some apps may not launch properly or may crash, although this is to be expected from a beta build. One app that didn't work for me was Cody Krypton, which I had loaded onto my cell phone using an APK. Unfortunately, it got stuck at the loading bar and now crashes every time I try to launch it.

Despite these issues, I'm overall impressed with the performance of the Tinker Board running Android. The device is a great example of what can be accomplished with a low-cost single board computer, and it's definitely worth considering for anyone looking to get into Android development or just want a fun project to tinker with. My initial thoughts are that this is a really awesome build for a first release, and I'm excited to see how the Asus team will continue to support and update the device in the future.

One thing that did strike me as interesting was the comparison between the Tinker Board's performance and that of more established devices like the Nvidia Shield. While the Shield is certainly a more powerful device, it costs significantly more than the Tinker Board, making it less accessible to many consumers. In contrast, the Tinker Board offers similar performance at a fraction of the cost, which makes it an attractive option for anyone looking for a budget-friendly Android device.

In conclusion, I'm excited to see where this project goes from here and how the Asus team will continue to support and update the Tinker Board running Android. If you're interested in getting your hands on one of these devices, be sure to check out the links in the description below. And if you have any questions or comments about the Tinker Board or Android development in general, feel free to leave them in the comments section below. Thanks for watching, and I'll catch you all in the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on guys this ETA Prime back here again today I am back with the Asus tinkerboard and you might notice I'm running Android here so they made an Android build available to the public you can now buy an Asus Tinker board on Amazon I will leave links in the description so this is their beta of 6.0.1 runs pretty good there is no Google Play pre-installed yet I was able to get Google Play installed using a method I use on a lot of different devices but then Google Play services started crashing after I downloaded about five apps so I went back to the stock setup Sid loaded some apps ran some benchmarks I want to show you those now this is pretty cool it runs fairly good I did have it crash one time but I believe it's due to Android running off an SD card it just really can't keep up but it seems to perform fairly well I'm going to go ahead and open up Ida 64 go to system we have the rock chip RK 3288 with 2 GB of DDR3 RAM built into this board the CPU is a quadcore cortex a17 at 1.8 GHz and it is clocked at 1.8 the GPU is a Mali t760 four core and it does open GL 3.2 we'll go on to some benchmarks I was not able to finish and 22 it crashed on me when it got to Ram but 3D Mark finished up so slingshot scored a 652 not too great ice storm unlimited scored a 12,135 again not that great 652 we'll go to best devices and as you can see the Nvidia Shield is way up there we don't even come close but this is a $60 single board low powerered computer and it's really not meant for this type of performance that the Nvidia Shield puts out next up geek bench single core 814 multicore score 1,970 now I was expecting a lower score than this it's not great but it's not too bad either this is an older chip that was used in a lot of older Android TV boxes so as you can see I have some other apps installed but I made this video just to show you guys that Android is running on the tinkerboard now PSP runs great Minecraft runs amazing mopin 64 yasa runs at half speed that's the Sega Saturn emulator nothing much we can do right now about that one thing I did notice was Cody will not launch I Sid loaded this Cody Krypton from my cell phone and it got stuck at the loading bar and now it just force closes or I get a gray screen so I might need to find a different version a different APK I'm not sure what's going on but this will probably be fixed in the next update or two so I'm going to be coming back with another video as soon as I can get Google Play installed without it crashing all the time my initial thoughts this is a really awesome build for a first release now there's some stuff that's not working but it's kind of a given with a first release of a beta build you'll always run into something not launching something crashing but they're doing a great job and hopefully this will be updated over time we'll get really good performance out of this ases Tinker board running Android I really appreciate you guys watching if you could hit that like button and subscribe I'm also leaving Amazon links in the description so you can go and buy an Asus Tinker board if you want like always thanks for watchinghey what's going on guys this ETA Prime back here again today I am back with the Asus tinkerboard and you might notice I'm running Android here so they made an Android build available to the public you can now buy an Asus Tinker board on Amazon I will leave links in the description so this is their beta of 6.0.1 runs pretty good there is no Google Play pre-installed yet I was able to get Google Play installed using a method I use on a lot of different devices but then Google Play services started crashing after I downloaded about five apps so I went back to the stock setup Sid loaded some apps ran some benchmarks I want to show you those now this is pretty cool it runs fairly good I did have it crash one time but I believe it's due to Android running off an SD card it just really can't keep up but it seems to perform fairly well I'm going to go ahead and open up Ida 64 go to system we have the rock chip RK 3288 with 2 GB of DDR3 RAM built into this board the CPU is a quadcore cortex a17 at 1.8 GHz and it is clocked at 1.8 the GPU is a Mali t760 four core and it does open GL 3.2 we'll go on to some benchmarks I was not able to finish and 22 it crashed on me when it got to Ram but 3D Mark finished up so slingshot scored a 652 not too great ice storm unlimited scored a 12,135 again not that great 652 we'll go to best devices and as you can see the Nvidia Shield is way up there we don't even come close but this is a $60 single board low powerered computer and it's really not meant for this type of performance that the Nvidia Shield puts out next up geek bench single core 814 multicore score 1,970 now I was expecting a lower score than this it's not great but it's not too bad either this is an older chip that was used in a lot of older Android TV boxes so as you can see I have some other apps installed but I made this video just to show you guys that Android is running on the tinkerboard now PSP runs great Minecraft runs amazing mopin 64 yasa runs at half speed that's the Sega Saturn emulator nothing much we can do right now about that one thing I did notice was Cody will not launch I Sid loaded this Cody Krypton from my cell phone and it got stuck at the loading bar and now it just force closes or I get a gray screen so I might need to find a different version a different APK I'm not sure what's going on but this will probably be fixed in the next update or two so I'm going to be coming back with another video as soon as I can get Google Play installed without it crashing all the time my initial thoughts this is a really awesome build for a first release now there's some stuff that's not working but it's kind of a given with a first release of a beta build you'll always run into something not launching something crashing but they're doing a great job and hopefully this will be updated over time we'll get really good performance out of this ases Tinker board running Android I really appreciate you guys watching if you could hit that like button and subscribe I'm also leaving Amazon links in the description so you can go and buy an Asus Tinker board if you want like always thanks for watching\n"