Android Mobile Development Boards : Practical to Consider Now

Android Mobile Development Boards are like other Single Board Computers. Basic matter is that, neither Beagleboard Black nor Raspberry Pi sponsoring us. I agree that Beagleboard Black is 100% Libre Hardware but we are limited by budget. Android Mobile Development Boards are Practical to Consider Now as Commonly We Are Developing Both Hardware & Software Pointing Towards IoT. Arduino is best for ordinary electronics. We discussed about latest mobile phone graphics SoC. Those articles will clear the doubt around SoC specific names like Mali, Snapdragon etc.

Android Mobile Development Boards

Raspberry Pi 3 (or higher) is actually a suitable candidate for Android Mobile Development. There are very costly real Android Mobile Development Boards like Open-Q 845 HDK Development Kit which has Qualcomm Snapdragon SDA845 processor, 6GB RAM, QHD LCD panel, HDMI out or DisplayPort over USB Type-C, 2x 16MP cameras, many I/O expansion headers. That development kit is targeted for the OEMs and device makers. There is nothing wrong to look at their showroom like poor villager in big city :

There is HiKey 960 development platform, which is based on the Huawei Kirin 960 octa-core ARM, ARM Mali G71 MP8 GPU and Google has some kind of documentation :

Kirin is this one :

Same manufacturer’s other boards :

Raspberry Pi 3 actually has Google’s support for Android development :

Basic matter for us as ordinary developer is availability of modules and community support. Raspberry Pi actually beat any board for this segment. HiKey 960 no way very costly compared to professional/enterprise grade mobile development board.

HiKey 960 vs Raspberry Pi 3

Not Comparable. HiKey 960 almost twice powerful in all aspects and really overpowered. Cost of HiKey 960 is near $250 and that is many times than cost of Raspberry Pi 3.

HiKey 960 has somewhat working community support :

Basically if you want to develop real wearable, real IoT things for production grade work; it is likely that you’ll need some modern development board. From that aspect, HiKey 960 is closest to high priced professional grade main development board. But Raspberry Pi 3 should do the job of development of prototype at home at far lesser cost.

Conclusion

Our itching is to buy whatever new tweak-able DIY things in the market. That is basically exploited these days. Most of us really waste money like kids behind buying cheap Made in China LCD display module which factually made out from a used 2 decades old mobile phone. Let us compromise at “open source” vs “Libre hardware” point. It is basically childish to develop a calculator with Arduino and Made in China LCD display module. You can see a probable change in me. That happened out of problem of storage of zillions of boards, modules & components.

For just ordinary electronics only Arduino where display is at maximum 1602A LCD or TM1637 7 Segment LED. Wherever project has a tendency towards IoT, it is more practical for those Single Board Computers.

Among the Single Board Computers, when the target is also towards Android hardware development; it is practical to consider Single Board Computer which fits the need. For writing guides, developing for this blog, our need is limited to Raspberry Pi and HiKey 960.