Orange Pi PC 2

Overview

The Orange Pi PC 2 is an affordable 64-bit single-board computer from Xunlong, built on the Allwinner H5 SoC — the 64-bit successor to the popular Allwinner H3. The H5 features four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 1.368GHz and an integrated Mali-450 GPU, with the key upgrade over the H3 being full 64-bit (AArch64) support. The board comes with 1GB DDR3 RAM and a microSD slot for storage, alongside an SPI flash chip for bootloader storage.

A standout feature for its price class is the Gigabit Ethernet port, enabling significantly faster network throughput than the 100Mbps-limited Orange Pi One. The board includes two USB 2.0 host ports, HDMI output for display connectivity, a 3.5mm audio jack, a CSI camera connector, an infrared receiver, and a 40-pin GPIO header. There is no built-in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, keeping costs low for wired network applications.

Armbian provides standard support with kernel 6.12, offering both desktop (XFCE) and minimal/IoT images for Ubuntu and Debian. SPI flash bootloader support allows booting without a microSD card in some configurations. The Orange Pi PC 2 strikes a balance between the ultra-minimal Orange Pi One and more expensive boards, making it a practical choice for lightweight network services, home automation hubs, and beginner Linux projects requiring Gigabit connectivity.