Pandaboard Vs Snowball and general discussion about choosing an embedded platform

[Pranay Sharma]

Hi All,

This is my first post to the Pandaboard community. 

I was searching for a board to develop an Android based system. For the same I came across 2 opensource boards : 1. Pandaboard 2.  Snowball (http://www.calao-systems.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=6186). My post is about comparing these 2 boards and also what criteria's do you experts generally keep in mind while deciding the platform. This being an open source community so I thought I could discuss the pro's and con's of each freely.  I was hoping to get the community's opinion about which board to choose.

I envision to use my kit to develop a real product(by using design specs etc).  My application is in making some kind of a high end but low cost Android ICS tablet platform. 

For choosing my first board I listed the factors which might affect my work and then I prioritized them. Based on the total importance of each factor I gave it points. The total being 100. Then based on my research I gave pandaboard and snowball board points, relating to how much they meet that priority or factor. Below is my analysis:  

• Software Development time : pandaboard has a stronger community( I feel). This might help in reducing my development time as a stronger knowledge base is available. Priority weight: 50 points,  Score:  (45:30 :: Pandaboard:snowball), Reason: I am a beginner in developing anything thats system level so I gave this feature more importance.
• Cost of the Application processor and Bill of materials(BOM): Dont know which is cheaper or what are the trade-offs if the price is lower. What i know is  that both are dual core ARM Cortex A9 and have similar specs.  Further, the total price would be affected by the BOM. So the processor with more in-built integrations will be having a lower hardware cost.  Priority weight: 5 points,  Score:  (?:?::Pandaboard:snowball), Reason:  As I am in initial stages so  this is not that important right now. 
• Hardware Development time or Board features : Snowball has more sensors(gyro, pressure sensor, accelerometer ) and also things like GPS and Li-ion battery charger. Further it looks more complete from a complete products point of view.  Priority Weight: 40 points,  Score:  (25:35::Pandaboard:snowball), Reason:  If I need to later add these features(and I do) I might need to integrate each components individually. But as this is not required for the initial impetus so this is relatively of less importance than software development time 
• Debugging : Pandaboard only has a JTAG connector while Snowball has a JTAG and a  MiPi34. I tried to search the difference but didnt find much info on my preliminary research. I just felt that MiPi might be faster and more flexible in debugging. So can you comment about the differences  (debug extensibility  and cost wise )?  Weight: 5 points,  Score:  (?:?::Pandaboard:snowball), Reason: "to what i feel" JTAG can do the basic debugging and get me all the register level information from the board. So maybe initially debugging flexibility is not that important.

So the final score Pandaboard:Snowball:: 70:65. Hope, my intuition/analysis is somewhat correct and experts in the community can fill in the gaps or correct me for the above points. 

Further, I am not sure how important is the consideration of Hardware development time/cost? can someone put some light on it? Any other advice is also welcome to this newbie adventurer. 

 I hope my questions are not vague and that someone else could benefit from the above discussion.

Sincerely,

Pranay

[Joshi, Vikas]

May be explaining more about what you plan to do with the boards, or explaining more about the “Andorid based system” you plan to develop would help answer the question.

 

Vikas

[Pranay Sharma]

The android based system I plan to build would be on the lines of a
Vehicle infotainment system. Right now I thought to go along with the
Pandaboard ES as I think more resources are there to start from and
the cost is lower.
Any advice or suggestions to my analysis or other wise are welcome.


Thanks for the reply
Pranay

On Jan 16, 11:11 am, "Joshi, Vikas" <v-jos...@ti.com> wrote:
> May be explaining more about what you plan to do with the boards, or explaining more about the "Andorid based system" you plan to develop would help answer the question.
>
> Vikas
>
> From: panda...@googlegroups.com [mailto:panda...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Pranay Sharma
> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 12:31 PM
> To: panda...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [pandaboard] Pandaboard Vs Snowball and general discussion about choosing an embedded platform
>
> Hi All,
> This is my first post to the Pandaboard community.
> I was searching for a board to develop an Android based system. For the same I came across 2 opensource boards : 1. Pandaboard 2.  Snowball (http://www.calao-systems.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=6186). My post is about comparing these 2 boards and also what criteria's do you experts generally keep in mind while deciding the platform. This being an open source community so I thought I could discuss the pro's and con's of each freely.  I was hoping to get the community's opinion about which board to choose.
>
> I envision to use my kit to develop a real product(by using design specs etc).  My application is in making some kind of a high end but low cost Android ICS tablet platform.
>
> For choosing my first board I listed the factors which might affect my work and then I prioritized them. Based on the total importance of each factor I gave it points. The total being 100. Then based on my research I gave pandaboard and snowball board points, relating to how much they meet that priority or factor. Below is my analysis:
>

>      *   Software Development time : pandaboard has a stronger community( I feel). This might help in reducing my development time as a stronger knowledge base is available. Priority weight: 50 points,  Score:  (45:30 :: Pandaboard:snowball), Reason: I am a beginner in developing anything thats system level so I gave this feature more importance.
>      *   Cost of the Application processor and Bill of materials(BOM): Dont know which is cheaper or what are the trade-offs if the price is lower. What i know is  that both are dual core ARM Cortex A9 and have similar specs.  Further, the total price would be affected by the BOM. So the processor with more in-built integrations will be having a lower hardware cost.  Priority weight: 5 points,  Score:  (?:?::Pandaboard:snowball), Reason:  As I am in initial stages so  this is not that important right now.
>      *   Hardware Development time or Board features : Snowball has more sensors(gyro, pressure sensor, accelerometer ) and also things like GPS and Li-ion battery charger. Further it looks more complete from a complete products point of view.  Priority Weight: 40 points,  Score:  (25:35::Pandaboard:snowball), Reason:  If I need to later add these features(and I do) I might need to integrate each components individually. But as this is not required for the initial impetus so this is relatively of less importance than software development time
>      *   Debugging : Pandaboard only has a JTAG connector while Snowball has a JTAG and a  MiPi34. I tried to search the difference but didnt find much info on my preliminary research. I just felt that MiPi might be faster and more flexible in debugging. So can you comment about the differences  (debug extensibility  and cost wise )?  Weight: 5 points,  Score:  (?:?::Pandaboard:snowball), Reason: "to what i feel" JTAG can do the basic debugging and get me all the register level information from the board. So maybe initially debugging flexibility is not that important.

[ajith karnik]

Hi Pranay,

Even I am also in the same dilemma as yours and finally came to the
conclusion of buying a Pandaboard. If you are residing in India, Could
you please tell me where did you get/plan-to-get the pandaboard from
and the price? I searched quite a bit in Bangalore.

Thanks and regards,
Ajith

[Jayabharath Goluguri]

On Jan 22, 6:24 am, ajith karnik <ajithskar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Pranay,
>
> Even I am also in the same dilemma as yours and finally came to the
> conclusion of buying a Pandaboard. If you are residing in India, Could
> you please tell me where did you get/plan-to-get the pandaboard from
> and the price? I searched quite a bit in Bangalore.
>

PandaBoard / PandaBoard ES can be purchased in India via the official
distributors listed here:
* http://pandaboard.org/content/buy

For you convenience:
* Tenet Technologies link: http://tenettech.com/product.php?id_product=1723
* IDA Systems links: http://idasystems.net/products/pandaboard

--Jay

[Pranay Sharma]

Hi Ajith,
Sorry I am not residing in India right now so I hope Jay's post will
be helpful.
Br
Pranay