CuBox and CuBox-i are series of small and fanless

nettop A mini PC (or miniature PC, nettop, or Smart Micro PC) is a small-sized, inexpensive, low-power, Legacy free PC, legacy-free desktop computer, desktop computer designed for basic tasks such as Web navigation, web browsing, accessing web appl ...

-class computers manufactured by the Israeli company SolidRun Ltd. They are all cube-shaped and sized at approximately 2 × 2 × 2 inches (5 cm) and weigh 91 grams (0.2 lb, or 3.2 oz). CuBox was first announced in December 2011 and began shipping in January 2012, initially being marketed as a cheap open-source developer platform for

embedded systems An embedded system is a specialized computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is em ...

.Android-ready ARM mini-HTPC costs $130, uses just three Watts
The first-generation CuBox was according to SolidRun the first commercially available desktop computer based on the Marvell Armada 500-series SoC (System-on-Chip) and at the time was said to be the world's smallest desktop computer. In November 2013, SolidRun released the Cubox-i1, i2, i2eX, and i4Pro, containing i.MX6 processors.

Overview

CuBox is a low-power computer based on ARM-architecture CPU, using the Marvell Armada 510 (88AP510) SoC with an ARM v6/v7-compliant superscalar processor core,

Vivante Vivante Corporation was a Fabless manufacturing, fabless semiconductor industry, semiconductor company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with an R&D center in Shanghai, China. The company was founded in 2004 as GiQuila and focused on the ...

GC600

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

3.0 and

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accelerate ...

2.0 capable 2D/3D

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

, Marvell vMeta HD Video Decoder hardware engine, and TrustZone security extensions, Cryptographic Engines and Security Accelerator (CESA) co-processor. Despite being about 2-inch-square in size, the platform can stream and decode

1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...

content, use desktop-class interfaces such as

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

or GNOME under Linux, while requiring less than 3 watts and less than 1 watt in standby. SolidRun currently officially only supports

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

2.6.x or later and Android 2.2.x and later. It comes with Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 and Android 2.2 dual-boot pre-installed.

Newer models

In November 2013, SolidRun released a family of CuBox-i computers named CuBox-i1, i2, i2eX, and i4Pro, containing a range of different i.MX6 processors by Freescale Semiconductor. They have also released a series of caseless i.MX6 models called the Hummingboard.

CuBoxTV

Announced in December 2014, CuBoxTV is a mid-range and simplified version of the CuBox-i computer and runs the RISC-OS operating system although is designed to operate

KODI Kodi may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * KODI, a radio station in Cody, Wyoming, USA * Kodi (film), ''Kodi'' (film), India, 2016 * Kodi, a dog in the 2004 film ''Balto III: Wings of Change'' Other uses * Kodi (software), an open sour ...

(formerly known as XBMC) on an OpenELEC

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. CuBoxTV weighs approximately , and is around 2X2 Inches wide and 1.8 inches high, shaped like a cube with rounded sides. It features an i.MX6 Quad core processor at a 1GHz speed, 1GB of RAM memory, 8GB base storage memory and a GC2000

quad shader GPU. It houses a couple of

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

2.0 ports, a

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...

port, microSD port and an

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

port.

References

External links

*
CuBoxTV product page
{{Linux mini computers Computer-related introductions in 2011 Linux-based devices Computers and the environment Mini PC Embedded Linux Single-board computers Educational hardware ARM-based home computers

Overview

Newer models

CuBoxTV

See also

References

External links