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Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

Yup, it was written on the 15th when the Black was still a badly kept secret but not openly announced.

I ordered two BeagleBone Blacks from Adafruit yesterday, anxiously awaiting their arrival. I love the emerging competition in this space and I'm happy to see TI (who I've had mostly positive interactions with when needing unofficial hobbyist support, and whose Stellaris and MSP430 ecosystems I love) still catering to this market, and on paper the BeagleBone Black looks really, really good (it would look good for a lot of things even if they kept the old price with the new specs, the new price of basically half the old one is icing on top).

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I only have one grip with the BB black -- the HDMI out resolution. Maximum of 1280x1024. Which itself isn't so bad, but that (and several other resolutions on it) are geared towards 4/3 monitors instead of 16/10 or 16/9. Which itself I don't mind so much, but there aren't many 4/3 monitors on the market any more.

BTW, anyone have information on the performance of the graphic drivers for this board? Would it be any good for full screen video?

The GPU used in an SGX530 which is an earlier generation of the GPU used in the iPhone 3 (SGX535). TI traditionally use their own IP blocks for video processing but this is absent in the AM335x, and the GPU lacks any dedicated video processing functions. You're probably looking at use CPU based codecs (ffmpeg) and 720p will be a reach I hazard to guess (but I don't know for sure).

there are tons of 4:3 monitors kicking around. Put a want ad on craigslist and you're going to be flooded with them.

Actually what I was referring to is a lack of 4:3 monitors in general use. What I'd like to use these small/cheap computer boards for, is if I'm helping someone "fix" their computer, this could be a good stop-gap measure to hook up so they can continue to get Web/email/social networks/etc things done while I'm rebuilding their desktop. Most people I run across either have a VGA CRT monitor, or a 16:9 flatscreen.

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