The Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero is a new single-board computer from the company that you’ll always see on any list “raspberry alternatives” as it is a specialist in SBC solutions and replicates every UK foundation development.

Now it’s the turn of the Raspberry Pi Zero, the smallest, most economical and lowest consumption Raspberry, but with the same possibilities of use in a large number of projects. The Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero has approx its the same form factor and even has a Raspberry Pi-compatible 40-pin connector. Its 65 x 30mm size is also almost identical and should fit into the chassis made for the Pi Zero.

Banana Pi always provides something more in its clones, as we saw with the BPI-W3 (Raspberry Pi 4 competitor) and here it does it with the processor Allwinner H618 at 1.5 GHz (4-core ARM Cortex A53 CPU) versus the 1 GHz Broadcom BCM2710A used by the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. It is complemented by 2 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 8 GB of eMMC flash storage, expandable using microSD cards.

It also slightly improves connectivity with modern ports USB Type-C compared to the micro-USB Pi Zero. It supports Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless standards and has the following connectors:

• 1x mini HDMI 2.0a
• 1 x USB Type-C OTG with 5V/3A support
• 1x USB Type-C
• 1 microSD card reader
• 1 x 24-pin FPC connector (1 x USB 2.0, 1 x 100 Mbps Ethernet, 1 x IR)
• 1 x 40 pin header

It also has a wireless antenna, two LED status lights, and two physical buttons on the board, one acting as a reset button and the other as an FEL button.

No pricing or availability has been announced for this Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero, although this type of board is usually extremely economical in 20 dollars.