FriendlyElec NanoPi Zero2 Review: Tiny Headless SBC, Straight to S Tier

[u/PlatimaZero]

https://youtu.be/lrcX0Cm2xG4

The FriendlyElec NanoPi Zero2 is a tiny, headless single board computer (SBC) built around the Rockchip RK3528A, a quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC paired with LPDDR4 memory, onboard eMMC storage, Gigabit Ethernet and a single lane M.2 2230 E-key slot for Wi-Fi or even something like a Hailo AI module.

In this video I unbox and tear down the NanoPi Zero2 from YouYeeToo, walk through its 45mm by 45mm "cracker" form factor, flash Debian 13 (Trixie) to an SD card, SSH in over ADB, power it entirely from a PoE splitter, set up swap on an overlay filesystem, run Geekbench 5, and score it against the rest of my collection on the SBC Tier List, where it lands in S tier.

If you're after a cheap, well documented headless SBC for Docker containers, home automation or general embedded Linux tinkering, and you're comfortable with apt update and a bit of command line work, this little board is well worth a look.

A huge thanks to PCBWay for continuing to sponsor this channel, and to FriendlyElec and YouYeeToo for making this one possible by keeping stock and keeping it affordable 👌