Today I am going to talk about the Youyeetoo R1. I decided to share this review directly on the forum before publishing it on my official channels because most of my impressions are negative. I am not criticizing the board itself, but rather the lack of support from Youyeetoo and the community, due to the complete absence of collaboration between the company and third parties.
The Pros of This Board:
Powerful Chipset: The board features a Rockchip RK3588s with 8 cores (4 at 1.8GHz and 4 at 2.4GHz), providing robust performance suitable for various applications.
Wide Range of I/O Devices: It supports numerous interfaces, including NVME, WiFi ECC, M.2 sockets for PCIe NVMe storage, and 4G LTE modules.
Touch Screen Connectivity: You can directly connect a touch screen to the board, which is beneficial for certain use cases like kiosk systems and interactive displays.
The Cons of This Board:
Unmaintained and Outdated System: Currently supports Android 13, Debian 11, and Ubuntu 22.04. The kernel version is 5.10.110, which is quite old. Additionally, the partitioning layout is based on Android, forcing you to use the official tool to load the OS onto SDCARD or EMMC.
No Minimal Version: There is no minimal version available, making it unsuitable for server use since the available versions come with all desktop mode packages.
Inadequate DTS: The Device Tree Source (DTS) files are based on a model provided by Rockchip, leading to numerous system log errors related to sensors and I2C.
Default Language: The systems default to Chinese, an issue reported multiple times but never resolved.
No NVME Booting: Unlike other boards with the same chipset, it does not support booting directly from NVME, which limits its flexibility.
Unreliable Drivers: I encountered numerous connection errors when trying to use WiFi with Debian 11.
EOL for Debian 11: Debian 11 will soon reach its end-of-life, meaning it will no longer be supported by Debian, posing a significant limitation.
Limited RAM Options: Only 4GB and 8GB RAM versions are available. Higher configurations like 16GB and 32GB are not currently offered.
Incomplete Documentation: The provided documentation is minimal and lacks detail compared to other vendors, making it harder for developers to fully utilize the board’s capabilities.
No Public SDK Repository: There is no public repository on GitHub for the SDK. Developers struggle to download the SDK from Google Drive, which makes version control and collaborative improvements difficult. This is unacceptable for a developer-oriented product.
Additional Insights:
Community Feedback: Many users on various forums have echoed these sentiments, highlighting issues with driver support and the difficulty of finding reliable community resources for troubleshooting and development.
Potential Workarounds: Some advanced users have attempted to recompile kernels and modify DTS files to improve hardware compatibility and performance, but this requires a high level of technical expertise.
Comparison with Competitors: Compared to other boards like the Raspberry Pi 4 or the Odroid N2+, the Youyeetoo R1 falls short in terms of community support and ease of use. These competitors often have more robust ecosystems and active communities, making them more suitable for both beginners and advanced users.
As for the Screen:
Unfortunately, the screen quality is subpar, with low resolution and poor viewing angles. Having more options for screens with different quality levels would be a significant improvement.
I hope these negative points reach the R&D department and the owner of Youyeetoo. It is truly a shame that such a board is not updated or supported on the OS side. I hope you will start collaborating with the community in the future, because at the moment I would not recommend this board: there are better options available.
For more detailed information on the specifications and additional features of the Youyeetoo R1, you can refer to the official website and various online reviews.
I want to counter this viewpoint, as many products based on RK3588/S are better supported and have more updated versions. For example:
I purchased two Nano PC T6 units with 16GB of RAM from your store.
Their development is far more advanced compared to this. To start with, the manufacturer provides a wide range of operating systems with kernels above 6.y.
Additionally, the community has been supportive of integrating them into their builds, such as Armbian, DietPi, and others that I won’t mention here.
What is particularly frustrating is the lack of support from your side, leaving such a board outdated and obsolete.
The board is based on the below device tree. I see all the premade device trees as garbage because they are made for Android systems and not Linux. It should honestly be re-written from the ground up, but this will take time and a lot of device tree/kernel knowledge.
As I mentioned to @CharlesChen, I am willing to test the development versions. Once things improve, I will be happy to update the review. However, at the moment, everything remains unchanged until I see improvements. For now, the board will stay in the box as it is unusable.
Hi everyone, I am rewriting the DTSs regarding the board in question, anyone, I am not only talking about members of this community, but also those who produced it and those who released obsolete systems, please come forward to help me complete the DTSs directly in my repository.
