Shenzhen Xunlong Software has made a low-key announcement about a new addition to the Orange Pi 5 series. Earlier this summer, the company launched the Orange Pi 5 Max, which is currently priced at $145.99 on Amazon. Now, they have rolled out the Orange Pi 5 Ultra, which appears to be a better model compared to the Orange Pi 5 Max at first glance.
Specs and Features
Interestingly, the reality seems to differ from what it looks like. The Orange Pi 5 Ultra uses the same Rockchip RK3588 chipset and LPDDR5 RAM that the Orange Pi 5 Max has. Additionally, this new single-board computer (SBC) includes M.2 M-Key (PCIe 3.0 x4) SSD expansion and an eMMC interface for built-in storage options.
Connectivity and Changes
Moreover, the Orange Pi 5 Ultra comes with a 40-pin GPIO header, a PCIe expansion interface, and supports Bluetooth 5.3/Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. However, Shenzhen Xunlong Software has replaced one of the HDMI 2.1 outputs found in the Orange Pi 5 Max with an HDMI 2.0 input on the Orange Pi 5 Ultra. As far as we can observe, this is the only variation between the two models.
Currently, you can find the Orange Pi 5 Ultra exclusively on AliExpress, where it is priced at $125 for the 16 GB RAM version. It seems that Shenzhen Xunlong Software plans to make this new SBC available on Amazon in the future. Additionally, it looks like they will also offer the Orange Pi 5 Ultra in more affordable 4 GB and 8 GB RAM configurations at some point as well.
