NanoPi NEO3, Rockchip RK3328 1.29GHz Quad-core, 2GB DDR4 RAM, Bluetooth, GPIO, USB 3.0, Gbps Ethernet with Unique MAC

I'm leaving this review because I have spent a large amount of time trying to get this device working.I've purchased a Class 10 MicroSDHC card as suggested in the docs, a new router for testing, multiple cat 5 cables and tested all permutations of several laptops, networks, and their suggested OSs. The device would not boot the point where I could shell in. `arp -a` would show the device had attached to the network but port 22 would never become available. Or any other port for that matter. `nmap` showed no open ports 10 minutes after I powered the device on.

Device didn't work and documentation was very poor.

I bought one directly from FriendlyArm with the case and heatsink. The heatsink had a fairly thick thermal pad which didn't seem to be doing much as the device was idling at 80c which thermal throttling issues. Anyone that knows this processor will not be surprised by how warm this runs but the idea of using such a small case and no fan I believe to be a huge oversight by the manufactures. I ended up cutting a hole in the case to add a raspberry pi fan and replaced the heatsink with a smaller one also for a raspberry pi that had thermal adhesive. After a few days of curing, this brought the temperatures down to between 57c - 61c. If it had better cooling this would be the perfect little headless device, but unless you want to Frankenstein the case or until someone releases a case with better cooling I'd look somewhere else.

Glad mine came with a heatsink installed, as reported the unit does get warm but thankfully there's plenty of documentation to prevent this now. I find a simple fan enough to cool it.Yet to try GPIO but for FriendlyWrt work it's been working as expected and would reccomend for NAS or PI type products. There may be a future where PI Hats can better translate to this unit, and should more get built on this platform, it would be a 5 star alternative.