Lichee Pi 4A RISC-V Desktop Gets Unboxed, Offers Strong Linux Performance

As RISC-V continues to develop, so does the plethora of products around the open source processor. Unlike the Raspberry Pi which uses proprietary ARM processors, the new Lichee Pi 4A uses open source RISC-V C910 architecture. This small desktop SBC is manufacturered by Sipeed and comes in a variety of configurations. Today we’re happy to get a close look at the edition with 8GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard memory thanks to Christopher Barnatt with ExplainingComputers in his recent unboxing video over at YouTube.

Overall, Barnatt reported the out-of-the-box experience as generally positive. It comes with Debian pre-installed so very little had to be done in the way of first-time setup beyond connecting all the hardware and necessary peripherals. Although it comes with Debian preloaded, you can customize it entirely from the inside out.

The most glowing praise came after testing the unit for several hours. After observing no crashes, Barnatt said he considered this to be the most stable Linux experience he’s has so far with RISC-V. It has quality graphics processing showing excellent results with 720p video playback albeit less so with 1080p.