Banana Pi has put the BPI-M8 on sale, a credit card-sized single-board computer built around the Allwinner A733 and pitched as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 5. CNX Software covered it on 2 November 2026. It comes in two versions: the BPI-M8A with 64GB of eMMC storage and the BPI-M8B with 16MB of SPI NOR flash. In the Banana Pi shop they cost $103 and $69, and on AliExpress $109 and $73.

What is on the board

The A733 is a 12 nm chip with two Cortex-A76 cores at up to 2.0 GHz, six Cortex-A55 cores at up to 1.8 GHz and a small RISC-V E902 core for real-time tasks. It adds an Imagination BXM-4-64 GPU and a 3 TOPS NPU. Both variants have 4GB of LPDDR5. The rest of the board:

  • storage: eMMC from 8GB to 128GB (64GB by default), a microSD slot, optional 16MB SPI flash and a socket for a UFS module,
  • display and camera: HDMI 2.0b up to 4K at 60 Hz, a 4-lane MIPI DSI connector and two 4-lane MIPI CSI camera connectors,
  • network: Gigabit Ethernet with optional PoE through a separate module, plus Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 with an external antenna,
  • USB: one USB 3.0 port, three USB 2.0 ports and a USB-C port used for power (5V/4A) and OTG,
  • expansion: a 40-pin header compatible with the Raspberry Pi layout and a 16-pin FFC connector for PCIe,
  • extras: an RTC battery connector, a PWM fan header and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The board measures 85 x 56 mm and weighs 60 grams. PCIe comes out on a ribbon connector rather than an M.2 slot, so an NVMe drive needs an adapter board, the same approach as on the Pi 5.

The software is the catch

Banana Pi lists Android, Linux, Armbian and Buildroot as supported. When CNX checked the documentation there were no OS images and no source code, only a getting started guide and hardware details. CNX also says software support for the A733 has progressed more slowly than earlier announcements suggested, especially for mainline Linux. Images made for other A733 boards may be adaptable.

For a home automation server this matters more than the spec sheet. Home Assistant OS and most Docker-based setups depend on a maintained kernel and regular updates, and on a Raspberry Pi that support has been there for years. On a new Allwinner board you are relying on the vendor or the Armbian community to deliver it.

Price against the competition

BPI-M8 is not the first A733 board. CNX names the ArmSoM Sige6, Orange Pi 4 Pro and Radxa Cubie A7A as the closest rivals. Raspberry Pi 5 4GB has an MSRP of $110 according to CNX, so the $69 BPI-M8B costs noticeably less. CNX's write-up appeared on the day Raspberry Pi raised the price of its 16GB boards, but the BPI-M8 is only available with 4GB, so for heavier jobs it is not a direct replacement.