OrangePi Zero 3W Review: Tiny yet Powerful
3 days ago
- The OrangePi Zero 3W is extremely small yet packs hardware similar to the larger OrangePi 4 Pro, including an Allwinner A733 SoC, up to 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and optional eMMC/UFS storage.
- It requires active cooling; the included custom fan is quiet and effective at preventing throttling under load, keeping temperatures around 70-80°C.
- Power consumption is very low (2-2.5W idle, up to 6.6W under load), making it ideal for a home server.
- Software support has improved: OrangePi released new images with Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute) and recent kernels, easing installation via microSD and a simple command.
- Benchmarks show performance slightly better than OrangePi 4 Pro but a bit slower than Raspberry Pi 5, still in the same class.
- With 4GB RAM, it can run multiple services simultaneously (e.g., PiHole, Jellyfin, Immich, Minecraft server) using external SSD for storage and Docker.
- Availability: $55-106 on AliExpress, $74-128 on Amazon; the 6GB version is recommended as a sweet spot for server use.