In 2024, there are a lot of different quality choices when it comes to SBCs, but the Raspberry Pi has still managed to remain quite dominant in the space, thanks to its value proposition that brings together great performance with a relatively affordable price. With that said, if you're looking to go for something a little different and want the most power you can pack into a compact board, then the newly released LattePanda Mu might be right up your alley.

If you've never heard of LattePanda, the brand has been around for quite some time, and it has always relied on Intel chips to bring some of the most powerful boards to market. So it comes as no surprise that its latest SBC (via Tom's Hardware) is packing an Intel N100 quad-core processor that's paired with 8GB RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. As you can imagine, this board is quite the performer, and the company shares that it should be two times as powerful as the Raspberry Pi 5.

Lots of power at a cost

Despite all of this power, the card is quite compact, and light on power usage with a TDP that can range from 6W to 35W. If you're looking to expand the experience, you can also make use of external boards to build your ideal setup. On the main board, you're going to get support for a variety of different pins like HDMI, DisplayPort, USB, PCIe, SATA, and plenty of GPIOs.

What's great is that a lite carrier board is already available, making expansion of the LattePanda quite seamless. Of course, you're going to have a wide selection of operating systems to choose from when using this SBC, with support for Windows 11, Windows 10, and Linux. When it comes to price, you're looking at a introductory offer that will include the LattePanda, lite carrier board, and active cooler for $149.

Although that may sound like a lot, that's just the introductory price for the kit, and once the offer expires, the combo kit will be priced at an eye-watering $190. If you're looking for just the board, you can pick it up for a discounted price of $99, which is going to be a bit more manageable when it comes to price.