Banana Pi BPI-M8: A $69 Allwinner A733 Pi 5 Alternative

Raspberry Pi pricing keeps giving other board makers an opening, and Banana Pi just stepped through it. The Banana Pi BPI-M8 is a credit card-sized single board computer built around the Allwinner A733, and according to CNX Software it starts at $69 on Banana Pi's own shop. For makers who want a Pi-shaped SBC with fast memory and a built-in NPU, it is an intriguing spec sheet with one big software question attached.

• SoC: Allwinner A733 with dual Cortex-A76 cores up to 2.0GHz, six Cortex-A55 cores up to 1.8GHz and a RISC-V E902 real-time core.
• Memory and AI: 4GB of LPDDR5 and a 3 TOPS NPU on a 12nm process.
• Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, one USB 3.0 port and three USB 2.0 ports.
• Pricing: $69 for the BPI-M8B and $103 for the BPI-M8A on the Banana Pi shop, with AliExpress listings at $73 and $109.

What Are the Banana Pi BPI-M8 Specs?

The board measures 85 x 56mm and weighs 60 grams, so Pi 5 owners will recognize the footprint. The 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible header carries GPIO, UART, SPI, I2C and PWM. Display output runs through HDMI 2.0b at up to 4K60 plus a four-lane MIPI DSI connector, and there are two four-lane MIPI CSI camera connectors.

Graphics come from an Imagination BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.3 and OpenCL 3.0 support. The video block handles 4Kp60 and 8Kp24 H.265 decode, plus 4Kp30 encode. Power arrives over USB-C at 5V/4A, and PoE is available through an optional module.

Two variants set the storage story. The BPI-M8A includes 64GB of eMMC flash, while the cheaper BPI-M8B uses 16MB of SPI NOR flash. CNX lists a microSD slot and a UFS module socket on the spec sheet too, which is a welcome upgrade path for anyone tired of slow cards.

How Does PCIe Work on the BPI-M8?

Instead of an onboard M.2 socket, PCIe comes out through a 16-pin FFC connector, the same general approach the Raspberry Pi 5 uses. You will need an adapter for NVMe storage or other expansion, so factor that into the budget. CNX notes that how PCIe is exposed is one of the main differences among A733 boards like the ArmSoM Sige6, Orange Pi 4 Pro and Radxa Cubie A7A. We looked at a much smaller take on the same chip with the Orange Pi Zero 4.

Is the BPI-M8 a Good Raspberry Pi 5 Alternative?

On hardware and price, it makes a solid case. CNX puts the 4GB Raspberry Pi 5 at a $110 list price, while the $103 BPI-M8A includes 64GB of onboard storage and the $69 model undercuts it by $41. Raw CPU performance is a different comparison, since the Pi 5 has four Cortex-A76 cores to the A733's two big cores, so don't expect it to win multi-threaded workloads.

The area to watch is software. Banana Pi advertises Android, Linux and Armbian support, but CNX found only hardware details and a getting-started guide in the documentation when it checked, with no source code or OS images yet. CNX also describes A733 software progress so far as slower than earlier claims suggested, especially for mainline Linux. Images for other A733 boards may be adaptable, but that is a tinkerer's path rather than a plug-and-play one.

My advice is simple: if you enjoy bringing up new hardware, this is a fun, inexpensive board to experiment with. If you need a stable system for a project this month, wait for official images to appear on the BPI-M8 documentation page first.

For more low-cost boards from the same maker, see the $26 BPI-RT2 router board, or browse our mini computer coverage.

Sources: CNX Software — November 2, 2026; Banana Pi BPI-M8 documentation — accessed November 2, 2026; Banana Pi shop — accessed November 2, 2026.