utilite ARM9 system review

[Pete Wright]

hey guys - this is a followup to my previous post regarding purchasing
one of these Utilite ARM9 box:

http://utilite-computer.com/web/utilite-models

so i got one of these bad boys around the new years and have had a
little bit of time to hack on it.  the tl;dr synopsis: don't get one.

i was hopeful that this was going to be a good platform to hack on since
they seemed pretty open on their website and boast support for both
android and ubuntu linux systems.  unfortunately the hardware is pretty
suspect and i have been unable to even flash the system with a microSD card.

the box seems to run linux pretty good, although since the entire thing
locks up when you attempt to boot with a microSD card(1) it makes things
pretty difficult to hack on.  oh yea..they also don't support booting
from USB view their u-boot environment...and the network implementation
is pretty crappy in the uboot environment as well.

i'm going to keep hacking on this guy, and am hoping that there is a
magical microSD card that will work on this box (other have reported
this issue as well).  but a word of caution - if you are looking to
purchase a ARM platform to hack on i'd suggest looking elsewhere.

-pete


(1) oddly enough i can boot, enter the u-boot prompt, insert a microSD
and read from it.  but if i power on the system with a microSD installed
it becomes totally unresponsive.  still waiting on feedback from support
on that.

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
twitter => @nomadlogicLA