It’s probably the cheapest Raspberry Pi clone on AliExpress, however, beyond the sweet price, there are some curious pitfalls and straightaway concerning features. First of all, despite sharing the same name, Walnut Pi 1B are different boards. The version with 1GB and 2 and more GB of RAM differ not only in RAM size.
1 GB version has H616 CPU and DDR3 RAM, while the 4 GB version has DDR4 RAM and an H618 CPU. So those are basically different boards. I also noticed that the Wi-Fi module on the cheaper one is labeled with random numbers, while on the 4 GB variant it’s properly labeled. Even the color of the PCBs differs a bit.
| Walnut Pi 1B 1GB | Walnut Pi 1B 2GB, 4GB | |
| CPU | Allwinner H616 | Allwinner H618 |
| RAM Type | LPDDR3 | LPDDR4 |
| WiFi Chip | 859* | Quectel FCS950U** |
* – likely AW859A
** – found on 4GB model, might be different, not sure if 2GB version has same one
Other characteristics seem to be common for the two boards – 3 x USB2.0, TF Card Support, USB OTG, HDMI-Compatible/RCA Output, 100-megabit Ethernet port, colored 40-pin GPIO header. It shares the Raspberry Pi 4 form factor, so it fits into any case designed for it. However, you should expect a hole there, because original Raspberry Pi has 4 USB ports, while this one has only three.
Manufacturer built several images for this board – two for Debian Linux (server and XFCE UI one), and one for Android TV. They are available at manufacturer’s GitHub – Walnut Pi · GitHub
For little comparison, I decided to take SBC with the same CPU KickPi K2B and make GeekBench6 benchmark. Graphic contains a mistake, RockPI K2B refers to KickPI K2B.
Verify results: walnutpi-1b – Geekbench, KICKPI K2B – Geekbench
Very different and kind of upsetting numbers for Walnut Pi 1B. Cooling was same, sufficient, as well as the power source. OS was different, however, I don’t think it was the reason. Ubuntu 22.04.5 build was used for KickPi K2B and XFCE Debian build for Walnut Pi 1B.
Conclusion
If you find one for ~20$, which is possible to do, it might be a good board for small server applications. Basically it’s a TV Box hardware in Pi formfactor. For anything else it’s questionable. If you still want to buy it, those boards are officially sold on TaoBao and AliExpress (Clickable). In some countries, using promocodes AliExpress regularly gives away to everyone, it might cost as little as 20$.
This review is also available in a video format.
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