I’ve got to admit—at first glance, it’s a beauty. Sleek, professional, and it looks like the Ferrari of MCUs and SBCs rolled into one.
But once you lift the hood, it’s more like a Ferrari running a VW Beetle engine.
I actually went so far as to wipe my Linux distro and crawl back to Windows 11, hoping that would make Arduino App Lab behave. No luck. After a completely fresh install, the app still refused to cooperate.
So I turned to the built-in Linux OS on the SBC side—and while it technically worked, it ran slower than a decade-old Raspberry Pi 2B trying to mine Bitcoin.
After an hour of tinkering, my $150 “hybrid development powerhouse” became a $40 LED heart nightlight on my desk.
My advice: wait. Arduino and Qualcomm clearly tried to launch a flagship too fast. Right now, it feels like the spiritual successor to Windows 8—polished on the outside, half-baked underneath.
The software doesn’t properly run on Windows or Linux.
The hardware struggles to run its own built-in tools.
There are no compatible JMISC or JMEDIA shields yet, meaning the expansion ecosystem is basically vaporware for now.
I really wanted to love this board—but for now, it’s a prototype wearing a tuxedo.
