Banana Pi has already launched several Single Board Computers that were proposed as valid alternatives to the popular Raspberry Pi product series. Recently, the company unveiled its new BPI-PicoW-S3 which, as the name itself suggests, is a micro controller with a form factor similar to the popular Raspberry Pi Pico.
The device, however, it is even smaller than its direct rival and integrates a 240MHz dual-Core ESP32-S3 Tensilica LX chip with vector instruction support, particularly useful for AI and signal processing, coupled with 512KB of RAM, 2MB of flash , Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth 5LE (enabling long-range transmission with a maximum speed of 2Mb / s). There are also 44 programmable GPIOs, although only 27 are available on the pinout, identical to the Raspberry Pi Pico, while 14 can be used via capacitive touch input.
Banana Pi PicoW is already available on AliExpress at a price of 7.13 euros, to which you must add the shipping costs, with delivery scheduled for mid-October.