Is Banana Pi a "Clone" of Raspberry Pi?

Many bloggers and forums are talking about Banana Pi is competing Raspberry Pi. Even more, some subjects of blog post said Banana Pi is a "Clone" of Raspberry Pi board.

By my viewpoint, this is not a simple "Clone" case , but Banana Pi could have more capability than Raspberry Pi. The points are as below.

1. The main SoC chip is different. Raspberry Pi has Broadcom ARM11 core, Banana Pi has Allwinner ARM Cortex-A7 dual cores. The ARM architecture makes the major differences. Suppose Banana Pi could have more features enabling by ARM v7 architecture and compatible to run applications on ARMv6.

2. The physical size of both Pi boards are slightly different. Be careful! Current box of Raspberry Pi can NOT fit with Banana Pi.

3. The hardware components of Banana Pi are added or changed than Raspberry Pi obviously. For example, Banana Pi have on-board micphone in, SATA connector, IR receiver, OTG connector, power switch, reset switch. Those components are not available on Raspberry Pi.

4. The connectors of LCD LVDS interface and Camera interface on Banana Pi are different to Raspberry Pi. That means current Raspberry Pi camera module can NOT apply onto Banana Pi. In addition, Banana Pi may have chance to connect external LVDS display which Raspberry Pi never enable its DSI connector.

In summary, Banana Pi have more hardware-wise capability than Raspberry Pi. Banana Pi guys also need to pay some time to porting different OS distribution based on Allwinner SoC. It is not a clone of Raspberry obviously by my viewpoints. However, Banana Pi has less technical support and less documentation for early users. Believe that may take longer time to be wide adapted.