Well, Arduino UNO is well known to be the most popular Arduino board, we agreed. There are a few reasons why Arduino UNO is so popular:

• It evolve from the 1st Arduino board, which have been around since 2004 (begin)
• It is matured as many has contributed to the ecosystem, the library, the examples
• There are tones of project using Arduino UNO as controller
• Shields are designed base on Arduino UNO mechanically, electronic and libraries.

Now, this is a low-cost version of Arduino UNO compatible, using CH340 as USB to UART chip, you have more reasons kick start the digital making. And this UNO compatible board is fully compatible with Arduino UNO R3, yes R3. Basically, the changes that you might notice is the CH340 driver, which you can download and install from here: Window MAC OS, Linux (pre-installed). Other than that, everything is compatible, the shields and the sketches.

Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board and a development environment that implements the Processing/Wiring language. Arduino can be used to develop stand-alone interactive objects or can be connected to software on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP). The open-source IDE can be downloaded for free (currently support Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux).

Specification/Features:

• Microcontroller: ATmega328P
• Operating Voltage: 5VDC
• Input Voltage (recommended): 7-12V through DC jack
• Input Voltage (limits): 6-20V through DC jack
• Digital I/O Pins: 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
• Analog Input Pins: 6
• DC Current per I/O Pin: 40 mA
• DC Current for 3.3V Pin: 50 mA
• Flash Memory: 32 KB of which 1 KB used by bootloader
• SRAM: 2 KB
• EEPROM: 1 KB
• Clock Speed: 16 MHz
• CH340 as USB to UART IC
• USB B type socket for USB power and interface