Product Hopes for new Rockchip series

[MNtinkerer]

1. Power should be via usb-c
This one does not require too much explanation in my opinion but it is because I and likely many others find it very convenient to power a board off of tiny usb-c power supply than a hefty psu for a 5v or 12v one that takes up a lot of room on a power strip. Plus I can power the board off of the wall socket in my house directly. 

Quite frankly, I'd support the USB Type-C port as power input only as long as the barrel connector remains on the board as another power input.  Having the USB Type-C port as only power input is very, very bad when it comes to building clusters of SBCs.  In that case, you cannot simply get the required voltage and current to each of the boards; instead, you have to use something that talks the USB PD protocol to each of the boards, which is pretty much a red flag.  With the barrel plug in place, all that's needed is simply getting the required voltage and current to each SBC.

3. Expandable ram and sata+pci-e slots on pro models of sbcs and laptops
This is something that I think is in the works, but it would make purchasing one of these over other things a major difference to me. ARM is already transitioning in to Desktop PC territory, why not give us some of the benefits? Especially in the laptop where it would make a huge difference in the lifespan of the machine.

I'm not sure how doable would it be to have DIMM-like expandable memory, but it would be rather cool.  Please, keep in mind that there are actually no industry-wide standards for the types and speed of RAM used with ARM SoCs, but Pine64 could surely make some custom RAM modules, similarly to the already available eMMC modules.  That approach would also reduce the number of SKUs, which might results in a bit lower price of the SBC.

I agree about needing the barrel plug in addition to USB-C, too. In addition to the 4-pin header that has a straight connection to the barrel jack, for applications I am doing, it makes housing several boards within the same enclosure easy. Whether feeding some buck converters to power a bunch of HDDs, interfacing with other circuits to support an automation suite, or just for the convenience that modular designs allow, I don't have to splice and reconfigure the output on a power supply every time I decide to try something new with the RockPro64. On top of that USB-C can be fickle, adding a layer of complexity for a hacker that the barrel jack keeps simple.