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Where do you live? Just want to get a gage on pricing in your area and shipping costs..
Anything but the rPI series is basically hacked together on kernel level...
Toronto
It's pretty much just the Allwinner chips. While they are cheap they don't provide software level documentation for some chips and leave some features totally undocumented. The people selling them don't care because there are community teams working on it.
It's a pretty shitty situation for the consumer.
Highly suggest Element 14
http://canada.newark.com/raspberry-pi/raspberrypi3-modb-1gb/sbc-raspberry-pi-3-mod-b-1gb-ram/dp/77Y6520
They should sell other boards, so take your pick.
http://www.canadarobotix.com/
http://robotshop.com/ca/en/raspberry-pi-2-model-b.html
I can't find RPI's any cheaper in Canada, you could try Ali Express or something like that.
http://www.banana-pi.org/shop.html
If you've had a look at any of the FriendlyARM stuff they can normally do shipping cheaper if you email them.
Get a chip (nextthingco), it's as cheap as it gets and meets your stated requirements. Otherwise Orange Pi One is probably the next best deal.
I personally like the oDriods by HardKernel
I've got a few devices and put together a table of them with my tests and experiences: http://jmd.cc/devices/
Hopefully that helps.
Anyone know where to buy Orange Pi in Toronto/in Ontario cheaply?
Probably going to be cheaper to get it shipped from China. Never pays to go through resellers for cheap stuff these days.
grapes, i love grapes instead oranges or bananas.
Orange Pi Lite
Big list! I have a chance to pick up 2 odroid U3s for $60 CAD. I know they are discontinued, but what do you think of you odroids?
As long as you don't care about Android (it is provided by default on the eMMc, however is locked down, you can't root it or install Google Play Store) too much, I would suggest the Orange Pi Plus 2E with Armbian (basically Debian but tuned and optimized for ARM boards). It makes a very usable Workstation, has 4x1.2Ghz (they are advertise as 1.6Ghz but with thermal constraints real life usability is 1.2Ghz), 16GB emmc built on, Wifi built on and 2GB of RAM. The Armbain image comes with working GPU acceleration so you can watch full screen 1080p video in X without much trouble (though is still lacking a version of Chromium w/ accel so Youtube is still limited to 360p). It falls right into your budget at US $38.48 shipped (well to US, not sure if Canada has a different cost from China).
If you want to up your budget a bit, the Odroid C2 is a great option. They provide Android (rootable and your able to install Google Play Store) and Ubuntu images which both have full acceleration and Ubuntu even has a working accelerated version of Chromium. It is a bit faster than the Orange Pi series at 4x1.5Ghz, 2GB of ram and if you want eMMc you have to purchase it separate (it is probably about 4-6x as fast as the eMMc on the Orange Pi, you get closer to real SSD speed out of their eMMc). However, with all the bells and whistles the C2 is gonna definently be outside your budget. The c2 with just the case and power cord is $53.83 before shipping.
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
If you have the money, the Odroid-C2 is great. I like the Orange Pi's for cost, but there is a big difference between the software support and build quality.
Aliexpress like everything else. Cheaply and Toronto don't really go in the same sentence, I don't think.
RPi 3 is the best option in Toronto; almost everybody sells it. Resellers who only sell SBC's are quite cheap unlike large retailers. RPi also has much better documentation and a large community.
OrangePi could take a month and a half to get there from China. Its cheap and powerful, but pushing it to the max (it supports 4K @ 30 fps!) it'll overheat. Have to use third party ARM distros, documentation and community virtually non existent.
Comparison:

Gearbest is selling the Rpi3 for 28€ with the code RP3FR: http://www.gearbest.com/raspberry-pi/pp_488334.html?wid=21
They have a flash sale
Coupon gives me $42.17
Sale price is 34.99 ...
28 euro
https://i.imgur.com/cy0BRqk.png
Right, but you're not me..
I guess this is the first time I encounter a benefit of living in the EU.
@Gcat
Use the OrangePi - while it isn't what you call "official", I found the performance on it to generally be better than that of a Raspberry Pi 2.
I got the Raspberry Pi 3 (element14) along with original case, heatsinks and Samsung 32GB EVO+ from Taobao for less than €40.
Time ago I purchased an Orange Pi PC for €15 but it never worked properly, some problem in the power supply circuit.
But the cheapest one was the Roseapple Pi, got it for free and still running next to my UPS.
Orange Pi PC with cheap heatsink and Armbian is extremely capable. Price per processing power, it's tough to beat. I have an ODROID-C1 which is a wonderful little box. Extremely solid and a real performer. Also have a Raspberry Pi 1 model B. Good intro bo.
If you want something cheap ($33 including shipping to US+case+powersupply), hackable (Armbian always has room for development), USB wifi ($3 RTL8188EU), fast with Debian running with ease (run Armbian, trust me), aluminum heat sinks ($6 pack of 3), coming in just about $40USD, Orange Pi PC is your best bet.
This is simply not true. There is a whole non-profit community dedicated to Allwinner ARM boards called linux-sunxi. These guys give of their time freely and constantly push to write the mainline drivers you see slowly making their way into the kernel. You can always stop by #linux-sunxi on freenode or http://linux-sunxi.org and you are always welcome to contribute.
Secondly, as mainlining improves, which it will, you will see more regular distributions, but Linaro and Armbian (Basically Debian compiled for ARM) are available and the guys at Armbian are awesome! Their forum is full of super helpful people and you can even run into two of their main contributors in #linux-sunxi if you run into issues.
While not as big a community as RPi, this doesn't mean they are non-existent and to say they are is to take away everything that those awesome guys in linux-sunxi have spent their own free time working towards.
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
Few interesting sites to peruse before making your decision...
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=8way-arm-sbc&num=1
http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/04/02/low-cost-development-boards-linux-benchmarks-raspberry-pi-vs-banana-pi-vs-orange-pi-vs-odroid/
Orange Pi Plus 2E with Armbian. It comes with 16GB eMMC so won't burn your SD card.