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Keeping in mind what the Pi is aimed at, including the price point, it actually has more features and power that one could have dreamt of. When people say it i

Keeping in mind what the Pi is aimed at, including the price point, it actually has more features and power that one could have dreamt of. When people say it is "lacking" something it should really be interpreted as them saying that it is not a good match for their project.

ijb03qv7 8y ago
It is lacking because right now there are better, cheaper alternatives, no matter what your use case is.
- tastroder 8y ago
  There's always cheaper/better but change has a price too. The points the author addresses are absolutely a thing but you get to know those after a few projects. I don't really see an upside of switching out the SBC every year (or whatever the actionable advice is meant to be here) since that's quite literally never a point I want to spend time thinking about and the Pi is good enough (tm) for my use cases. It's not like the common use case for these hobby boards is in critical infrastructure.
- alex_hirner 8y ago
  My use case is working with motion vectors from its GPU through picam [0]. Is there an alternative? [0] https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_array.html#pimotionarray https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_array.ht...
- fock 8y ago
  So, please elaborate and produce those alternatives. I know none which are documented in a way that you can get next to any ARM OS up there without too much hardship. Of course you can get an STM-based µC, but I guess this is something else than a full-blown Linux-machine@40USD.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Odroid is a better alternative these days.
    - entity345 8y ago
      "better" only has meaning if you elaborate for what. Especially since they seem quite a bit more expensive than a Raspberry PI.
    - kingosticks 8y ago
      Can you be more specific? I've had a quick look on their UK site but they seem a lot more expensive (since I'll need a psu). Except for the C2 but is that really stuck on "Ubuntu 16.04 and Android 5.1 Lollipop based on Kernel 3.14 Lts"??! Or just an outdated website? Oh and no WiFi/BLE anyway so that's out.
      - ekianjo 8y ago
        Which UK website? They only have one official website: https://www.hardkernel.com https://www.hardkernel.com C2 stuck on 16.04? I have no idea where you found that. It runs 18.04 currently since last year: https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-c2/os_images/ubuntu/v3.0 https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-c2/os_images/ubuntu/v3.0 And the C2 is not the right one to buy right now. You should rather consider the XU4 https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-xu4/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-xu4/
        kingosticks 8y ago
        https://www.odroid.co.uk/ https://www.odroid.co.uk/ is the first result from duckduckgo. That should answer your 2nd question too. I bought an odroid some years ago (C1 maybe?) and I found quite a lot of things didn't work. I ended up paying quite a lot after the customs people had their way so I'd always go with a local distributor now. I could have returned it if I'd done that too. That xu4 link states it runs 16.04 but maybe that's also out of date info. The cpu performance sounds good but I think we'll have to disregard the pi3 comparison they provide as per the throttling the OP describes. Usb and network performance improvements would certainly be worth it for a NAS system, but then you don't get any sata ports. Gpio wise you've got a non-standard 2mm pitch header and 1.8V. What a pain. For me, the lack audio output and WiFi is a bit annoying. A media centre with a only hdmi1.4 would be a problem for some (you'd also maybe have to go for the slower one without a fan). Also remembering we are comparing a £42 device (I've included the official pi PSU) with a £70 device (+ if we want wifi). So maybe it's better compared against an atom board for those who want to spend a bit more. But an atom gives you sata so if that price comparison is fair (edit: had a quick look, it's not fair), the xu4 isn't that great. Maybe it is the use as a desktop system where the xu4 shines. I'm not convinced it's an obvious choice.

ijb03qv7 8y ago

It is lacking because right now there are better, cheaper alternatives, no matter what your use case is.

tastroder 8y ago
There's always cheaper/better but change has a price too. The points the author addresses are absolutely a thing but you get to know those after a few projects. I don't really see an upside of switching out the SBC every year (or whatever the actionable advice is meant to be here) since that's quite literally never a point I want to spend time thinking about and the Pi is good enough (tm) for my use cases. It's not like the common use case for these hobby boards is in critical infrastructure.
alex_hirner 8y ago
My use case is working with motion vectors from its GPU through picam [0]. Is there an alternative? [0] https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_array.html#pimotionarray https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_array.ht...
fock 8y ago
So, please elaborate and produce those alternatives. I know none which are documented in a way that you can get next to any ARM OS up there without too much hardship. Of course you can get an STM-based µC, but I guess this is something else than a full-blown Linux-machine@40USD.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Odroid is a better alternative these days.
  - entity345 8y ago
    "better" only has meaning if you elaborate for what. Especially since they seem quite a bit more expensive than a Raspberry PI.
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    Can you be more specific? I've had a quick look on their UK site but they seem a lot more expensive (since I'll need a psu). Except for the C2 but is that really stuck on "Ubuntu 16.04 and Android 5.1 Lollipop based on Kernel 3.14 Lts"??! Or just an outdated website? Oh and no WiFi/BLE anyway so that's out.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      Which UK website? They only have one official website: https://www.hardkernel.com https://www.hardkernel.com C2 stuck on 16.04? I have no idea where you found that. It runs 18.04 currently since last year: https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-c2/os_images/ubuntu/v3.0 https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-c2/os_images/ubuntu/v3.0 And the C2 is not the right one to buy right now. You should rather consider the XU4 https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-xu4/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-xu4/
      - kingosticks 8y ago
        https://www.odroid.co.uk/ https://www.odroid.co.uk/ is the first result from duckduckgo. That should answer your 2nd question too. I bought an odroid some years ago (C1 maybe?) and I found quite a lot of things didn't work. I ended up paying quite a lot after the customs people had their way so I'd always go with a local distributor now. I could have returned it if I'd done that too. That xu4 link states it runs 16.04 but maybe that's also out of date info. The cpu performance sounds good but I think we'll have to disregard the pi3 comparison they provide as per the throttling the OP describes. Usb and network performance improvements would certainly be worth it for a NAS system, but then you don't get any sata ports. Gpio wise you've got a non-standard 2mm pitch header and 1.8V. What a pain. For me, the lack audio output and WiFi is a bit annoying. A media centre with a only hdmi1.4 would be a problem for some (you'd also maybe have to go for the slower one without a fan). Also remembering we are comparing a £42 device (I've included the official pi PSU) with a £70 device (+ if we want wifi). So maybe it's better compared against an atom board for those who want to spend a bit more. But an atom gives you sata so if that price comparison is fair (edit: had a quick look, it's not fair), the xu4 isn't that great. Maybe it is the use as a desktop system where the xu4 shines. I'm not convinced it's an obvious choice.