I see your point. The problem with old laptops is that they can have quirky or unsupported hardware or unstable power saving firmware. This can be like playing

I see your point. The problem with old laptops is that they can have quirky or unsupported hardware or unstable power saving firmware. This can be like playing russian roulette. The RPI on the other hand has some software that mostly just works. I'm personally not a huge fan of the device, as the sd-cards always dies on me. But as a quick prototyping board they are great.