For embedded computing, the thing that makes a board nice to work with is good documentation (board schematics and full datasheets/reference manuals), access to

For embedded computing, the thing that makes a board nice to work with is good documentation (board schematics and full datasheets/reference manuals), access to the hardware, and consistent behavior. In the $20-$200 range, there's lots of choices with more power than an Arduino. I understand there's excitement about Raspberry Pi because it's particular performance is closer to what ~$200 range boards were delivering for Raspberry's @25/$35. That's really a very nice achievement, but I'm cautious to see what degree of access to hardware will be possible over time. It might be well worth an extra cost, or giving up some performance if I'm getting additional time to do cool stuff vs. spending time reverse engineering capability that could have been accessed by reading datasheets.