5 ms·
Yep. RPi foundation lost the plot a long time ago. The original RPi was in a league of its own when it launched since nothing like it existed and it was cheap.
by joe_mamba 10mo ago
Yep. RPi foundation lost the plot a long time ago. The original RPi was in a league of its own when it launched since nothing like it existed and it was cheap.
But now if I want some low power linux PC replacement with display output, for the price of the latest RPi 5, I can buy on the used market a ~2018 laptop with a 15W quad core CPU, 8GB RAM, 256 NVME and 1080p IPS display, that's orders of magnitude more capable. And if I want a battery powered embedded ARM device for GPIO over WIFI, I can get an ESP32 clone, that's orders of magnitude cheaper.
Now RPi at sticker price is only good for commercial users since it's still cheaper than the dedicated industrial embedded boards, which I think is the new market the RPI company caters to. I haven't seen any embedded product company that hasn't incorporate RPis in its products they ship, or at least in their lab/dev/testing stage, so if you can sell your entire production stock to industrial users who will pay top dollar, why bother making less money selling to consumers, just thank them for all the fish. Jensen Huang would approve.
- haunter 10mo agoNot just laptops but the used enterprise micro PCs from Dell, HP, and Lenovo. All the same small form factor with very low TDP You can have up to 32 or 64 GB RAMs depending on the CPU, dual or even triple disks if you want a NAS etc.
- joe_mamba 10mo agoyeah, depends on what the used market looks like where you live. Here I see way more laptops for sale for cheap than those enterprise thin clients. And the thin clients when they are for sale tend to have their SSDs ripped out by IT for data security, so then it's a hassle to go out and buy and extra SSD, compared to just buying a used laptop that already comes with display , keyboard, etc.
- Mashimo 10mo agoI have seen quite a few the size of a Mac Studio / Intel Nuc, what are the device called that are the size of a pi?
- qsera 10mo ago>I can buy on the used market a ~2018 laptop with a 15W quad core CPU, 8GB RAM, 256 NVME and 1080p IPS display, that's orders of magnitude more capable.. But it won't be as reliable, mostly motherboards won't last long.
- joe_mamba 10mo agoDon't know what your source is for that, but that's not my experience, and i've had dozens of laptops through my hands due to my hobby. The ticking timebomb lemons with reliability or design issues, will just die in the first 2-4 years like clockwork, but if they've already survived 6+ years without any faults, they'll most likely be reliable from then on as well.
- ForHackernews 10mo agoBathtub curve is extremely common https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
- qsera 10mo ago>survived 6+ years without any faults, they'll most likely be reliable from then on as well Ok, let us say they ll last 4 more years, so 10 years total lifespan. A PI would last a lot longer.
- Mashimo 10mo agoI still use Pis in my 3d printers. Laptop would be too big, and a ESP could not run the software. "China clone" might work, but the nice part of the pi is the images available. It just works™ I'm also currently building a small device with 5" touchscreen that can control a midi fx padle of mine. It's just so easy to find images, code and documentation on how to use the GPIO pins. Might be niche, but that is just what the Pi excels at. It's a board for tinkers and it works.
- joe_mamba 10mo agoYeah sure, for niche use cases it's the best and only choice, but that's why it now commands niche prices ;)
- Mashimo 10mo agoYeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b on release, factoring in inflation (Both in including VAT and local prices) It's 10 bucks more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still half the price that I see intel NUCs for sale. Which of course are way more capable. But still, I don't mind the price that much. I could go with a cheaper alternative, but then AFAIK you might have to fiddle with images, kernel and documentation. For me that is worth 10 bucks.
- joe_mamba 10mo ago>Yeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b on release, factoring in inflation (Both in including VAT and local prices) I don't really care how it compares to past models or inflation to justify its price tag. I was just comparing to to what you can buy on the used market today for the same price and it gets absolutely dunked on in the value proposition by notebooks since the modern full spec RPi is designed to more of a ARM PC than an cheap embedded board. 60 Euros for 2GB and 100 for 8GB models is kind of a ripoff if you don't really need it for a specific niche use case. I think an updated Pi-zero with 2GB RAM and better CPU stripped of other bells and whistles for 30 Euros max, would be amazing value, and more back to the original roots of cheap and simple server/embedded board that made the first pi sell well.
- cyberax 10mo agoRPi will still have lower power consumption and is far more compact. And mechanically reliable. I'm in the market to replace my aging Intel NUCs, but RPi is still cheaper.
- noodlesUK 10mo agoI agree completely - the NUC segment has a gaping hole post 2023, and faster raspberry pis can probably fill a lot of it especially for small scale commercial stuff.
- nirav72 10mo ago>the NUC segment has a gaping hole post 2023 There are dozens and dozens of NUC style / form factor machines available these days. Especially cheap ones from China. Not sure what you mean by gaping hole post 2023. I'm running 3 of them with N97 and N150 Cpus. All bought within the last 18 months.
- noodlesUK 10mo agoThere are very few which are suitable for integration into other products - I currently build a scientific instrument that needs a fairly powerful SBC to run. Intel NUCs were well supported and documented: all of their firmware was updatable on linux without any issues, they had data sheets with power specs so you could run them off DC predictably, and you could buy boards without a case. There are plenty of small NUC shaped mini-PCs but few that are suitable for integration (at the price point intel was at). Cheap Chinese mini PCs just aren't well documented and don't have predictable supply.
- joe_mamba 10mo ago> And mechanically reliable. What moving parts do competitors have to be less mechanically reliable? In fact, a NUC or used laptop would be even more reliable since you can replace NVME storage and RAM sticks. If your RPI ram goes bad you're shit out of luck. >RPi will still have lower power consumption and is far more compact. Not that big of on an issue in most home user cases as a home server, emulator or PC replacement. For industrial users where space, power usage and heat is limited, definitely. >I'm in the market to replace my aging Intel NUCs, but RPi is still cheaper. Cheaper if you ignore much lower performance and versatility vs a X86_X64 NUC as a home server.
- u8080 10mo agoThere are also N100/N150 SBC offers which are superior to RPi
- systemtest 10mo agoIn The Netherlands the first generation RPi was only sold to users with a Chambers of Commerce registration, I figured this was always the typical end user for it. Like schools, universities, prototyping for companies. Was the RPi in the rest of the world targeted towards home users? * https://tweakers.net/nieuws/80350/verkoop-goedkoop-arm-systeem-raspberry-pi-is-gestart.html* https://tweakers.net/nieuws/80350/verkoop-goedkoop-arm-syste...
- firesteelrain 10mo agoYes, anyone can buy it.
- microtonal 10mo agoWhat? I ordered the original Pi in May 2012 from Farnell/Element14 without a Chamber of Commerce registration (KvK nummer). A couple of my colleagues did too.
- tirant 10mo agoSame here. Also bought one in NL back then without issues.
- systemtest 10mo agoThat was only possible with a KvK registration back then. They changed it after a while so that end consumers could buy one directly.
- systemtest 10mo agoYes they changed it after a while so people without a CoC/KvK could also purchase them. But initially only companies and institutions could buy them.
- pipes 10mo agoI'd love to buy a 500+ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-500-plus/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-500-plus/ I can't justify it though as I've no use for it. However I think it is way closer to their original vision than anything else, i.e. It is a lot like the 1980s computers, the magic they were trying to capture.
- theshrike79 10mo agoI love the idea, but the price/power ratio is just a teeeny bit on the expensive side for me. For 100€ that would be something I'd buy for every niece and nephew to play with. For 200€ it's not even for me, I'd rather buy something like the uConsole RPI-CM4: https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/uconsole-kit-rpi-cm4-lite https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/uconsole-kit-rpi-cm...
- patjensen 10mo agoClockwork Pi experience with the CM4 is not good. 10 months to ship. Horrible Wifi performance, can't hold a link, and it only has around 50 minutes of battery life. I regret my purchase and it's sitting in my rack next to a bunch of old ham radios.
- theshrike79 10mo agoIt’s still more up my alley than the pi 500
- M95D 10mo agoSell it on ebay to one of those people that have to wait 10 months, instead of letting it rot on a shelf?
- theshrike79 10mo agoI had just gotten into Arduinos when the first Raspberry Pi came out. I noticed I can do 90% of the stuff I'd use an Arduino for with a RPi, except I had the full power of an internet connected Linux machine available. The Arduinos are still collecting dust somewhere =) But now we have the ESP32 filling the same niche along with the Pi Zero W, so I don't really understand the purpose of RPi 4 and 5. They're not cheap compared to the price nor very powerful in any measure. You don't even need a full laptop, any Chinese miniPC will blow the RPi5 out of the water AND some of them have expandable storage+RAM, while also having 5-20x more CPU/GPU oomph. They do consume a few watts more power, so there _might_ be a niche for the Raspberry Pi, but it's not a big one.
- theodric 10mo agoYou don't buy the Pi for its price: performance as a desktop replacement, you buy it for the incredible stability of the platform as a target, the support, and the addon ecosystem. If you want to screw around with taking a motherboard out of a laptop, go right ahead. €160 for a 16GB Pi5 that I know for sure will be available, replaceable, and supported for the next decade is more than worth the small investment.
- pibaker 10mo ago> I don't really understand the purpose of RPi 4 and 5. They're not cheap compared to the price nor very powerful in any measure. They are good for commercial installations like smart displays in stores (think big screens with menus behind fast food counters) and information kiosks. The extra HDMI port lets you drive two screens with one pi and the extra processing power keeps the UI smooth on high resolution. They also have hardware acceleration video decoding for shops wishing to play hi res promo videos and hobbyists building media terminals. Cost is not a major concern here because the installation volume is low and there are far bigger expenses anyway. Just take a look at how much commercial displays are. The Pi company’s future supply guarantee is also nice because you know that within a given number of years if something breaks or you need another screen, you can just buy another identical pi and be done with it. Good luck sourcing a Chinese mini pc with compatible footprints, port orientations etc five years down the road.
- worldsavior 10mo agoRPi supporting Linux is already a big benefit. Using a laptop with a battery isn't very convenient and dangerous (always being charged).
- knowitnone3 10mo agothen remove the battery?