As I see it, the value in a pi is that it is balanced. You can get cheaper devices, you can get devices with more GPIO, you can get devices with lower power co

As I see it, the value in a pi is that it is balanced. You can get cheaper devices, you can get devices with more GPIO, you can get devices with lower power consumption, and more powerful devices. The Pi sits in a sweet spot with all of those factors though, things like usb-dongle computers and openwrt friendly routers push all of those nobs one way or the other. Also, maybe I'm weird but I have never liked xbmc regardless of the device; it is just plain shitty. The pi that I'm using as my home server/media player right now I just use with omxplayer. After years of just using mplayer that is much more comfortable to me. Of course I also use my Roku primarily with curl...