I do find HN threads about R-Pi products weigh heavily negative. Yet despite the apparent many major issues that keep getting pointed out R-Pi seems to keep going from strength to strength. Maybe they understand their own customers and their market better than commenters here?
I use them quite a lot for various projects (mosty recently in my e-piano build, where the Pi 5 performs admirably pulling off low-latency audio for my piano VSTs - https://eikehein.com/piano), but while I vibe with the whole "sets a known standard, just works, network effects" advantages, there's some real annoyances that run counter to that.
For example, I'd expect the standard SBC from the Good Ones to have great upstream support, but it turns out a vanilla kernel doesn't support the Pi 5 until perhaps 6.13 due to lacklustre upstreaming efforts, meaning most alternative distros to the patched-up Raspberry Pi OS still don't support the Pi 5 properly. (I ended up managing to bake up a modified Fedora 41 because I wanted the much newer audio stack in said piano, but only with a lot of effort.)
And yes, the dreaded Micro HDMI ports, perhaps the weakest, shoddiest, most prone-to-failure port around ... why they'd put those on the keyboard one (the 500 linked here) is beyond me.
That said, I like a lot of the strategic choices they made with the RP1, and I suspect there will be more interesting HW from them coming down the pipe over time.
HN crowd is solid in some very narrow technical subjects. The more you deviate from those, the worse. It quickly degenerates into some incredibly stupid takes from people that clearly think very highly of themselves, and are unable to do any introspection.
R-Pi offerings are fine. It is supposed to be a cheap computer, and they could get something that costs less than 200 bucks with a monitor. Definitely not bad.
There is market for cheap new things. But this is at price point that for most people in the world it is not anymore "cheap". Around 100 is at level you kinda need to think about it. If it was half of that like Pis used to be back in time I would agree for it to be cheap.
Specially when you start adding up things. Like monitor, mouse, power. The total adds up and somehow it doesn't feel like great deal for most income levels.
Same goes for their other products. Numbers just don't make sense for lot of people.
In a few months there will be second hand RPi 500's on sale, presumably in the range of 40/60 $, so that price should be used for comparison against second-hand products, not the price as new.
There but why not get a cheaper Chromebook or similar device then. I find it extremely hard to believe that there are a lot of people who’d buy a RPi and don’t at least 1 PC already. It’s a device for enthusiasts and such.
N100 box is new and cheaper. 256GB, 16GB RAM HDMI, 2.5 Gb network, case, charger etc. Raspberry Pi is pointless as a "cheap" computer. It's good if you you are building something which requires GPIO.
In some parts of the world, that box is around the same price as a similarly kitted Pi 5 (though with 8GB of RAM), but certainly not cheaper.
Nothing against the N100 as an option, it's a great option for many use cases... but it's at minimum the same price (for a different type of computer), but typically a little more expensive ($150+)
I think if its a one off purchase for use as a general pc or learning tool that doesn't require GPIO something like a second hand thinkcentre or optiplex is probably the best option.
They'll be cheaper than a Pi 5 or Pi 500, plus often come with a keyboard and mouse in addition to the power supply. Sure, they arent going to be quite as power efficient but you're getting significantly more for your money, as well as repurposing second hand kit that might have otherwise ended up in landfill.
GPIO aside I struggle to think of a good reason to buy a Pi 5 for this sort of application, especially when the cheaper second hand alternatives have one thing the pi doesn't - upgradability.
On the N100's, they seem to occasionally get a fair bit cheaper. The GMKtec G3 Mini for example (8GB ram, 256GB SSD) was down to £67.55 on Aliexpress[1] recently for example.
I do like a good Pi but for a lot of applications they just do not make much financial sense anymore.
I’m all for second hand, and have gone in this direction myself for use cases, but you do need some bare minimum level of technical competency, or someone to guide you.
I’ve purchased several SFFs on eBay, and had some experiences with broken hardware.
If you’re purchasing this as learning tool, particular for kids/teenagers, that’s not going to be a great experience.
That’s really the market where something like the Pi 400/500 shines. It’s new, it’s going to work, and the documentation/tutorials are super accessible.
I'm not really referring to broken / questionable hardware here. I'm talking about ex office stock thats been flashed with a fresh copy of Windows and is ready to go out of the box, the same way any new PC would. That's far more accessible than a Pi.
I'd argue you need a lot more technical competency to get a pi running than a fresh out of the box mini pc.
I find that communities like these are far too focused on "TECHNICALLY CORRECT". Like, yeah, there are some things that technically are faster and cheaper than a Raspberry Pi, like that ebay special or that Alibaba-only SBC that's a direct copy of orange pi, or whatever.
But when it comes to things you can't glean from spec sheets, they utterly fail. Like the most important thing: the human experience. Like when it comes to Pi competitors, nothing even comes close to the Pi in having such an ecosystem of learning resources. I personally really appreciate the MagPi magazine as it's a great source of inspiration.
> I do find HN threads about R-Pi products weigh heavily negative.
The HN audience at large is still pissed that RPi chose to prioritize large industrial accounts over hobbyists during the Covid chip shortage era, and what few stock arrived at hobbyist distribution channels quickly got mopped up and re-sold by scalpers.
A few FOSS hardliners are pissed about binary blobs and a lack of in-depth documentation - which is something I do understand, after all RPi-as-an-ecosystem should be one of the larger accounts at Broadcom, so I'd expect the negotiators to finally make some progress on that front in a decade.
And others are pissed because Broadcom messed up Pi 4's PCIe implementation [1], or the RPi-side fuck-up with USB-C resistors.
And the final general group of pissed-off people I'm aware of - which again I support - are annoyed about the situation regarding the CSI and DSI (camera and display, respectively) interfaces. Cameras still are limited to official cameras only, and there's (almost?) no DSI compatible displays which means everyone has to pay HDMI licensing fees despite not needing to.
I too was alienated by RPi's supply and scalping situation – combined with their seeming contempt for the hobbyists, teachers, and students who had actively supported the platform.
Another unfortunate aspect is that Pi 5 has a list price of $50 vs. $35 for the 4 and earlier models (and also requires a more expensive power supply.) The price seems to be heading in the wrong direction.
And how successful the RPi 400 was? not saying it wasn’t but I doubt it was (after all it’s mainly a device for enthusiasts/toy) compared to their other products.
> Maybe
Maybe, maybe not. Certainly not saying they don’t but do you think that’s true about every single company by default?
