[GRLUG] another Raspberry Pi article

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 8:34 AM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> Re $25 and $35, and earlier item here
> said there are two versions - the differences
> escape me just now.
>
> Just playing devil's advocate, I'll ask
> where's the beef?  By the time you hang
> enough stuff on the board to do anything
> with it there won't be any cost saving to
> speak of.  One can get any number of
> great motherboards for under $100 today.
>
> Just asking.....

Personally, I think the Raspberry Pi is way, way overhyped, but it
does sound like a nice little board.

The beef is:

1) It's very cheap for what it does.
2) It's special-purpose. The feature set suggests it's designed to
make a quick, easy, hobbyist's HTPC. Hardware decoding of h.264 will
make that seamless.
3) It's ARM-based, which means its performance-per-watt is going to
kick any x86-based competitor to the nearest Freecycle group. Low
power consumption is something you really, really want in an HTPC.
4) As a combination of (2) and (3), it's very small.
(5) At $35, nobody's going to complain too much when technology shifts
and the demands of an HTPC outgrow it. It's nearly disposable.

-- 
:wq

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