I think the Pi units have much higher margins on higher RAM versions plus RAM is expensive, so the 16GB is indeed a bad deal. For my workloads I heavily use all onboard peripeals, GPU and CPU, but need only 1GB RAM. So I get a good deal even compared to Chinese alternatives.
replyThe Pi 5 16GB was regarded a bad deal *at launch* for ~$170 CAD lol! I don't think there are any use cases left that make sense.
replyThe pi is useful because it is well supported. Either buy a x86, or buy pi - anything else and good luck keeping it working. You need to plan on spending your time writing/maintain the drivers to keep your system working.
replyEven for pi, the real value is in industrial companies that don't want to hire their own maintainers.
I have at one point faced the “should I buy x86 instead”, and decided low-power Intel CPUs make it viable. Guess I’m gonna pick the x86.
replyThe latest low power Intel is very nice. ARM beats it for doing nothing, but when getting things done things are more complex.
reply> Even for pi, the real value is in industrial companies that don't want to hire their own maintainers.
replyReminds me of Adobe's history to be honest. They also were big on hooking the young to their ecosystem, including turning more than one blind eye towards piracy, and once they had a captive userbase plus a lack of competition, they enshittified.
you can buy a variety of pi models in the range of $50 to $15, so what?
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