An x86 mini PC from the likes of Beelink is going to be way better at the computer stuff. Or choose some other microcontroller like an Arduino, or maybe just add GPIO to your PC.
They’re cheap. If you want to play around with another OS or something you don’t have to risk your main computer. You can also run them 24 seven even if your main computer is a laptop that you turn off or move from location to location. The Pi can just sit there. Also great if you’re gonna put it somewhere it might get damaged like outside for a project. It’s something happens you won’t lose too much money.
They are a known quantity. Sure there are lots of little x86 boxes but everyone knows exactly what’s on a Pi 7B++. That means pre-configured images for lots of Linux and BSD flavors and probably other things. Plus you can write your own OS!
Lots of expansion stuff is available too in the form of hats, on top of the built in I/O.
All the above gives it a big community. If you need help with a project or want to find out how to do something there are people and parts ready to help you.
Of course it’s quite efficient. I have a tiny GMKTek computer but it uses quite a bit more power IIRC. Need to run it off a battery or solar power? That’s very useful.
Until the clone boards started to show up wasn’t it also basically the easiest and cheapest way to get a modern ARM computer at all?
I’m not sure it’s a silver bullet for anything. But it’s a decent option for a lot of things especially.
By this I assume you mean “dangle an Arduino off the side”. Other than PI, what PC actually drives its own GPIO?
They used to be able to using parallel ports. When the controller was on the southbridge and accessible via DMA, you could get hard realtime even on Windows using device drivers and interrupts (pre-Vista, which changed the security model). There was software like Mach3 that could control a whole CNC off of a parallel port and lots of hardware companies used Wintel instead of SBCs or rolling their own PCB. San Francisco BART still uses parallel ports to control their trains and they have to hunt down for replacement parts on eBay [1].
Nowadays a PCIe GPIO card is at least a few hundred dollars and you're unlikely to get hard realtime guarantees unless it supports uploading custom firmware. Sharing functionality with the most common printer interface was a boon for PC GPIO but that's gone now.
USB simply doesn’t work like that.
Not sure I see that, aside from during the chip shortage when CM4 in particular were like hen's teeth. Aside from post-release shortages, I've always been able to get whichever model I need, at a non-scalped price, typically with next day delivery.
And a minimum of 5x more expensive, and more like 10x in most cases.
I have several Pis doing various work, some 3Bs, some Zero Ws, some 4B.
The 5 just does not make sense to me and I don't see myself buying it unless the price radically changes.
Plus, the Beelink can be upgraded to 16GB of RAM.
Meanwhile the n100 is like 5x processing power and is natively supported by any software since it’s x86
Most people are buying pi for the form factor - I don’t think I’ve seen an n100 that isn’t more than 3x the size of a pi in a case - and the smaller size ones come with a hefty premium.
It's faster, yes. Also less efficient. But in many tiny builds it's only marginally faster because it has to be thermally constrained. Otherwise you require a larger power supply and bigger fan/heatsink.
Also, some configurations end up slower due to cheap shortcuts manufacturers make in their tiny builds.
The N100 is great, but it's not as great as I think some people think, for all uses and purposes!
N100 have a significantly faster ssd, gpu and faster ram.
You can get Radha x4 for similar size too