jhsrennie Wrote:I think the Raspberry Pi is great, and I was one of those who experienced a frustrating morning trying to order one, but outside the third world why would anyone use one in anger (as opposed to just for fun)?
The difference in cost between a RBPi and a Revo 3700 (in the UK) is about £150. Now that's not a trivial amount, but we're talking about something that's an important part of your life (well, my life anyway :-). The 3700 is **much** more powerful than the RBPi, and both are a lot cheaper than the average LCD TV.
Its pretty pathetic, but that difference for me is too much (even more so if i point out the Pi is a luxury for me at £30), and I would just continue to either do without, or continue doing what I currently do which is move a home server from one room to another as thats where my XBMC resides.
However theres also the issue of needs, if XBMC can play quite happily without complication on a £30 Pi, whats the point of buying a product thats (in comparison) overkill at 5x the price, even if you consider that to be not excessively priced. Its a good price, but its like all these school mums rolling up in Land Rovers, Nissan Pathfinders and whatnot to pick up little Timmy to do the 2 mile round trip through town.
Theres people who need them, and theres people who dont. Your paying a premium to buy them, and a premium to then run them... its easy to argue thats rather wasteful.
I'll hopefully get mine on Monday or thereabouts, and once im done playing with it its eventual use will see it'll being on 24/7, for a couple of hours a day for XBMC, and on avg 1 hours a week for web browsing (cue counter-arguement that thats wasteful :o it is, but it'd be more wasteful with less efficient hardware).
I dont need anything more than that, not for a secondary or light use location, and I suspect from a regular Joe consumer POV, most people buying a Pi wont need it for much more than that. For heavy usage it does make more sense buying a more competent/purpose built device, and thats what makes the Pi special. Regular folks should be able to try things and experiment with very capable hardware without the need for paying too much for it. Some might be able to spend a couple hundred on a fun project which may or may not work, I suspect plenty would get put off by that.