this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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You can get thin clients for much less than that... Better performance if needed, similar power efficiency for similar loads, they sometimes bring storage, power supply and ram and you don't generate more e-waste as these are already being thrown out by many big companies every few years.
The only reason to go for the PI is if you really need the GPIO, the tiny form-factor and even then there are cheaper alternatives with similar or better spevs.
It's all about the idle power and software support.
🌈 The software support! 🌈
Anything that runs on an SBC has a Pi image. Download, write, go. And Pi OS (Debian) for anything else. Or Ubuntu LTS.
Thin clients are just regular x86 boxes, they're miles ahead of every SBC. The only downsides for consumers are slightly bulkier sizes, slightly higher power draw and of course the gpio/Hat ecosystem is not available, but I would argue that for most people that's not really relevant.
Yeah. As someone running a NAS/Jellyfin server of a SBC/USB SSD I would love to pick up an x86 sffpc too properly put everything inside but idle power and quiet aren't easily beat.
Software support olinwouldnt really agree since x86 gives a lot more options than ARM
My RPi 3b pulls 5W, while my thin clients draw about 6-7W on idle, one of them doesn't even have a fan, the other one could easily be modded to lose the fan.
Uhuh, for work we love raspberry PIs as they're small enough to stick behind a wall mounted TV and good enough to run our display apps. All for the low price of £80~. I'd love it if you have viable alternatives.
When I was looking for a pi4 I stumbled upon orange pi, rock pi, banana pi and libre computer. They have models both cheaper and more expensive than the rpi. All depends on the specs you need.
Interesting, do you have examples?
You can buy 7th Gen Intel 4-core with 16GB DDR4 & 128GB SSD for cheaper than a Raspberry Pi 4.
I have both a Pi4 & a ThinkCentre which is significantly more powerful, doesn't take up much more space.
I don't know, I think that might be overstating it a bit. Even the highest cost 8GB Pi 4 model tops out at $75 without accessories but I can only find 2 listings on Ebay at the moment for MFF PCs that can beat that price, also without accessories.
eBay is not where we buy new hardware.
Pi has been ridiculously expensive and hard to get from 2020 to 2023, and we’ve had applications where we’ve been deploying them.
Think we’ve seen cost up to $200 for a complete kit.
You need power, SD-card, a case, and depending on application also a micro HDMI adapter. It all adds up.
Slight difference if you are just upgrading in place, but comparing the unit price of a bare Pi to a computer with everything that you need is not apples to apples.
Wait where are you getting these things new for that price? I'm interested, but the lowest I can find is this. I brought up ebay because it was lowest price I could find, but if they're even cheaper new, I could use one.
No idea where the other guy is getting his Lenovos. We’ve been buying Pi’s because of form factor and GPIO.
We had a fair share of those Lenovos in the office when I started (I think they were around $500 in our config back then), but they’ve all been replaced with laptops now.
In my department we run around with $3000 MacBook Pros, so not very budget minded at all.
Interesting, do you have links?
Not sure where you're from. But here is a random one from ebay . You will find many like it. I got this model with 4gb ram, 256 ssd and power supply for ~80€ on europe, much less then I could pay for any PI4 at the time that came with no case, no psu, no ssd. It idles around 3-4w headless with no peripherals running home assistant. There are other models too ofc. Just have a look around used hardware stores if you have them around your area.