The USP of the PI
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| gary_newell Jul 16, 2013 3:52 AM EDT |
There are lots of competitors to the Raspberry PI but the Raspberry PI's unique selling point is the price. Every dollar or pound added to the price tag for one of these competitors takes it away from the Raspberry PI market. I expect a new Raspberry PI model to come out in the not too distant future and it will be a bit beefier but I expect the price point to stay about the same. I think they will address the shortcomings of the PI which came about because they had no idea that it would take off in the way it has. |
| jdixon Jul 16, 2013 6:01 AM EDT |
Yeah. Don't you just love all these self proclaimed "competitors" who cost over twice as much. They seems to have a very poor grasp of what the term competition means. It'd be like me calling myself a competitor to Usain Bolt because I can run the 100m in 25 seconds. |
| flufferbeer Jul 17, 2013 1:27 AM EDT |
+1 to both of you above. Seems to me that each new Pi competing device has some sort of a GIMMICK that the competitor invariably justifies the new device's cost markup. This Utilite's gimmick is really several gimmicks; the device's container, the ARM Cortex-A9 processor running up to speeds of 1.2GHz, the possibility of holding up to 4GBs of Double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory DDR3 RAM, yada yada yada.... It also seems to me that you almost HAVE to put down at least double-your-money -- compared to the cost of just the bare Utilite itself -- for the Utilite's various add-ons! Maybe it's much better to just ignore the competitors' hypes for their small devices and just stick with doing really nifty things with SEVERAL Pi devices instead, for less than the cost of ONE of the fully-fitted Pi competitors. 2c |
| BernardSwiss Jul 17, 2013 2:35 AM EDT |
But can it run with open video and networking drivers? (I'm hearing that there's a lot of closed/proprietary firmware drivers involved) |
| CFWhitman Jul 17, 2013 9:56 AM EDT |
Just to be clear, Compulab, the makers of the Utilite, never claimed it was a competitor for the Raspberry Pi. That's just Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' interpretation of the situation. Compulab says that this is a replacement for its old Trim Slice (ARM based) product. Trim Slice was a fairly nice product when it came out, and this looks pretty interesting as well. This may even end up on my list of possible replacements for my current set-top box, which is a bit underpowered for the Android that's running on it. I'll have to make evaluations about price/performance ratio. Of course proprietary drivers and whether they get updates for Linux are also of concern, but for the moment that seems par for the course with ARM. I'd really love to see some ARM SoC's with plenty of power and completely open GPU drivers, but that doesn't seem to be available currently. |
| jdixon Jul 17, 2013 10:50 AM EDT |
> Just to be clear, Compulab, the makers of the Utilite, never claimed it was a competitor for the Raspberry Pi. That's just Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' interpretation of the situation. A valid point. In this case it's the journalist who makes the competitor claim, not the manufacturer. I stand corrected. |
| Jeff91 Jul 17, 2013 11:02 AM EDT |
People arguing the price point of the RPI is it's best selling point are ignorant of the MK802. It is faster and cheaper than the RPI once you factor in the cost of extras the RPI needs to be used (power supply and such). ~Jeff |
| jdixon Jul 17, 2013 12:31 PM EDT |
> People arguing the price point of the RPI is it's best selling point are ignorant of the MK802. Why? Price is it's best selling point. That fact that something else is even cheaper doesn't change that. But yes, most people don't know about the MK802. |
| gus3 Jul 17, 2013 2:20 PM EDT |
The MK802 doesn't meet one of the design goals of the RPi, namely exposing GPIO, SPI, and I2C. The MK802 has only HDMI, USB (micro and standard), and an SD slot. Not exactly what I'd call an experimenter's device. |
| Jeff91 Jul 17, 2013 4:54 PM EDT |
Never said it did all those things GUS3. I was simply speaking to the price point VS speed comparison. ~Jeff |
| CFWhitman Jul 18, 2013 8:52 AM EDT |
Really it seems to me that the same extras you need for the Raspberry Pi, you also need for the MK802, so I don't see where it has much advantage in that way. I know the prices of an MK802 are dipping really low right now, but are they still manufacturing it? I have hardware based on the same SoC as the MK802, and it's not exactly peppy running Android (though it does great with video once you get it going). Last I knew, video drivers that you could get for regular Linux with that SoC weren't very good, though I'm sure the general responsiveness of the system under Linux is much better than under Android (I've been meaning to prepare a Linux SD card, but haven't done it yet). It's also my understanding that there can be heat issues with the MK802 package. It's much more powerful hardware than the Raspberry Pi, but from a practical standpoint it has its downsides. That hardware doesn't make me feel like my Raspberry Pi was a ripoff or anything. |
| Jeff91 Jul 18, 2013 9:57 AM EDT |
Quoting:Really it seems to me that the same extras you need for the Raspberry Pi, you also need for the MK802 Not true. The MK802 comes with a power supply and it has a case by default (instead of being a raw board). ~Jeff |
| CFWhitman Jul 18, 2013 10:37 AM EDT |
I didn't realize that the MK802 came with an adapter. Still, I think that the inclusion of Wi-Fi is a more instrumental advantage for that hardware. Power adapters for the Raspberry Pi could be lying around from an old phone or purchased for about $5 (US). Most likely, though, you're going to want a powered USB hub for a Raspberry Pi, and you can use that to power the Pi as well. You're less likely to need a powered USB hub for an MK802. The Raspberry Pi does have a better reputation for reliability, however, and is much more hacker friendly than an MK802. The inclusion of the power adapter for an MK802 still doesn't make me feel like the Raspberry Pi isn't worth it. In actuality I generally think of them as different devices for different purposes (though there are some possible applications they have in common). |
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