
When the Raspberry Pi first came out, it was appealing to think of it as an ultra-inexpensive computer for your desktop (perhaps as a very secondary unit) or to play media on your TV. Note: this wasn't the intent of the Raspberry Pi designers. They wanted a totally hackable, cheap, simple (as possible) computer to encourage kids to dive into computing. They fondly remembered they youth spent hacking and mastering BBC Micro and other home/educational computers. There was little competition at the price point of the Raspberry Pi. But it wasn't powerful enough for a comfortable desktop (for most people). Since then, a few things happened: - a bunch of new SBCs inspired by the Pi have been released. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages compared with Raspberry Pi models. None has the depth of support of the Raspberry Pi. - Raspberry Pi models improved a lot but the price crept up. Note: older models are still available at roughly original prices. - streaming media players were introduced at RP prices. They play better with the many forms of DRM that infest the services. Oh, and new TV sets include embedded streaming media players. (This bothers me on a philosophical level.) - tiny x86 boxes have become a lot better and cheaper My current opinions: - instead of a desktop computer, consider a laptop. That market is much larger and the competition has produced some quite good option. - for desktop computers, x86 seems to be a more practical choice. At the low-end, I'd probably pick one based on an Intel N100. I'd select a brand like Bee-Link or models from a similar tier of Chinese brands. I actually want more performance on my desktop so I currently use a much more powerful Bee-Link Mini PC (a SER7). - for set-top boxes, first I'd get a dedicated streaming device. If I also felt the need for a computer, I'd pick an N100 box. We do this (except our mini PCs are much older). - Raspberry Pi computers are still a great choice for learning and for embedding into projects. Much more fun than x86. Note: all of these things run or can run Linux. Except for the Apple streamers.