Monday, November 22, 2021

Not That I Really Need It, But It Does look Like a Reasonably Good Deal

 My Raspberry Pi 4B "Extreme" CanKit PC came with 8Gb of RAM and a 128Gb SD card for storage. It sports a 1.5GHz 64-bit quad-core Arm CPU, four USB ports, and Ethernet port, and two HDMI ports. I run Raspbian (a Debian-based Linux distro) on it. I paid $141.99 for it, but I see that it currently goes for $159 (not an affiliate link).

The Pantera Pico PC (not an affiliate link) runs $159 for the 4Gb model or $189 with 8Gb as "super early bird" support perks on IndieGoGo. Positive differences (I'm looking at the 8Gb model):

  • An Intel Celeron J4125 Quad Core 2.7Ghz CPU -- faster, and x86 instead of Arm
  • A 256Gb SSD instead of just SD card storage (it does have an SD slot too, though)
Negative differences:

  • Only one HDMI out port instead of two (I run dual monitors and dual ports means I don't have to figure out a workaround, like a USB-to-HDMI adapter or whatever)
  • No Ethernet port (both machines have dual-band wi-fi, but I'm like two feet away from my router so I just plug in)
Other than that, pretty similar -- small form factor, four USB ports (I also use a hub), etc.

I feel no need to "upgrade" personally. I don't store much on board so that big SD card is plenty, and the slower CPU doesn't drag much given the things I do. But if you're looking for something that will run Windoze and supports bigger storage (you CAN put up to a terabtyte SSD in there), it looks like a pretty good deal.

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