The concept is sound; essentially it's a newer, cheaper Raspberry Pi competitor. You'll need to read some of the web coverage of it and its maker and decide for yourself if it is worth your money. But it's not a $9 portable computer, it's a $9 populated mainboard that you have to plug $50-$100 worth of stuff into to get a portable computer. But, that also means you can leave off the $100-$200 worth of stuff you can do without.
One important point is that not all the hardware is 'open'. The Allwinner A13's graphics core is not open-source friendly, and you'll be dependant on attempts to reverse engineer it. So it doesn't compare well to the Raspberry Pi there.
Meh. I've ordered one only because I know some customers will have them and demand help connecting our stuff to them. Other than that, meh.
I'm sure they'll sell a bunch, because cheap. But really there's nothing new here. Computers of this caliber are already practically free. Maybe it's $9, maybe it's $35, whatever, it's already crossed the "price of a fancy pizza that you'll just crap out the next day" threshold. I've got Raspberry Pis and Arduinos falling out my ass.
Also, a year before they ship these. With tech, a lot can happen in a year, and I'd be entirely not surprised if they were surpassed in price and/or performance before then. I go to trade shows and they hand out boards with this much oomph.
If they were using this toward something cool like the OLPC buy one / give one thing, I'd be more interested, but as it is they just seem to be selling disposable crap to privileged first-world kids.
For all that, I might as well get an Arduino Mega when I can afford one, just because I'm familiar with how to use it. But a Pi wouldn't be bad either.
Comments 6
Reply
Reply
Reply
I'm sure they'll sell a bunch, because cheap. But really there's nothing new here. Computers of this caliber are already practically free. Maybe it's $9, maybe it's $35, whatever, it's already crossed the "price of a fancy pizza that you'll just crap out the next day" threshold. I've got Raspberry Pis and Arduinos falling out my ass.
Also, a year before they ship these. With tech, a lot can happen in a year, and I'd be entirely not surprised if they were surpassed in price and/or performance before then. I go to trade shows and they hand out boards with this much oomph.
If they were using this toward something cool like the OLPC buy one / give one thing, I'd be more interested, but as it is they just seem to be selling disposable crap to privileged first-world kids.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment