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Lattepanda great device... but narrow target group?

userHead papajo 2020-05-19 03:54:12 2087 Views0 Replies
So I saw several videos with Lattepandas being used with a GPU such as this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmqlDJTL5o

But I really don't get it

I mean it makes for a wonderful small formfactor HTPC and or sleeper gaming rig/console alternative but the price prohibits that... I mean at about 500$ you can buy a full fledged gaming rig that would destroy the lattepanda in any metric and could still be relative small.

And this got me thinking... who is lattepanda for?

Any category X/replacement (e.g desktop replacement, or dedicated NAS/firewall or what not) simply doesnt make sense because of the cost to performance ratio.

For Arduino DIY hobbyists it again doesnt make sense because despite it being versatile again the price is a huge let down because especially in this area the LP has the performance advantage compared to competitive SoCs but the thing is that for such projects more often than not (if not always) you do not need more horse power than a lets say raspberry Pi which costs again significantly less...

And whatever application I can think of that needs the extra horse power simply can be done by using computer hardware which will end up costing the same or cheaper and giving more performance than LP ..

So what am I missing...


I mean like the guy in the video I pasted above.. its cool to do what he does... but isnt like spending 500$ just to say that you did it with a LP pointless? I mean if you actually want to make a small gaming rig you can do it either better at the same price or cheaper and still comparable... so is LP just a tax to say you have a LP ?

TLDR
In other words give me a usecase/project that involves a lattepanda which cant be done by a cheaper SoC board or by PC hardware/laptops/handheld device better at the same price.
/TLDR

I cant think of a single one that's why I believe that if they could sell it at e.g 200$ it would sell like crazy because at that price-point I can think of several dozens of usecases where it actually would make sense to go with a board like that instead of computer hardware.