The Banana Pi BPI-M7 single board computer is equipped with up to 32GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, and features an M.2 2280 socket for one NVMe SSD, three display interfaces (HDMI, USB-C, MIPI DSI), two camera connectors, dual 2.5GbE, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion.
“More reasons to Avoid the Raspberry Pi”
I didn’t know we even had reasons to avoid it
What if you really hate the fact that The RPi foundation is being hostile against people nowadays with proprietary PCIe connectors, telemetry, requiring a custom flash tool to get SSH and whatnot?
There aren’t really any reasons to avoid it. There are certainly reasons to choose an alternative product, namely the complete unavailability of 4B and 5 boards. My biggest issue so far is that the alternatives offer features that I don’t want, or have a price that’s way too high for a SBC
Straight up some of those single board computers cost so much that I’ve just considered getting an old mini office PC
They’re really capable and can be had for like $100
Yeah, unless you need the GPIO or the lower power consumption of a Pi, mini PCs are better for 90% of the projects people use single board computers for. Plus you usually get upgradable ram, and more-resilient storage.
namely the complete unavailability of 4B and 5 boards
Is unavailability still an issue? My local computer store always has a lot in stock of them in stock these days.
Considering the 5 isn’t even being sold yet, I question the validity of your anecdote. The 3B and 4/4B are still hit or miss as far as stock goes. I just bought a 3B from Digikey and it’s the first I’ve seen them in stock since before COVID though it’s not as if I’ve been checking rpilocator daily for updates.
You may want to have a read at this: https://lemmy.world/comment/5357961. The Pi is becoming the least consumer friendly SBC and a money grab like no other.
