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A Smaller Version of Raspberry Pi 3 Is Coming Soon (pcworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: A smaller version of the popular Raspberry Pi 3 will go on sale in a few months. Raspberry Pi is developing a new version of its Compute Module, a single-board computer that plugs into specific on-board memory slots. The new Pi will be more like a mini-computer inside a computer, and it won't come with a power supply. The Compute Module will have similar circuitry to that of Raspberry Pi 3, a wildly successful computer that can be a PC replacement. But it will be smaller, with the memory, CPU, and storage embedded tightly on a board. While the Compute Module will have a 64-bit ARM processor like the Pi 3, it won't have Wi-Fi, Eben Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi, said in an interview with IDG News Service. The Compute Module could ship as soon as this quarter, Upton said. It will be priced similar to its predecessor, the 2-year-old Compute Module, available from reseller RS Components for about $24. The older Compute Module is based on the original Raspberry Pi. Like Raspberry Pi 3, the new Compute Module will work with Linux and Microsoft's Windows 10 IoT Core, Upton said. A Compute Module Development Kit, in which the Compute Module can be slotted for testing, may also be sold. The Development Kit could have multiple connectivity and port options, much like the Raspberry Pi 3. Last month, the biggest manufacturer of the Raspberry Pi, Premier Farnell, was acquired by Swiss industrial component supplier Daetwyler Holding AG for roughly $871 million.
I have my Pi3 in a nice little wooden treasure box case, with a Bluetooth keyboard, and a soundcard dongle plus a USB to serial adapter, and am using it to do digital Radio comms with. I'm running mostly Ubuntu Mate - although I also have Raspbian OS on a different MicroSD card. One cool feature lost with the smaller version is with embedded memory, you won't be able to have different MicroSD cards for different OS's. Maybe the smaller computer will give a boost to the W10 IoT OS from Microsoft. I didn't find that too useful
Anyhow, the more Pi, the better.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The cell phone doesn't have general-purpose IO; it can't interface with physical components such as motors, servos, sensors, switches, etc. You mentioned "programming on Android" - if you want to write SOFTWARE you can do that on your computer - your desktop or laptop. The Pi is particularly useful for creating HARDWARE. A great example is in a haunted house - you have motion sensors or light beams to sense when someone rounds a corner and that triggers the mummy to pop up, the strobe lights to flash, etc. That's the Pi's specialty - combining software with the physical world via GPIO. Maybe you're building a DIY 3D printer or CNC machine - you're using software to control motors and things based on various sensors and switches. An Android phone or garage sale computer can't do that so readily.
You mentioned the comparison to a cheap Android phone for more purely software tasks. The cheapest Android phone I found in a quick Google search was on clearance for $17. For $35, the Pi is within $20 of that price point, and has millions of people doing projects with it and documenting how they did it. That cheap cell phone has a lot of unknowns. One real problem I've encountered - phones like to sleep when they're idle. Setting it to stay awake keeps the screen on, which sometimes drains the battery faster than it can be charged. On the phones I tested, I certainly can't leave the GPS running with an active app, the battery will die even with the charger connected. That's one example of many types of problems that pop up when re-purposing hardware that's not designed for tinkering projects. A pi is designed for embedded projects, and with millions of users any problems are well known and any solutions documented. Even if I don't need GPIO, using the standard tinkerer platform, the RPi, is well worth the extra $20.
Some people use the HDMI interface to connect a TV, using it as a media center. Most Android phones don't have HDMI, though some tablets do. It is reasonably well suited to that role.
My current project today with my RPi 3 is a transparent wired ethernet to wifi bridge, a reverse access point. An Android phone doesn't even HAVE a wired ethernet port, but if some device DID have it, why choose some random device that's poorly documented, if at all, when I can use the most common platform, and have the full power of Linux, customized however I want? As you may know, over 95% of the world's fastest supercomputers run Linux, massive numbers of powerful network devices run Linux, and yet it also runs routers with 4MB of storage and 8MB of RAM - it's a very powerful and flexible OS.
For my bridge, I copied the stock Raspbian image to a micro SD card, ran less than a dozen commands, and had a bridge that works better than anything I can buy. The bridges available for sale cost more than the Pi, and they all have some drawback that creates problems for my use case - they put the wired media on a different subnet, a different network, than the wifi it's attached to and they NAT it. That's not what I want. Other, still more expensive options fail to handle the MAC addresses properly. My Pi project can do exactly what I want it to do, at a cost lower than buying a Netgear or Linksys bridge, and I know I can make any changes I desire as my needs change.