Don't even bother with the N100 anymore, IMO, unless board size is a strict requirement. You can buy i5-12450H and i9-12900H mini PCs in the $200-$400 range on Prime Day/Black Friday.
I agree that the RPi5 doesn't make much sense. NVMe needs to be built in at a minimum, and the specialized PSU requirement is a PITA.
What I take from this is that if I have a project in mind that I want to do right now and it requires a very small computer, then I should not do that project.
Instead, I should wait a few months (or most of a year), triple my budget, and make room for a larger system.
Or go ahead and make whichever choice right now and regret your purchase later, or don't. The keyword was IMO.
Obviously if $200 is tripling your budget then you're leaving some unneeded peripheral out. The N100 probably won't work either as the cheapest one on Amazon is apparently $120.
N100 boxes are available for purchase today (not just sometime in the mysterious future) for less than $100, delivered.
$300 ÷ $100 = 3, hence: Tripling the budget.
(I could have picked the high end of the range, just as you selected the low end, but that would have been disingenuous of me. $300 is right in the middle.)
The range I gave is based on CPU/RAM/SSD specs obviously, so your N100 system should be specced to match.
Here's an i7-11390H/16GB/512GB system you can buy today on Amazon from a somewhat reputable Chinese brand for $170. Its CPU is ~50% faster than a N100 single-threaded and ~80% faster multi-threaded:
A similarly priced system with a much faster CPU will be on sale in 3 months, maybe sooner. Feel free to spec a similar N100 system on Amazon (or Newegg or a similarly reputable vendor with no-questions-asked returns) for much less.
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Don't even bother with the N100 anymore, IMO, unless board size is a strict requirement. You can buy i5-12450H and i9-12900H mini PCs in the $200-$400 range on Prime Day/Black Friday.
I agree that the RPi5 doesn't make much sense. NVMe needs to be built in at a minimum, and the specialized PSU requirement is a PITA.
What I take from this is that if I have a project in mind that I want to do right now and it requires a very small computer, then I should not do that project.
Instead, I should wait a few months (or most of a year), triple my budget, and make room for a larger system.
Or go ahead and make whichever choice right now and regret your purchase later, or don't. The keyword was IMO.
Obviously if $200 is tripling your budget then you're leaving some unneeded peripheral out. The N100 probably won't work either as the cheapest one on Amazon is apparently $120.
The median of the price range listed is $300.
N100 boxes are available for purchase today (not just sometime in the mysterious future) for less than $100, delivered.
$300 ÷ $100 = 3, hence: Tripling the budget.
(I could have picked the high end of the range, just as you selected the low end, but that would have been disingenuous of me. $300 is right in the middle.)
The range I gave is based on CPU/RAM/SSD specs obviously, so your N100 system should be specced to match.
Here's an i7-11390H/16GB/512GB system you can buy today on Amazon from a somewhat reputable Chinese brand for $170. Its CPU is ~50% faster than a N100 single-threaded and ~80% faster multi-threaded:
https://www.amazon.com/ACEMAGIC-11390H-Computer-Desktop-Supp...
A similarly priced system with a much faster CPU will be on sale in 3 months, maybe sooner. Feel free to spec a similar N100 system on Amazon (or Newegg or a similarly reputable vendor with no-questions-asked returns) for much less.
I don't need that shit, though.
I don't need to spend the extra money. I don't need to wait between 3 and 11 months.
I do need a computer today. And if an N100 meets my needs today, then I'm buying one -- today.
Srsly.