The Celeron processor in this system is very slow by current standards. At best it’s good for very basic tasks.
Should have very low power consumption, though — probably not a bad Raspberry Pi alternative for things that need to be “always on.”
The pi offers better performance.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2884vs4297/Intel-Celeron-N3010-vs-BCM2711
These do fine as a thin client, but as a general computer, having patience will be necessary.
(Note that I am not staff. I just volunteer to help out on the forums.)
I’m pretty skeptical of those numbers. I’d concede they should be close, but I think results might be getting skewed by small sample size or something.
But even if we say the Pi 4 has the edge in CPU, this offers far more RAM (plus the ability to upgrade it), a proper drive interface, more expansion options, etc.
Perhaps more the point, I can actually buy this right now for $89 instead of paying a scalper double the retail on a Pi 4.
So I’d say there’s still value in it unless you’ve already got a Pi ready and waiting – but it’s no daily driver either.
Oops, guess I should have spent a couple min googling before placing the order. Seems these regularly sell on eBay for more like $30-$40 and ones with the better CPUs for around $60. It’ll come maxed out with a single 8GB stick of ram but the SSD should be upgradable. Assuming it still has the 3.5” hdd tray and screws then a second drive can also be added - and at this price and the “Grade A” rating I’ll be pissed if it’s missing internals.
Guess it’s time to research Linux distros that work well with low power dual core CPUs. Possibly one that just boots into Kodi and make it a media center? The integrated GPU has hardware h.264 decoding but not h.265 so my hopes aren’t too high especially for anything over 720p. So a dedicated PiHole and Trilium server might be a better fit.