Pyra, PocketC.H.I.P. — Not quite the same, but...
Petter and Elena both talk enthusiastically about the Pyra. I am currently waiting for the shipment of my C.H.I.P. kit — I pre-ordered my kit when it was still in kickstarter phase, and got the PocketC.H.I.P. level.
It is clearly not the same nor equivalent to the Pyra — The PocketC.H.I.P. is a convenient packaging for what is chiefly an System-on-a-chip; the C.H.I.P. is a small system by today’s standards (single-core ARM, 512MB RAM, not meant to be expanded), but still it looks quite usable as a very portable and usable Unix system. Oh, and of course — It’s also Debian by default.
I got quite interested in what the Pyra was like. However, the pricing does not make much sense to me. OK, the Pyra is quite a bigger machine, but… While the PocketC.H.I.P. costs officially US$70 (and before June, according to the site, US$50), the Pyra starts at €500 (plus taxes)… It is just too much!
Anyway, I hope to have mine in time to go to DebConf. I also hope Petter and/or Elena can make it this year. And I hope we can compare the systems. I guess the Pyra will sit closer to a regular laptop… But anyway, my two last laptops have been at the bottom of the price scale (both from the Acer Aspire One line). I bought both for around US$300, used the first one as my main laptop for over five years, and have been three with the current one, completely happy.
Comments
Elena 2016-05-09 12:47:15
I won’t be able to get to
I won’t be able to get to debconf, sorry, hopefully somebody else with a pyra will be there.
Anyway, in my opinion a better price comparison for the pyra would be a small laptop + smartphone, since it covers quite well the (out-of-home/office) usecases of both, but yes, even that way it is more expensive than the entry level for both, since afaik you can get an usable smartphone for around 100$/EUR (and you need the expensive LTE pyra model).
Mostly, I expect to use the pyra a lot: I’ve had the Pandora since 2010, and only in the last couple of years using a browser has become so slow that I tend do consider carrying a laptop instead of just the Pandora (and even there, I don’t always do it, depending on how I’m travelling). I hope that the pyra will last even more, since it’s starting with 4GB of RAM instead of the 256 MB of Pandora.
steven 2016-05-08 16:25:46
The PocketC.H.I.P is not
The PocketC.H.I.P is not really my thing, but at US$50 it could be a wonderful gift for someone else. Surely more lastingly fun than a AAA console game, at a similar price. And this funds independent and open-source hardware/software projects; maybe more sales allows them to reduce the unit cost for others who are even more excited about owning one of these.
The Pyra seems expensive for what the delivered product is, but I think the principle, of hackers building hardware the way they want it, makes it worth supporting. I wish them luck with it!