The greatest Pi to date

The latest iteration of the Raspberry Pi started to ship at the end of October 2023. The Raspberry Pi 5 had been anticipated for a while. The Rapberry Pi 4 has suffered from supply issues that haven’t been it’s fault, but more importantly it has been lagging in the performance area against it’s rivals.
 
The SBC (single board computer) market has seen fantastic growth in the past few years. Partly due to the previously mentioned Pi supply issues, forcing people to look for and try other offerings.
 
Market competition is a good thing and from what I have read the latest Pi has had some notable improvements whilst also keeping the price relatively low in comparison to other manufacturers.

They are not the fastest SBC’s available but the advertised performance increase has certainly made them a contender in the arena once more.
 
All this is great, I hope supply can meet demand. My concerns are slightly more personal.

Ever since the launch of the Raspberry Pi I have bought one. Loaded it up with an OS used it for a few days and then turned it off.

There have been a few exceptions where I have used certain models to run media servers and other stuff but most of the time I have tried to use them as desktop PC’s and always been a little disappointed with performance.

I am being quite harsh on these tiny devices, expecting them to be like my main tower PC and to just multitask as usual. This is not their purpose.

The Pi 4 was really close to becoming a full blown PC, something you could technically use as a desktop device, but still just fell short.
 
I am an enormous fan of Raspberry Pi and the ecosystem and support network that is built around them. The amount of things that you can do with a Pi is becoming almost endless, but the one thing I want it to do is currently still just out of reach.
 
I have been loitering on the vendor sites with the intention to pre order the Pi 5, I haven’t yet committed to purchasing one. After all the years of buying these devices I am questioning if I need one.

Will I just be disappointed that it can’t quite run the as a computer that I want it to be?

I’m not sure I want to pay around £100 for the board, power supply and cooling components, for it to get used for two days and then sold on.
 
With shipping dates of batches now currently moving into January 2024, the popularity of the these boards has not dropped and that is pleasing to see.

As all products in the technological space seem to be rarer these days, demand is constantly outstripping the supply chain. If I really want or need it then I should buy it, if not, then I shouldn’t.
 
It’s not a great concern and I won’t lose any sleep on the matter I have just come to realise that I probably won’t need one for any specific use. I have all the computing power I could need or want so unless I’m making some kind of “thing” to do a specific task, the technology is wasted on me.

I like to think that my previous purchases were a nod to the appreciation of open source technology and Linux related stuff.

These products are well established and people do amazing things with them. I feel I have a duty of care to not buy one and let someone else have my pre order space as they may well use the little board for something that serves a better purpose.