Comment by geerlingguy
Comment by geerlingguy 7 days ago
I'm speaking in a broader sense, comparing the variety of other Arduino boards like the Uno R3/R4. That wasn't too clear in the OP, sorry!
The concern I have with the $44 Q is it has 2GB of RAM and 16GB eMMC, and a processor that's probably between a Pi 3 and Pi 4 in terms of speed and IO (though 4nm, so probably much more efficient).
For $45 I can buy a Pi 5 with it's own built-in GPIO, PCIe, and a much faster SoC, though it lacks a few niceties like the Q form factor, the more efficient SoC, a realtime microcontroller, and a USB-C port with display out capabilities (I really wish Pi had that...).
To me the benefits of an MCU have to do with latency on things like interrupts. A real OS sometimes gets in the way, if you're trying to run things on very tight timing, or want to go super low power. That's why even though I'm drowning in under-used Pis, I'm using Picos to drive the lights I'm making. (Trying to coordinate multiple 3w RGB LED floods with < 10ms of latency for fancy lighting effects - because as a maker - I can do it for as little as 10 times the cost of buying it). Also, I would rather release the magic blue smoke out of a $5 Pico than a $40+ RPi. Although the Zeros were nice. We should have another round of zeros.