The Pi 4 is still fine for a lot of low end use cases and starts at $35. The Pi 5 is in a harder position. I think the CM5 and Pi 500 are better showcases for it than the base model.
Between the microcontrollers, Zero models, the Pi 4, and the Pi 5, they have quite a full-range from very inexpensive and low power to moderate price/performance SBCs.
One of the bigger problems with Pi 5, is that many of the classic Pi use cases don't benefit from more CPU than the Pi 4 had. PCIe is nice, but you might as well go CM5 if you want something like that. The 16GB model would be more interesting if it had the GPU/bandwidth to do AI/tokens at a decent rate, but it doesn't.
I still think using any other brand of SBC is an exercise in futility though. Raspberry Pi products have the community, support, ecosystem behind them that no other SBC can match.
The Raspberry Pi 2 Zero is as fast as a Pi 3, way smaller, and only costs $13 I think.
The high end Pis aren’t $25 though.
The Pi 4 is still fine for a lot of low end use cases and starts at $35. The Pi 5 is in a harder position. I think the CM5 and Pi 500 are better showcases for it than the base model.
Between the microcontrollers, Zero models, the Pi 4, and the Pi 5, they have quite a full-range from very inexpensive and low power to moderate price/performance SBCs.
One of the bigger problems with Pi 5, is that many of the classic Pi use cases don't benefit from more CPU than the Pi 4 had. PCIe is nice, but you might as well go CM5 if you want something like that. The 16GB model would be more interesting if it had the GPU/bandwidth to do AI/tokens at a decent rate, but it doesn't.
I still think using any other brand of SBC is an exercise in futility though. Raspberry Pi products have the community, support, ecosystem behind them that no other SBC can match.