Why use Raspberry Pi when an enterprise grade tiny form factor used unit (Lenovo, HP, Dell) from eBay is 3-5x more powerful and more reliable , for about the same cost or often less.
My favorite are circa 2015-2018 thinkpads.
Discussion
At current price gouged and supply chain fuckery prices, yes, this is the better solution. Hopefully Raspberry Pi 5 launches with supply chain issues fixed. Though, no one knows when that will be.
On eBay the magic word to include in searches is “lot”
Agreed and it's a good idea to use older stable desktop system. RPi4 has benefit of being really small (also it needs somewhat less power). I haven't seen other mini PC that would be this small.
Any model you’d recommend?
Definitely go with T, P or W series. T450, T460 are probably the sweet spot. Also the slim versions (T450s etc).
If space or weight is an issue, X series is ok too : X250, X260.
Digit after the letter indicates screen size: 2 means 12 inch, 4 is 14 “ and 5 is 15”.
Stay away from E, L or Yoga thinkpads. Those are consumer grade.
For micro/tiny form factor, anything is fine. Dell, HP and Lenovo all are great bargains and quite reliable ime.
Thanks for the detailed response!
What do you think about an old Ubiquiti NVR? Believe it’s a wyse/dell thin client type model. I can SSH in but trying to figure out how to wipe their firmware and start fresh. Imagine the specs are better than a pi by far.
